Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Dishes


Dishes are not my favorite.  However, we have four kids, and I enjoy cooking but hate a messy kitchen, so I do a lot of them.  Grudgingly.

In attempts to change my attitude, I have reminded myself of Brother Lawrence who worshipped God even in menial tasks.  And the whole bit about “whatever you do… do it as unto the Lord.”   A clip from the movie “Return to Me” will even run through my mind—the part when Grace’s grandfather tells her he is “blessed with work.”

I still loathe doing the dishes.   They just seem so overwhelming.  And infinite.

They didn’t bother me today.

You see, the back of my mind is haunted with these words, “Someone walked into a school and shot six-year-old babies.” 

I’m sorry if it seemed as though my last post was my way of wrapping it all up and moving on.  I promise I will write about other things another day, but for now I’m still stuck here.  So I write.

I have cried.  And cried some more.  And my heart is grieved.  And part of me feels like I don’t have the right to cry like that because my children are okay.

But I do not feel okay.

I taught those loveable, squirmy, sweet, enthusiastic, wide-eyed six and seven-year-olds.  Twice a week I now tutor them.  And two of my own are  first graders.  This all just hits so close to home.

The past two days I heard sirens drive past my house, and both days I wondered if they were going to my children’s school just down the road.  I sat next to my six-year-old in her school cafeteria today and felt like I couldn’t love her enough or drink in her first-grade ramblings deep enough for that half hour we shared.  When my third-grader jumped up to run out of the cafeteria to retrieve his forgotten jacket, I fought the feeling that he might not be safe going out that door.

I realize that school shootings do not happen every day.  But it did happen.  And sometimes in one way or another life is ripped away most prematurely and unexpectedly.

Today when I did the dishes, I felt so very grateful for the dishes of these children that I love so much.  One day these littles will no longer live in my house with their laughter and craziness and cuddles and mess, and that day may come sooner than I wish.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Peace?


Caught up in the busyness of the morning, I had forgotten about last Friday.  That is, until the radio jarred my memory on our drive to school.  Arriving home the awful tragedy was there again all over the internet.  Funerals for six-year-olds. Grieving parents.  Questions as to why.

And I wept and prayed.  For the children.  And their families.  And the brokenness of it all.  But to be honest, I also cried because it could have been one of my friends who teach, or my students, or even me or my children.

Christmas is just over a week away.  This season of the year supposedly marked by “peace on Earth and goodwill toward men,” seems so horribly marred by bloodshed and violence.  Our world is terribly broken, and that by our own doing.

And as a mother, I want to do everything possible to protect and shield my children from an unsafe world.  And at the same time, I know how utterly impossible that is.

Yet these words echo in my mind…

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21

Even as violence rocks our world and hope seems far from us, we must not allow evil to warp our hearts nor cause us to live in fear.  Let us instead shine as lights in the darkness.  Jesus went about doing good and healing all.  Jesus gives us His peace which does not fade in spite of the turmoil around us.  In the face of darkness, we must love as He loved, preach as He preached, heal as he healed, and pray as He prayed for God’s kingdom to come here on Earth.  We must be the hands and feet of Jesus to the people of a hurting and broken world.  Let us not only proclaim to be Christians by our words, but let our everyday lives impart the story of who Christ is by our actions.

Please do not interpret my words as a promise for safety or as a trite promise to bring world peace.  Quite the contrary, Jesus was betrayed by one of his own and crucified.  Many of the early followers of Christ were martyred and still more are martyred today.  We live in the tension between a fallen world where God’s redemption breaks through--yet not in its fullness. 

When I dropped my children off at school this morning, I prayed for them as I do every morning, even as my heart aches in sending them out into this world.  That they would learn more about God and the world that He made.  That they would know in their hearts how much He loves them.  And that their friends would see the love of Jesus in their words and in their actions.  

He is the only peace and hope that we can cling to.