Sports

 

We have four sporting events today and only three kids that live at home.

The girls have track practice,

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

and then Caleb is starting a soccer club

Photo by Vikram TKV on Unsplash

before he goes to his actual soccer team practice,

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

and I need to pick Lizzy up from track because Ada is playing in an adult rec league volleyball game.

Photo by Chandan Chaurasia on Unsplash

I suppose we could eat dinner at midnight?

Oooooo, aaaaah

 

I put a solar filter on the end of my telescope and attached my phone to the eyepiece, thereby enabling us to watch the eclipse without too much squinting, although I had to keep readjusting the telescope, presumably because heavenly bodies move.

Clouds continually moved across the spectacle but we were able to mostly see it anyway.

Supposedly we were around 85% coverage but it sure looked like a skinny sliver at the peak.

It did get oddly dim and quiet in the middle, even for a cloudy day, and afterwards the birds seemed extra noisy.

Easter

We went straight to Grandma’s after church on Easter to spend the rest of the rainy day hanging out with the family.

Jeddy found that his four-year-old cousin’s bubble gun and Grandpa’s leaf blower make a good combination.

They hunted eggs in the rain.

And Jason, at least, got prepped for the solar eclipse.

Love letter to the church

The little baby mentioned in this post got a baby sister a few months ago. We got to witness the new one’s baptism yesterday and I was again struck by not just God’s faithfulness through generations, but the tremendous blessing of being at the same church for a long, long time (going on twenty-six years for me!). 

I stand and sing God’s praise, and sit under the preached Word, and bow my head in prayer, with this group—

my friends with intellectual disabilities whose faith is a delight; 

the faithful, humble grandfather of the little baptized one whose integrity I’ve known for decades; 

the momma of the little one, whom I taught when she was a child and visited in sickness, who’s never jettisoned her faith in suffering; 

the new guy bravely walking into the room ready to push through the confusion of unfamiliarity to serve as our newest, sorely-needed pastor; 

some men I’ve known since back when they had hair; 

several more I’ve never known to have any; 

men and women I’ve known since before they had kids and before they were married; 

the young parents struggling through the hard work of bringing a child to a church service, whose determination to pass on the covenant to the next generation is one of the most encouraging blessings of all.  

My brothers and sisters, don’t stop struggling to bring your wiggly, wailing child. Don’t give up coming and singing praise for what you know even if most of the sermon is beyond your understanding. Don’t stop striving for holiness in the secret places of your life, don’t give up your faith, don’t get discouraged trying to find your kid’s Sunday school classroom.

I hope in years and decades to come I’m the white-haired lady who can’t wait to see her Sunday school children because she loves them so much and loves so much to tell them about Jesus. I hope someday I forget my own sufferings in the joy of lifting up others. I hope to be as peaceful and wise and kind as the oldest saints I know. 

I hope we keep worshipping until all our hair falls out, and beyond—and until the wiggly kids of today are the exasperated parents of tomorrow, who are haggard and spit-up-stained but still determined to pass the covenant to the next generation.

And I hope then my seasoned faith is a balm and encouragement to younger saints, who can look at my life and take heart that God is faithful through all generations.

March

 

The weather is uninspiring today.

We’re on spring break this week. Ada is going to the beach with a friend tomorrow for a couple of days, but other than that we’re just hanging around here in the dreary weather, sleeping in and lounging about. She’ll be home in time for Easter Sunday this weekend. And before she goes, I think we’ll have most of her paperwork for community college done.

Last week in my role as elementary Sunday school coordinator, I sat down with the fifth grade class and the children’s ministry director for a Very Serious Talk about how they can be more of a blessing to their teachers, to put it mildly. How does one shepherd the hearts of a hundred children grades K-5 in half an hour a week? And how do you turn this ship around when you find out in March that half the teachers want to quit and run screaming into the night?

I’m doing a women’s Bible study on Tuesday nights this spring, something I haven’t done in many years. We’re studying Revelation. I’ve been quite pleasantly surprised by how much I like the book we’re using (Blessed by Nancy Guthrie). I’m enjoying gradually getting to know the other women too. It’s challenging to see so much of the worldliness in myself that Revelation warns against, and to compare myself doubtfully to the courageous martyrs who spoke the testimony of Jesus despite the cost of their life.

It does put a little damper on the savor of lounging about when Jason continues to slave in the field of thorns and thistles that is the workplace. Such is the extent of his spoiling me that I sit literally on a chaise lounge repining about the dismal weather while he heads to his den of trials to start his workday.

First day of spring

 

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest;

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

~Thomas O. Chisholm, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”