This week has dabbled in the frenetic at my house. Uh. More than usual.
Rather than writing you a half-baked post, I’m pulling from the archives some chalkboard art of a printable prayer–an artistic version of this challenging Franciscan benediction:
May all your kids come home, and may they get along with each other. Or at least fake it.
May you have a white Christmas to the point that you feel Christmas-y and can say no to an activity you didn’t really want to go to, but don’t lose electricity and heat. May everyone wipe their boots.
May all your kids come home, and may they get along with each other. Or at least fake it.
May you have a white Christmas to the point that you feel Christmas-y and can say no to an activity you didn’t really want to go to, but don’t lose electricity and heat. May everyone wipe their boots.
You guys know I’m not big into getting political. Promise I’ll try hard not to go all soapbox-y on you. Yet I gotta admit: I was pretty hot under the collar last week over some rumored comments regarding African nations like the beautiful one I raised my kids in. In my gratitude for this place, with its remarkable people and so much to offer the world–people who’ve changed my life–I was more than a wee bit appalled.
I admit to thinking something like, REALLY?
And maybe some other things that were not so generous nor gracious.
This week, I’m moving back from Africa to the U.S. Rather than writing you a half-baked post, I opted for chalkboard art–an artistic version of this challenging Franciscan benediction:
God, give us discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that instead we may live deep within our hearts.
Grief is a chisel.
As you know now, my family and I are moving back from Africa, i.e. place I have felt technicolor, I-heart-my-life alive for the last five years. Though I believe God is showing us it’s time to move back for now, and though it’s also been a place where our family has encountered profound suffering, it’s been far more of a place of deep satisfaction. All of us are struggling with returning. We’ve been so stinkin’ happy in this place. For me, serving in my sweet spot has throbbed with purpose and meaning.
Ugly truth: My hide has been, off and on, a little chapped. I don’t completely understand why God’s doing this. And after all we have endured here, truth is still percolating into my heart that, hey, God can put me wherever He wants me.
Maybe your chest is as chock-full of emotion as mine over the results of November 8, 2016. As my friend Kristen Welch wrote in her excellent post, America is Stunned. God is Not: 5 Things We Can Teach Our Kids in the Wake of Change: I don’t even know what to say, but just between us: I wasn’t with her and I wasn’t for him.
From the moment we got off the plane, my kids have marveled slack-jawed (with the rest of us) over the news shows and internet headlines of the rabbit hole that is the 2016 elections. Perhaps like I’ll never forget the Challenger exploding at liftoff or where I was on 9/11, they will never forget these last few months.
Some of my kids have dealt with no negligible amount of fear. They’re rife with questions, and looking to a lot of places for hints on how to make sense of this brouhaha. And, as my mom used to say, I can assume they’re even smarter than I think they are. They’ve picked up on a lot. (Though I had to grin yesterday, when during a wrestling session I heard, “Can’t Dad just run for president?”)
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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