Thank you, Mr. Lewis!

When I was a little girl, I wanted to write C.S. Lewis a letter. I had never wanted to write a letter to an author before, but there was something about Lewis and Narnia that drew me in.  I was devastated when I found out he was dead and I was going to have to wait until heaven to have a conversation with him.  This is probably the reason that I bought a volume entitled:  C.S. Lewis:  Letters to Children the first time I came across it at Barnes and Noble.  As I turned the pages, it was like I was reading words he might have written to me. It is not surprising, of course, that he was a good letter writer.  For one thing, most people in his generation probably were and, well, he was C.S. Lewis.  It’s his understanding of children and his ability to answer their questions without speaking down to them that amazes me.  He never had any children of his own, but he himself was a child once, and I think he remembered well that stage of life.  He writes with real empathy and his letters are beautiful, funny and informative.

I remember that I wanted to ask him questions about Aslan.  I wanted to know if he intended Aslan to be like Jesus.  Apparently many other children wondered, too. He mentions in several letters that children tend to see the similarities long before adults do.  A whole class of fifth graders wrote to him in 1954 asking if the Narnia books were an allegory.  He wrote back, “You are mistaken when you think that everything in the books ‘represents’ something in this world.  Things do that in Pilgrim’s Progress but I’m not writing in that way.  I did not say to myself, ‘Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia’ : I said ‘Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.”

I also was a bit bothered by the fact that Aslan, as a lion, was rather more appealing to me as a child than the idea of Jesus as a man.  I worried about it.  Was I making Aslan an idol?  Another boy named Laurence worried, too.  His mother wrote to Lewis and he wrote back: “Now if Laurence is bothered because he finds the lion-body seems nicer to him than the man body, I don’t think he need be bothered at all.  God knows all about the way a little boy’s imagination works (He made it, after all) and knows that at a certain age the idea of talking and friendly animals is very attractive.  So I don’t think He minds if Laurence likes the Lion-body.  And anyway, Laurence will find as he grows older, that feeling (liking the lion-body better) will die away of itself, without his taking any trouble about it.  So he needn’t bother.”  This is also true of little girls and Lewis was right;  it was temporary.

There are bits of wisdom passed down on lots of other subjects as well, from books to read, to advice on writing prose and poetry, to little side remarks on culture and education.  Lewis was very prompt in answering letters, so the fact that he answered a girl named Lucy on 14 September 1957 leads me to believe that she probably wrote to him about two weeks before that, which is when I was born.  Lucy told Lewis how much his books meant to her.  His answer makes me smile: “It makes me, I think, more humble than proud to know that Aslan has allowed me to be the means of making Him more real to you.  Because He could have used anyone–as He made a donkey preach a good sermon to Balaam.”  The work of C.S. Lewis has done much to make the Son of God more real to me and I, like Lucy before me, am grateful.

Happiness is Possible

I listened to an awesome sermon by Tim Keller yesterday.  The text for his message was Psalm 1.  This Psalm is special for a couple of reasons.  It was the first passage of scripture I ever memorized.  I had memorized other individual verses, but never a whole passage.  I was probably around ten at the time.  I can’t remember if it was for Sunday School or Pioneer Girls, but I am thankful for whoever “made” me memorize it.  As I got older, I realized how much easier it had been to commit verses to memory when I was young.  Because of this, I began working with my children, helping them memorize scripture as soon as they could talk.  This Psalm, though, they learned at a children’s conference and they learned it with motions.  It’s pretty awesome to watch several hundred children quote a passage complete with motions.   “His leaf also shall not wither…”  Hundreds of small hands that had been raised in the air as they said “tree” in the previous line, drooped on the word “wither.”  It was pretty cool.

Keller used Psalm 1 to explore the topic of happiness.  I found myself wishing as I listened that I had heard this sermon years ago.  I don’t think that is the right thing to wish, however.  God’s timing is perfect and He knows exactly when our hearts are ready to learn.  Keller asked the question, “Are we happier than our ancestors.”  He talked about how if you go back and read the journals and letters of those who have gone before us, you would have to come to the conclusion that we are not.  This does not seem to make sense.  We have so much more technology, so many more conveniences and, overall, we are so much more comfortable than they could ever have imagined.

