Thursday in Pictures

I have several blog posts rattling around in my mind, but they would all require actual thought, and I’m exhausted right now.  I was looking through my pictures today for Project Life, and I thought I’d throw some of them on the ol’ blog…

Hanging out while our house was showing:

Making crumb top apple pie:

Trying out the demo of the Indiana Jones game:

Doing homework/a math puzzle:

Now the kids are splashing in the tub before we clean up rooms and read some books before bed.  It’s been a tiring day, but one full of so many blessings.  They are all full of blessings.

The Body of Christ

I’ve been thinking a lot about the body of Christ lately.  I definitely think that, on one level, Paul’s metaphor for the church is meant to describe, you know, the whole thing.  The global church.  All Christians together.

On another level, though, I see how each individual congregation of believers makes up their own little body.  Each church is a living, breathing organism, with a distinct personality, a distinct set of beliefs, distinct strengths and weaknesses, a distinct focus.  Each body is made up of different parts, individuals who bring their own skill sets, personalities, and circumstances to the body.  I love being a part of that congregational body. 

Right now, though, I am an organ in a cooler.

I was part of one body, and I will soon be placed into another body.  And right now, the first body is taking care of me, and the second body is preparing for me, but I am very much in transit.  I’m receiving the services and love from the first body, but I’m not really a part of it any more.  I first realized this when, during my morning prayer time, my prayer requests list kept shrinking.  I realized that I simply didn’t know what was going on in my old body anymore.  I wasn’t plugged in like that.  It was weird.

But it got me to thinking about what it means to be a part of such a body.  Growing up, I was like a body part in training, and college was…well, I don’t know what that was…but coming to Summerville, I really got to understand what it meant to be a real, functioning body part.  And in the past eight years, I have been learning what it means to be a part of the body of Christ.  Here, in no particular order, is what I have taken away from that experience.

Being a part of a body means feeling giddy exhilaration when one of “your” girls gets baptized.

It means being weighed down with sorrow when a member is diagnosed with cancer, and looking at the clock all day as the minutes tick by to their appointment where they learn how bad it is.  And it’s waiting on pins and needles to hear the result.  Even though you don’t even know them that well. 

It means talking with a sister over coffee about the things most important to you in this world.

It means listening to the teen girls answer a question about their struggles, and hearing them all say the same thing, and mentally writing the next quarter’s curriculum based on these revelations.

It means chatting with two deacons over lunch about what constitutes “milk” and “meat,” as far as church teaching, and being very invested in the conversation, b/c the conclusions are vitally important to the direction of the body, your body.

It means huddling together with a group of moms trying to figure out what to do about another mom who is in crisis.

It means debating the unspoken “rules” of baby showers, and when and if we should break them for the mom who is having her fourth child.

It means sitting with a teen at Dairy Queen as she tells you of some past traumas and trying very hard not to break down sobbing at how sad it is b/c 1) you don’t want to freak her out, and 2) you are in Dairy Queen.

It means making sure the new family gets plugged in and has “people.”

It means figuring out childcare for Life Groups/the Christmas party/Mommies Anonymous/Sunday nights in the summer/teen fundraisers…the list goes on.  There is always a need for childcare!

And it means food.  Oh, the food!  The body of Christ can eat.  And being a part of that body means feeding it.  It means meals for new moms and meals for Life Group, and meals for pot lucks, and meals for the sick people, and meals, and meals, and meals.  It means figuring out how many pizzas you need to feed thirty teens, and why it never works to tell guys to bring drinks and girls to brink desserts.  It means getting an awesome punch recipe, and learning too late that you should always bring extra ginger ale to water it down in case it goes too fast, and oh well, it was good while it lasted.  It means learning how to make royal icing for the gingerbread party, and figuring out how to keep food warm for after church Life Group.  Should you cook it before and keep it warm in the oven, or cook it in the church oven during service?  And oh, were you using the oven for  the college meal?  Well, I’ll just take this over to the annex.  It means next time just bringing a crock pot. 

It means figuring out games for VBS that fit with the theme of “Joshua,” or “Daniel,” or “Elijah.”  Good luck with that!

It means thinking about how Jesus would want us to serve in our community.  And then trying to do it.

It means sitting through the tense moments in Sunday school when the discussion heats up.  And learning so much in those times.  And especially learning that we come away united despite our differences.

It means having a family that is 500 members strong…with all the responsibilities that come with having a family.  It means experiencing the vicarious joy and despair, the exhilaration and frustration. 

It means that participation in such a body is not considered an “act of service,” any more than the heart serves the human body by pumping blood.  The heart is simply functioning as it is designed.  You don’t give it any gold stars.

Being a part of a body of Christ is both mundane and profound, both practical and philosophical.  It is giddy and glum and joyful and tragic and peaceful and tumultuous.  It is the whole spectrum of human experience.

It is a part of me, a part of the very core of my identity.

I miss it. 

But I’m excited about the future.

For eight years, my heart beat for Summerville.  Now, it is starting to beat for Woodbine.  I’ve been dreaming of what a mom’s group there would look like, and the possibilities excite me.  In the spare moments of my day, I try to work out the practical details.  How many moms would have access to a car?  What would be the maximum age of the kids allowed?  Where should we have the holiday parties?  Should we just meet during the week, or throw in some weekend events?  It might seem mundane, but in eight years, I’ve learned that these are the type of mundane details that need to be worked out to meet the goal:  a group of moms who make up an intimate, real community, a community where they can share their struggles and learn from each other and point each other toward God.

Which is a big part, you know, of being the body of Christ.

