So much of savoring something is slowing down enough to experience it. We are on the move in the this house much of the time. This weekend I was given a little gift as I paid at the consignment sale. It was a DVD by Lisa Chan called “Be Still”. I decided to sit down yesterday and watch it. The irony was that as I watched it I had 5 men jack hammering our chimney outside, the boys asking for “just one more” of this or that and Seth teleworking and having his own set of needs. The DVD was about finding times to be quiet and make time for God.
I am working these days on carving out times when the boys are resting or the house is empty (never) to just sit down and be still. That isn’t always at home, sometimes it’s on the way home from an errand when Owen falls asleep. I am aware that the radio is still going and I am itching to get home to catch up on emails and respond to texts, it’s in the moments where I am trying to grant myself a little time to not care about all of that. To turn off the radio and just be.
Yesterday as I bustled to pick up Jackson from school on a rainy afternoon I walked briskly to avoid getting too soaked. As I walked up the sidewalk I spotted a bright red leave in the midst of the brown sea of dead crunchy leaves. I stopped dead in my tracks and picked it up knowing that Jackson would love my little gift. As I looked down at it I saw this…
can you see the heart shaped hole?! I picked it up and carried it with me while I waited for Jackson. I asked if he saw what I saw. He did. I told him I thought maybe God had put that little red leaf there with a heart cut out just to make us stop and remember how much He loves us. Try to be aware today of the things you notice when you slow down a bit. It’s SOOO hard to do. But I am keenly aware that I have been missing so much… in the stillness. And that so often prevents me from savoring all of the beauty we have been given.
The remembering of 9/11 would have likely been enough to cause some anxiety in me this year. I decided last week to talk to Jackson about 9/11 knowing that he would likely hear things at school. It was an interesting conversation and I think he had some good questions. Although there aren’t many good answers. Coming stateside has brought a great deal of relief from the anxiety of being in countries that don’t love Americans but the thought of Seth being down in the heart of our capital has for sure reignited some fears. Last week was a big one for the Foreign Service family. Like any family it has it’s quirkiness but again like any family tragedy brings us together and makes us all analyze the parts we play in the family story. I vividly remember the warnings in Bogota, the blockbuster blowing up down the road from us, kidnapping threats and paying for my maid to take a taxi the 30 plus miles home one afternoon when there were 7 bus bombs going off throughout our city. In general we were very safe, but often there were risks. Our time in Switzerland felt safe but it still wasn’t home. And now, when I expected to feel much safer being home I am aware that Seth is often at risk even stateside.
Last week I found myself fearful as we watched the news and we made contact with multiple friends around the world. Some evacuating, some staying put during scary times and others like us in “safe” places looking on and hoping for peace around the world. Losing an Ambassador and other fellow diplomats is a sad thing for our community. Schools burning, walls being jumped and just general hatred is unsettling.
And no matter how much anxiety I feel or how much sleep I lose ultimately I know that God is in control. And as my grandmother wrote in an email recently “I am sure that any place we are in God’s will we are safe. Just don’t always know what ‘safe’ means to God!“. I agree. My idea of safe may be far from where God wants me.
This week I am trying to walk by faith knowing that we can control very little. I will make every effort to live a healthy, productive, influential life that is hopefully a blessing to others, but I have no control over my days. Only God knows the hours and moments that remain. My prayer is for peace and safety for friends and family worldwide, and for our little family here.
On a completely different note we had a really fun weekend with family and friends here in VA. I will try to hop on here later to share some pictures of our day at the fair on Saturday!
This afternoon we went downtown in Bern for ‘Up To Faith” which is a global dance movement that got sparked by Second Baptist’s “Dance your Shoes Off”. It was a celebration of the resurrection of Christ and a call to rise up. I had seen the original video back when it went viral and it was very powerful. I don’t know if Second ever knew it would go global but apparently it has. A friend told us about it and we decided to go one down to see.
I don’t think I have ever gone into detail about the religious climate here in Bern here on the blog but we have found Bern to be a very spiritually dark place. We sometimes find it very hard to be Christians here. In general I feel that most people are very anti-God and religion, or maybe if they do have a relationship with God it is very private. When we arrived at the big square in front of the parliament building and saw the crowd of people lined up waiting for the music to begin I literally got chills. It was like there was a light in the middle of darkness. That’s really the only way to describe it. It was like we were in a place that had never heard the name of Jesus and it was heard. I know it sounds dramatic but it really felt that way. I looked around at one point and the bystanders appeared to be mostly straight-faced and just staring. At one side of the square there were people holding flags representing the regions of Switzerland. There is evidently an organization that assigns groups of people to pray specifically for each area. What was also crazy to me is that this crowd was comprised of Christians from all over Switzerland whereas the Second baptist group was likely just from one single city (Houston!!!, sorry, just a quick shout out for our dear Texas!). In American we take our communities of faith so for granted. And if you don’t think you do, let me tell you as someone who has now spent 4 years away. What you have is amazing!
here is the video I got! Sorry if you get dizzy. If you missed the original video we attached that as well.
“He’s alive He’s alive within us and we will rise up”
Well the bags are mostly packed and the house is *mostly*clean. We head out tomorrow for Texas/DC. When we debated last year on when to go home and decided to save extra vacation time to do a longer trip now I was bummed to not go home for Christmas. But now that the time has come, I am so thankful we saved Seth’s vacation time and that we have long enough to recover from jetlag, see both sets of parents, some of our siblings, nieces, nephews and friends! The trip with the boys is a bit daunting but I must admit that at this point we are both too excited to be thinking about how the boys will do. And may I unashamedly say that after hosting 26 house guests over the past 14 months that I am so excited to be a guest!!!! The thought of our moms cooking and me not cooking enjoying is so exciting!!!
Before we hit the road or rather the runway I wanted to post a few pictures from Jackson’s Christmas programs…one was a quick 5 songer at the preschool Christmas market on Sunday…
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jack with his teachers, Jamie, Fatima and Rachel
The second program was the church nativity that the kids acted out. Jackson started out as a shepherd and midway through the service before he went on stage I noticed he had talked the teacher into letting him “upgrade” to a wiseman! It was a family service and the irony of it is that these family services are the toughest on families. Owen in particular. He just can’t sit for 1 hour and 45 mins plus. I peeled 4 oranges before leaving the house thinking I would sneak him a slice now and again to pacify him if things got desperate….he ate 2 oranges during the first song if this gives you any indication of how our evening went. We ended up slipping out before the sermon even began because Owen was beyond oranges, lights going off and on, and being held down and quiet.