The good news, according to Tim Keller, is that happiness is possible.  ”Blessed (happy) is the man…” He said that most of us start out in life thinking that happiness is natural but later we realize that it is not so easy and many of us end up thinking that real happiness in unachievable.  The problem is that we think happiness is connected to our circumstances, when in fact it really consists in what we ARE.  Happiness, he said, is only a by-product of looking for something else MORE.  He said that if we come to God in order for Him to make us happy, we come to a false God.  We have to come to God   without conditions.  He pointed out that when the prodigal son came home, he did not ask for happiness, he only asked to be able to serve.  Instead of thinking that God owes me happiness, I must realize that I owe God everything.  The less I am concerned about my own happiness, the happier I will be.

It was great stuff!  He also said that Christianity makes us sadder and happier at the same time.  That idea is fascinating to me.  I am continuing to chew on it.  Knowing Jesus should make me more aware of pain.  The more we love, the more potential we have for pain.  If I love only myself, I will only feel my own pain.  If I love my neighbor, I will suffer along with him in his sufferings.  What if I love the world as Jesus does?

I needed to hear this.  I spend too much time looking for happiness.  I need to sink my roots down deep into God’s wisdom and strength.  If He wants me to be happy, I will be. In fact, I’m feeling better already!

 

No More Detours

I have mentioned before how much I love Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.  This small devotional book, subtitled Enjoying Peace in His Presence, has been a tremendous blessing in my life.  I have been reading it to my first period classes for several years and I am often amazed at how appropriate the readings are to my day.  Last Friday, January 13, the entry I read leaped off the page and I have been thinking about it ever since.  It was just what I needed, and I intend to make the principles in it the theme for this new year.   Here’s the entire entry:

“Try to view each day as an adventure, carefully planned out by your Guide.  Instead of staring into the day that is ahead of you, attempting to program it according to your will, be attentive to me and all I have prepared for you.  Thank Me for this day of life, recognizing that it is a precious, unrepeatable gift.  Trust that I am with you each moment, whether you sense My Presence or not.  A thankful, trusting attitude helps you to see events in your life from My perspective.

“A life lived close to Me will never be dull or predictable.  Expect each day to contain surprises!  Resist your tendency to search for the easiest route through the day.  Be willing to follow wherever I lead.  No matter how steep or treacherous the path before you, the safest place to be is by my side.”

Psalm 118:24; I Peter 2:21

First, I am struck by the idea of adventure!  My days seem pretty routine.  I sometimes joke about my need to “get a life.”  Hours and hours inside the walls of a classroom, an hour or two with my family, and then a few more hours reading and writing don’t seem to add up to anything remotely interesting, let alone exciting or adventurous.  But if my day is truly planned by my Guide as I claim to believe it is and if that Guide is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, wouldn’t that make anything pretty exciting?  If my Guide made everything, knows everything, has absolute power and wisdom, and besides all that is completely good and loves me, who knows what He has planned for my day?  I just need to be watching.

This passage also reiterates another lesson I have been trying to get through my thick head and soul:  every day is a gift.  If God gives me this day as a gift, the least I can do is to be thankful for it.  You would think that someone who had been diagnosed with a stage four cancer would  ”get it,” but too often I lose track of the gift because all I can see is the “wrapping,” the circumstances of the day.  Just like the wrapping makes a gift special and beautiful, God has a reason for the way he “wraps” each day He sends me, and no two of these gifts are alike.  Each one is unique and I want to accept them from God’s hand with a thankful, trusting attitude.

