last night my daughter, age 10 1/2, went to the silver ring thing - a faith based abstinence 'rally' (for lack of a better term). not everyone who reads this blog is a fan of such things, i assume, but say what you will - she's my daughter, it's our faith, and her choice. in addition to the fact that we live in an age of rampant std's and overt sexuality that leads to a lot of pain and brokenness. i've seen it first hand in my friends & in my family. but this isn't a post about abstinence. (and i feel the need to add we did not take her last night in lieu of teaching & talking to her ourselves.)
this is a post about the trauma of being a parent and watching your little girl grow up. watching her slowly morphing into a young woman ... it started with deodorant, then The Talk (you should have seen the look on her face!) :), and we all know where it will end. she will be a grown up. where is the time going?
my brother just had twin girls 6 weeks ago, and already they are different - more alert, chubbier, more responsive... they are growing up to.
cherish your time, spend it wisely - it is more limited & more valuable than any dollar you have (or do not have!) we can't earn more - when it's gone, it's gone. be intentional. as much as i am loathe to admit it, like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives...
but all the knowing & love in the world won't mean a thing if you don't believe it or believe you deserve it.
"so many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. love is just the skin of knowing."
this is why i love The Girls more as they grow & i get to see more of who they are as individuals. this is why marriage can get richer every year as we learn to know the deepest inner parts of our spouse. this is why long friendships are so sweet, and why, for many of us, sometimes we just want to go home, back to where we are known.
the trouble is, being known or allowing ourselves to become known, is a scary thing. it involves walking around a little bit naked - in the heart department! :) but there is nothing better than the security of being loved by someone who really knows you... lumps and all... and still wants to be around you. i would dare to say it's completely worth the risk...
it's so true, isn't it? middle school pretty much sucked for everyone. i, myself, had the worst year of my life by far in middle school...and curtis and i have lived through some pretty difficult times. thanks for all your comments & encouragements - it's good for me to remember that middle school will not be her whole life when i want to storm the castle, as it were, and do smack mouthy kids around! as mark would say, "that's not very christian of you...." :)
it's very, very important to me not to unconsciously teach her to compromise her beliefs in order to gain friends, so we have decided that she should write a persuasive letter to her principal, explaining why her school needs a comprehensive recycling program, using the school's own value system as her argument. i am going to help champion her cause for bigger change than just a few students here and there... it gives us both something productive to do other than just focus on the negative things. she is really excited about the possibilities, saying, "this will be the first thing i do to change the world". it was so good to see her reemerge ...
we will survive middle school. people do. but i didn't think it would be this hard. i read somewhere once that to be a parent is to live with an open wound... and i was reminded again this month how true that is...
i hate that kyra falls asleep with tears on her lashes. i hate the overly bright eyes and wobbling smile when i drop her off. i hate that kids tease her for wanting to recycle. i hate that she feels overwhelmed with her scary law class. i hate that anyone would look at her and not see the beautiful spirit she has, her incredible passion and joyful heart, and love them and her. i hate that. and i hate that i can't rescue her from it. i hate that most of all.
kyra is a passionate girl. i often find her digging through the kitchen garbage can, pulling out reciepts and other very small scraps of paper to recycle. she was upset to the point of tears - yes, tears - last week over all the empty pop bottles in the trash cans at her school, due to lack of recycling containers. every time i make a move toward the garbage, she leaps up from her chair and offers to put whatever i am holding in the recycling - even if it's not recycling. :)
then, stepping off the bus today, kyra was toting not only her book bag & two large, unwieldy textbooks, but also a plastic grocery bag full to the brim. what was surprising about this was that the grocery bag was not part of her ensemble when she left this morning. upon asking her, she grinned widely and said that the box that took up most of the space held the recycling she had collected from the classroom and brought home to put in our container, and the remainder was candy wrappers & trash she had prevented from being thrown out the bus window as litter on the ride home by her peers.
and that i just one more reason why i love my daughter. she is going to change the world... she already is.
you know what i really don't like about being a mom?
homework. i really don't like homework time.
at all.