 

I’m curious…what does being a part of the body of Christ mean to you?

Costume Party

My friend, Tiffany, is in charge of our Mommy and Me group, and she always does a fantastic job of having holiday parties at her house.  Generally, she hosts Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas parties for our Mommy and Me group, and they are always well-attended, mainly because of the delicious food and fun crafts she has.  Last year, for example, at the Thanksgiving party, she made turkey cake pops:

This year, she trotted out the pumpkin cake pops at her son’s two year old birthday this past Saturday, so we had to “settle” for cupcakes, cake, decorated leaf cookies, and jack-o-lantern stained glass cookies.  Somehow, we made do:).
Anyway, this year’s party was a costume party, and Anna was so excited to dress up as a princess!

Her friend, Audrey, was also a princess:

Kate came as a chef. (I think the word that best describes Kate is “jolly.”  Can you tell why?:))

The Steeds were also there.  Canon came dressed in his own creation, called “Mixed up Superhero”:

The kids made fall picture frames:

I tried to take one of Anna and me while we colored a pumpkin, but it was too dark.  Thankfully, my friend, Marlea volunteered to take a picture of us:

After crafts and lunch, it was time to decorate leaf cookies.  Anna followed a simple, three-step process that consisted of: 1)  Get spoonful of sprinkles.  2)  Dump sprinkles on cookie.  3)  Eat cookie.

We were having so much fun at the party that we had to rush to go pick up Luke from school.  We took him a leaf cookie and a jack-o-lantern cookie, and didn’t tell him that he missed a super cool party.  And we certainly didn’t tell him that the Steeds were there!
We had a great time at Tiffany’s.  We will definitely miss these parties when we move to Nashville!

Yet Another Great (and Insightful) Weekend

Well, folks, we are on a roll with weekends here lately.  It’s probably because we are still in the “in between” phase where we don’t have a ton of responsibilities besides to keep our house clean and figure out our future…and so, as a result, we can fully dedicate weekends to our family.  It has been so much fun!

On Friday after school, we took the kids putt-putting.  It was fun, but we had a revelation in the middle of the experience.  But before I get to that, I’ll show you some pictures:

For the record, I putted much better with Anna than I did on my own.  Greg joked that I needed to take her with me whenever I played putt-putt…either that, or start using a very small putter!

Anna got her first hole-in-one!

Luke’s first “planking” experience (completely inadvertent, of course).

The insight I got while putt-putting is that my kids aren’t interested in “athletics.”  I know that putt-putting hardly qualifies as a sport, but that whole idea of organized competition, and the need for form and controlled coordination….they are just not there at all.  And granted, they are young, but having seen several of Luke’s classmates who are way into sports, I am beginning to think that sports aren’t going to be his thing.  Maybe not Anna’s, either.  Or maybe it is just too early.  Whatever the case, I honestly don’t care, except to help me think of the ways and directions in which we want to encourage them.  I value sports for several reasons, but I certainly have no interest in pushing them on them until they are ready and willing.  And that’s just not where we are right now.  We all had fun playing putt-putt, but the kids were waaaay more interested in climbing on all the rocks and wood surrounding the course, and by the end, Greg and I were pretty ready to be done.

That whole experience constituted part 1 of my insight.  Part 2 came the next day.

But first, we came home, made mini-pizzas out of English muffins, and then popped popcorn and set up the air mattresses for a movie night.  We watched Rio and enjoyed it.  I wouldn’t watch it with the kids again, as some of the humor was a little risque, but that all went right over their head.  The line they did pick up was, “Not cool, man.  Not cool.”  Anna loves to say that now, and it cracks us up.

The next morning, we made pumpkin pancakes from a recipe that Luke found in his High Five magazine.  Then, because people were coming to look at our house that morning, we cleaned everything up and then headed to a nearby park to walk the trail.  That’s where we discovered part 2 of our insight into our children:  whereas their reaction to putt-putt was lukewarm at best, they loved walking (and running) the 1 1/2 mile long trail through the woods.  In fact, our little hike was by far the highlight of our weekend…and we did a lot of fun things this weekend.

During our walk through the woods, we realized that, for now at least, the future of our family looks like this.  It won’t be on the sports fields, but out in nature.  Maybe one day my kids will play and enjoy sports, but what they really love to do now is to hike, to climb, to explore nature.  We fully plan on fostering that love, and are so excited for the opportunities the Nashville area will offer us.  There are so many great parks and campgrounds, not to mention hills (a big change from our flat SC landscape, where the only hills on our walk were actually piles of dirt from where the people dug out the canal).  We have big plans on really exploring the activities that we can do together as a family out in nature. 

After our walk, we stopped at home for a quick apples and cheese snack and then went to a going-away party that some of our sweet youth volunteers held for us.  I was so busy talking and mingling and such that I didn’t take any pictures except the ones that Anna wanted me to take of her climbing trees:

Midway through the party, we let Luke ride with some friends to his friend, Greyson’s birthday party.   After our party, the three of us went to join that other party, which was being held at a local corn maze.  I inadvertently got some cute fall pictures while the kids played on a photo display:

To say that Anna enjoyed feeding the goats was an understatement.

After two outdoor parties, my kids were covered with dirt and loaded with sugar, so it was time to go home, take a good bath, and wind down.  This morning, we went to church, and now we are enjoying a relaxing afternoon. 

And now, for your moment of Zen, I give you….this picture of Greg:

Greg insisted I share this picture.  I wish I could explain the amount of joy and laughter it has given us.  Greg’s face is just…priceless!