I like the idea of expecting surprises.  I have to admit that this is not natural for me.  I tend to be happy in quiet routine.  I like lists, and planners and order.  It’s time to shake things up a bit, and that leads to the last part of the passage, the scary part.  I really do tend to look for “the easiest route through the day.”  I avoid as much confrontation, unpleasantness, pain, annoyance etc., etc, as possible.  I don’t mind working hard, but I run from trouble.  I can see, though, that by taking detours around the obstacles God places in my path, I am going my own way and not His.  Safety lies along the path where He leads, the danger is in the detour.

So, I am going to live this year with a gratitude attitude, following my Guide into the adventures He has planned for me.  It should be an interesting trip.  I’m starting a new blog to record what I learn along the way.  It’s called No More Detours and I’m going to try to update daily. I’m not abandoning this blog.  I’ll keep it for thoughts on books, and life, and well, everything else thrown in!

Attitude Check!

Today I gave two exams.  One was an oral exam for which students had to pick a question out of the “hat,” (They were given a list of all the questions ahead of time.) take five minutes to write, from memory, an outline on a three by five card, and then speak for at least three minutes to answer the question.  It is always nerve-wracking, even for me.  The mother in me is extremely empathetic and the teacher/coach in me longs for them to do their best.  It is a tense hour and a half.

After a break, they take a written exam that lasts two hours and fifteen minutes.  Not everyone takes that long, of course.  We take exams very seriously and in order to help my students to avoid temptation I spend almost the entire time of the test sitting and  watching them.  This used to gall me a bit.  It seemed like a waste of time when there were so many other things that I needed to do.  Today, though, I completely enjoyed every minute.   It was the most relaxing thing I have done for many weeks.  I just sat, and stared, and thought.  It was lovely and, well, luxurious.

Weeks and weeks of almost constant activity, more things to do than I could possibly accomplish and pressure to use every waking second to the fullest gave way to complete peace and calm.  Instead of being bitter that I had to “police” my students, I was incredibly thankful and content.   As I sat there, I considered each of my juniors and I prayed for them.  As I prayed, it came to me that I was not policing, but guarding and protecting.  Attitude makes all the difference.

God. Is. Good.

Faith is a word I have spent a lot of time considering.  Daily I recite Hebrews 11, the great “Faith Chapter,” with my students.  No matter how much I read and discuss and meditate on the concept of faith, though, I never seem to stop learning new things.  Faith has many aspects.  This morning I was reading Matthew 17 which includes the story of a boy possessed by a demon.  The boy’s father had taken him to the disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.  Jesus was pretty upset with His disciples.  He called them an “unbelieving and perverse generation” and he wondered aloud how long He could put up with them.  Then he cast that demon right out.  Later, the disciples came and asked Jesus why they couldn’t do anything for the boy.   I’ve got to give them kudos for asking.  I think I would have just slunk away in embarrassment and failure hoping no more demon possessed boys crossed my path, but they really wanted to learn and they were bold; so they asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”Jesus answers them, “Because you have so little faith.  I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move.  Nothing will be impossible for you.”  Mountain-moving, mustard seed faith–that’s what I want!  As I read these verses this morning, I sighed inwardly.  I really need some impossible things to happen, but my faith is on par with that of the disciples. I felt defeated before I even got out of bed.

The devotional, though, was from Oswald Chambers and he had a completely different view of the subject than I was seeing.  He said, “Faith by its very nature must be tried.  And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character has to be clear in our minds so that we remain true to God whatever he may do.  ’Though he slay me,’ announced Job, ‘yet will I hope in him.’  This is the most sublime utterance of faith in the Bible.”

What he is saying is that faith is being sure of God’s character. I never looked at it this way before.  If I am sure of God’s character, I will trust him, just like Job.  What it comes down to, then, is that faith is believing that GOD IS COMPLETELY GOOD.  I have made the mistake for so much of my life of seeing faith only as a FUTURE thing.  I have faith that God will work all things together for good.  Other times, I have seen faith as a PAST thing.  ”By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command” (Hebrews 11:2)  I have faith that God did create, and come and die and rise again.   God was good and He will be good.