(which means, "that's life", in french, for you americans... ) :)
meg and i have a new, 3 day old routine in the mornings: we walk to school. i drop her off, and then march home the long way to get my exercise out of the way for the day. this morning as we set out i noted the grey sky and cool breeze, but figured i had 45 minutes to do my loop before i got rained out. yeah. only, not.
i had just reached the farthest point from my house when the sky opened up. fortunately for me, the original torrent slowed to a mere downpour after the first 5 minutes. now, don't get me wrong here. this is not a post about how miserable it is to get caught in a cold rain. as long as there's no chance of me getting hit by lightening, i quite like to be out in the rain. i spent most of my childhood soaked through, playing in the streams formed in gutters & potholes...it brings back happy memories. but this is a post about getting caught in the rain, while my neighbors all drive past me to their respective jobs, in a white t-shirt and accompanying white cotton undergarment.
sigh. what can you do but keep your head down and keep walking... with an occasional wave. and hope no one is looking too closely.
last night we had a surprise night off - no kids - so we went to dinner and came home to watch a dvd that had been languishing on our countertop... 'lars & the real girl'. i had heard good things, but a love story between a man and a sex doll? so we put it in, and as it turns out, it was one of the most beautiful & well crafted movies we've ever seen. we laughed out loud, and we both cried at various times - it was an astonishment, like stumbling across a treasure in the most unlikely place. it has even made it to the list movies we want to buy - a very, very short list.
so add to your queue & move it up to the top, or if you're still old school, go rent it at blockbuster... you will be surprised, i promise. i think we'll watch it again before mailing it back...
i just found out the dead sea scrolls are on display in raleigh... (most of you may already know this, but i've been out of circulation for a while!) i totally want to go see them! how fascinating!
after dinner tonight, i was sharing this exciting news with curtis while walking away from him to put something away. what i said was, "hey, curtis, guess what? the dead sea scrolls are on display in raleigh." what meg, who was doing her homework in the kitchen, heard was, "hey, curtis, guess what? the dead sea squirrels are on display in raleigh." it ellicted shocked exclaimations of, "WHAT DEAD SEA SQUIRRELS??!!" kyra quickly joined in... "there are dead sea squirrels?!?"
admittedly, we've had several dead, waterlogged squirrels in our families history... not so much a lot of ancient scriptures inscribed on parchment...
a tiny, blonde-ish spider has built a web under & along the side of one of the small knicknacks in my bathroom. i don't have the heart to kill it, or the energy to save it. so each time i wash my hands, i carefully avoid knocking into it, and watch it sit there with it's tiny spider optimism that a fly small enough to get caught in it's very, very tiny web will one day materialize in my bathroom, make its way toward the sink, and sure enough, bumble its way into death. i am cheering for the spider, really. but not very optimistic about it's chances. maybe i will get kyra to set it free, perhaps delicately placing the knicknack outside on the porch rail. i will miss it.
i am not a patient girl, and there is much that is "going slowly" and "slow going" in my life these days. i try to put one foot in front of the other, but my heart is not entirely in it. so if my blog also seems slow, i ask for your indulgence.
for now, i leave you with this from my current reading.
"... Almighty God, are you true?
when you are standing up to your neck in darkness, how do you say yes to that question? you say yes, i suppose, the only way faith can ever say it if it is honest with itself. you say yes with your fingers crossed. you say it with your heart in your mouth. maybe that's the way we can say yes."
how can a real animal look so beautifully cartoonish? i want to hear it speak to me...
how much do i love the painting in yesterday's post? if i were a rich girl...
i first came across this quote a couple years ago, but it was in some recent reading i was doing, and i was reminded of how much i love it. not just for what it has to say about communion, but, read in a broader way, what it has to say about Jesus himself, and the way he meant for us to experience his life in our own.
"unfermented grape juice is a bland and pleasant drink, especially on a warm afternoon mixed half-and-half with ginger ale. it is a ghastly symbol of the life blood of Jesus Christ, especially when served in individual antiseptic, thimble-sized glasses.
wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk making. it makes the timid brave and the reserved armorous. it looses the tongue and breaks the ice especially when served in a loving cup. it kills germs. as symbols go, it is a rather splendid one."
last night my daughter, age 10 1/2, went to the silver ring thing - a faith based abstinence 'rally' (for lack of a better term). not everyone who reads this blog is a fan of such things, i assume, but say what you will - she's my daughter, it's our faith, and her choice. in addition to the fact that we live in an age of rampant std's and overt sexuality that leads to a lot of pain and brokenness. i've seen it first hand in my friends & in my family. but this isn't a post about abstinence. (and i feel the need to add we did not take her last night in lieu of teaching & talking to her ourselves.)