I say that God is good all the time, but what I really mean is that my current difficulty is  good  by virtue of the fact that God is using it to work together for good to come.  Faith, to me, means holding on through the bad and believing that good will be. “All these people were still living by faith when they died, they did not receive the things promised, they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.”  (Hebrews 11:13) Of course, these things are true as well:  God was good.  God will be good.  But another aspect of faith, the one that hit me this morning, is that God is good now, in this moment, no matter what is happening in my life.  If this seems obvious to you, I apologize.  I have been too dense to see it.

This all brought to mind of one of my favorite quotes from The Screwtape Letters.  The demon, Screwtape, is actually describing this kind of faith to his nephew, Wormwood, a “junior tempter.”  He says that this kind of trust in God’s current goodness is dangerous to Satan’s side:

“Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

A Christian who obeys in that kind of circumstance is one who believes in the true, pure and complete goodness of the character of God.  I want to be that kind of threat.  Believing that God is good in the darkest of times is the kind of faith that moves mountains.  That’s the kind of faith I want.  Right now: God. is. good.

Mercy for the Crazy Lady Inside Me

I have come to a decision.  If I just write out my decision, however, it is most likely to come across as either preachy, wimpy, or just plain over-the-top insane.  It seems likely that the last reaction would be the most prevalent.  Because of this, I feel it necessary to preface the announcement of my decision with an explanation.

I find myself in a very difficult place.  Life is really hard right now.  I know that this is merely a season in my life and that it will pass. I believe that Romans 8:28 and know that beyond God working for the good of those who love Him, He does this because He truly loves us and because He Himself is completely good.  These are the things He has graciously taught me already and about which I have written a lot.  His lessons for me are not yet over, though, and my life right now is, well, a little on the rough side.

Work is hard.  I love my job and I adore my students but teaching in a Christian school  these days is not easy.  People tend to think that private school teachers are paid better than public school teachers.  The exact opposite is true.  In order to keep tuition down and make it possible for more students to attend, salaries are low.  In addition, each staff member has a lot more to do than a person with a similar job at a public school.  I  get to work by at least 7:30 each morning and I stay until 5:30.  In spite of this ten-hour, five-day a week routine, I regularly take work home and I am NEVER caught up.   Most evenings, even if I am not doing work directly related to what I am currently teaching, I am reading. Mainly, I read to enhance my knowledge about my major area of responsibility on my team:  History.  I also read literature from the time period we are studying or that somehow fits into the themes we are working on and I try to keep up with popular teen reading. It has been very valuable to read Twilight and Harry Potter in the past few years.  I plan to read The Hunger Games series next.  It’s all part of staying in touch and knowing what my students are thinking and why.  Besides the work load, anything with teens involves drama.  In fact, I am coming to realize that any interaction with humans involves drama.  That’s just the way it is. Between the work and the human drama, work is challenging.

Our home situation is stressful right now as well.  Our daughter and her three kids are living with us in our small town home.  She is facing a divorce after her husband’s unfaithfulness of epic proportions.  Even though she was willing to forgive and try to move on, he was not and so, well, here we are.  I have not written a lot about this, and I don’t plan to, for lots of reasons, but any thinking person can imagine that it is difficult.  The children are sad and confused, Amy is up and down.  She is very strong, but between what she is dealing with emotionally, working two jobs and going to school full-time on-line, there are times when things are rough for all of us.  Grand-parenting “in-house” is very different from grand-parenting across town or country.  It has been a long time since we had elementary and pre-school children.  We’re learning.

The same budget stress that keeps salaries low in our Christian school led to George’s job being eliminated entirely.  The fact that he has been at home has been helpful in the transition with the kids.  He can be here when they get home, take care of them when they get sick and watch the five-year-old three days a week.  We have seen God’s hand in this.  He knew what was coming and that is reassuring. It is getting to the place, however, where we REALLY need for him to get a job.  Under the circumstances, though, it has been somewhat difficult for him to look.  Moving is kind of out of the question right now, so he kind of has to find something in our area.  This is difficult considering his degree, experience and age.  We are trying to trust, but hope is sometimes hard to come by.  Financial worries are the pits.

For several reasons, this was the year for Matt to leave.  First, there was not a lot of room for him.  We offered him the closet under the stairs,  after all, it worked for Harry Potter, but he wasn’t into that.  He also has had a hard time being sure of what he wants to do.  He KNOWS he does not want to spend thousands of dollars on a degree he will not use, so he is wisely being cautious.  He has been thinking about marketing and he was able to move to Detroit to work for George’s  brother-in-law who has a marketing firm there.  I appreciate the opportunity he has been given more than I can say, but I miss him so much that it hurts.  We have gotten very close these last few years since he was the only one at home.  Besides Matt moving away, Christy and Josh and the twins moved to Louisville, Kentucky and David, Laura and Brendan to Texas.  Those places are much too far for weekend visits.  Soon, David will be off to Afghanistan, and, well, yeah.

So, that was a very long introduction to my announcement, and after reading it you may be even more confused, but bear with me.  I have decided, in the midst of the difficulty that is my life, to give up watching any and all sports.

I am not trying to be “holier-than-thou.”  I love the part of Mere Christianity where Lewis talks about a certain kind of “bad man” that cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up.  This is from the section where he is defining “temperance.”  He further says that it is  sometimes the duty of Christians to give up something for various special reasons.  I have a special reason, and I am not saying that sports are bad in themselves.  There was a time in my life when I was  obsessed with baseball,  the Mets in particular, to the point where they were much too high a priority in my life.  That is not the issue now.  Who has time to be obsessed?

You may think I am being wimpy because my basketball team, which many thought at the beginning of the year were shoe-ins for the national championship, lost yesterday by more than thirty points.  It would be true that this figured into my decision, but not because I am a disloyal or what my father used to call a  ”fair weather” fan.  I still love my team and I am proud of them no matter what.  Remember, I am a METS fan, and while we can’t claim the kind of respect Cubs fans deserve, I do think we should get a few points for having to co-exist in the same city as that other team that wears the pinstripes.

There remains the possibility that I am crazy, and I admit that while this is a distinct possibility which I have thoroughly considered, it is not indicated by this decision.  Here’s the way I see it:  I am swimming in an ocean full of trouble right now.  Everywhere I go, I encounter stress.  I am learning to trust Jesus, to rely on Him to get me through, but I realized yesterday that I have also been holding on to a little Carolina Blue life-preserver.  Carolina has been, literally, the little bit of blue in my otherwise cloudy sky.  I have been trusting God, but basketball has become my little “test” of whether God is listening to me.  This really does sound crazy now that I am writing it down, but it is, sadly, true.  It has seemed that I could get through anything with Jesus (and as long as the Tar Heels won).  I need to learn to get through anything with Jesus alone.  Gradually over the last few years, God has taken away my props and supports so that I will learn to lean on Him.  This is a really flimsy one I need to give-up on my own.

Last summer when Amy was coming, for what we thought was a brief visit, Katie and I drove halfway to Louisville to meet Christy so we could all be together.  She was traveling with the boys and after we met, Katie rode with her to help entertain the twins and I drove Katie’s car home.  She had tons of old CD’s in her car and I had a ball listening to them.  One that I particularly enjoyed was an old Caedmon’s Call album.  There was one song in particular which I had forgotten and which I played over and over as I drove home.  I had no idea then how much I really needed to remember it.  The other day, a friend posted a phrase from the song on her Facebook.  I remembered that drive this summer and I looked the song up and listened to it several times on Friday.  I have been thinking for days now that God wanted me to do something.  I thought he was asking me to rest.  I couldn’t figure out how that was possible.  Yesterday was a very difficult day even before the game, but afterward, when I was further in the pit than I have been in a long time, I listened to the song again.  The second verse described where I was and I knew what I had to do.  I like sports, but they have taken on a weird kind of intensity for me.  I have a natural tendency to go overboard; I can’t just like something a little. Watching is not fun anymore.  I get way too involved, and it’s not just Carolina games.  I find myself taking sides in any game I watch and praying for results, not because I really care about the team but because I desperately desire a sign that God is listening.  I need to rest and I need to trust in His mercy alone.  He is listening and He is all I need.

Thy Mercy

Thy mercy my God is the theme of my song,
The joy of my heart, and the boast of my tongue.
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last,
Hath won my affection and bound my soul fast.

Without Thy sweet mercy, I could not live here.
Sin would reduce me to utter despair,
But through Thy free goodness, my spirit’s revived
And He that first made me still keeps me alive.

Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart.
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground
And weep for the praise of the mercy I’ve found.

Great Father of mercies, Thy goodness I own
In the covenant love of Thy crucified Son.
All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine
Seals mercy and pardon and righteousness mine.
All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine
Seals mercy and pardon and righteousness mine.

Why I Love Freshmen

There is no doubt that I miss my Humanities classes from last year.  They will always be extra special to me because they were my first classes in the new program.  They suffered with me through the really dark days and they made those same days bright inside my classroom.  I am thoroughly enjoying my new classes as well.  When we started out the year I knew more what to expect; I told them we would grow we grow to be like family and we have.  I have a ball with my freshmen.

Last year I had a hard time getting my freshmen to talk.  It seemed like it took forever for them to loosen up.  Once they did, we had some great discussions and some real fun together.  This class, though, had no problem talking from the get go–getting them to hush is more of an issue.  They are an interesting group.  I think the fact that we now have a humanities approach in the middle school helped.  Last year they had an opportunity to learn to discuss, debate and analyze.  Their teachers did a great job and it shows.  They are, as a whole, very good writers and they understand what I think is pretty difficult literature without much explanation.

We have read Beowulf, Song of Roland, and Murder in the Cathedral so far.  They make it fun by really getting into it.  A new thing we are doing this year is called a Big Question Essay.  For each work of literature they read, they write an essay in answer to a question that goes along with it.  These have been pretty heavy questions.  One question involved discussing the difference between justice and revenge.  We also wrote about whether pride should play a role in heroism and discussed what pride is.  Is all pride bad?  We discuss before they write and we look at scriptures that apply.  It’s pretty heady stuff.

In between we have a lot of fun.  My freshmen always make me smile.  They are fun and talented.  How many people can stand a lolly pop up on the edge of it’s cellophane wrapper?  One of my freshman can!

They seem genuinely happy to be in high school.  When we have special days, like we did before Christmas,  or during spirit week, they participate enthusiastically.  Here’s a picture of some of our feet on Silly Christmas Sock Day.

My freshmen are also creative.  They did some really beautiful illuminated manuscripts when we studied monasticism, and sometimes they make things voluntarily just to make me happy.  A couple of my boys started making me a whole paper army of French Crusaders and “Paynims” when we were studying Song of Roland and the Crusades.  I keep them on my desk and they make me smile.  They are my own personal knights in shining armor and they chase away my blues.

Because we are on a rotating schedule, I don’t have my freshmen on Friday.  I have to go from Thursday afternoon all the way to Monday morning without seeing them.  Freshmen-less Fridays are just not as bright and cheerful as other days.  I miss my Fantastic Freshmen.

A New Life for Margie

Anyone who knows me realizes that I love my basset hound, Margie.  Perfect symbol of my personality, she proves the theory that people choose dogs that resemble them.  Actually, I didn’t choose her; Matt did.  He wanted a “real dog,” and she was as much real dog as we thought we could stand.  We have always had small dogs before–except for Wendy, a stray lab mix we took in when we lived in Texas.  Bassets are actually considered to be large dogs; they just don’t have much in the way of legs.

I was petting Margie recently and thinking about all the change that has come into our lives in the last few months.  Her existence is very different from what it was like a year ago.  As I considered, though, I realized that she has had many different phases in her five years of life.

She started out as a “country dog,” having the run of our 2.66 acres in Reidsville.  One of my favorite memories is of watching Margie chase Matt all over our huge front yard.  It is true that she has a very slow and lazy demeanor, but she does love to run when she gets the chance.  She just doesn’t like to run for very long…and then she likes to sleep for a long time afterwards.

When I got sick, around the time Margie turned one, we moved to an apartment in town.   Our apartment was on the third floor.  We had a two bedroom unit with a sunroom.  We put a daybed in there for Christy to sleep on when she came home from college.  It was a pleasant place for me to lay when I was recovering from a treatment.  I liked to lay there and look out at the sky.  It was very peaceful.  It was also Margie’s place.  She sat for hours on the end of that bed looking down on the world.  I liked coming home and looking up to see her gazing down on me, but it was rough having to take her down all those stairs every time she needed to go “potty.”

Not long after I finished treatment, we sold the house in Reidsville, and rented a three story townhouse.  It was a bit better for Marge because it was easier and faster to get outside.  The neighborhood was small, though, and the buildings were close together, so running room was scarce and the smells Margie loves were few and far between.  There was a field we could get to behind the house and she loved to go out that way.  We even saw the occasional rabbit and a deer or two.  Our living room was in the front of the house and the couch was in front of a large window.  Marge loved to sit with her paws and nose resting on the back of the couch and watch the world go by.  She led a quiet life.

Our current townhouse has been better for Margie.  There’s a lot more green space and we have a fairly large deck where she can sit and sun herself.  Her favorite haunt used to be the kitchen window.  She would sit there for hours watching the world go by, guarding the neighborhood. She doesn’t really have time for that now.  For the first time in her life, Margie has kids.

At first she was not sure how she felt about what must have seemed to her like a home invasion.  Having lived such a quiet and sheltered life, she was scared of everything.  She doesn’t like loud noises.  Kids and their toys involve a lot of sounds.  She does not like people to wear party hats, or those hats you get at Krispy Kreme for some reason, and she HATES balloons.  Tall towers of megablocks  freaked her out, especially if the kids tried to pick them up and move them from place to place.  She spent a lot of time trying to crawl up in my lap. Her kennel got moved from the living room by the French doors upstairs to the laundry “room,” which is really not a whole lot more than a closet.  Sometimes she would go there just to get away.  Levi, who just turned five, has always loved her, but she was not sure how she felt about him.  She did appreciate the fact that he tended to drop food on the floor more often than other people. I think this is probably the thing that began to win her over. We began to notice the change in her attitude the first time the kids went away for the weekend.  She kept going around the house and looking for them and she kept looking at Amy as if to ask what she had done with them.  She was obviously glad when they came back.  Now, if I get her up in the morning before they are awake, she goes and sits outside their room and waits for them.  Sometimes she even whines.  Even with the extra, “accidental” treats she gets, Margie has lost about five pounds since the kids moved in.  They take her out more often than I do, and they throw her toys and run back and forth with her.  She has a new spring in her step, and a light in her eyes.

When everyone was here over Christmas, there were even more kids around.  Josh took a picture of Margie with the twins.  You can see how thrilled she was:

 

Four Years Down?

Four years ago today I had my last chemo treatment.  My first one resulted in a such devastating drop in my white blood cell count that I was not able to take the second one on time, so instead of twelve treatments over six months, which is considered six cycles in the “chemo biz,” I had thirteen.  My Oncologist always reminds me of it and says thirteen is a lucky number for me.  I love and appreciate him, but I don’t believe in luck.  I am still here because God chose to leave me.

It is hard for me to explain and honestly, it’s a little hard to remember the jumble of fear, anger, regret and dread that filled me in the days right after my diagnosis.  A lot of people who find out they have cancer run to the internet.  I did not.  I didn’t want to know anything.  I think I felt like understanding would be accepting and I didn’t want to do that.  I remember that I did not want to go to the chemo orientation class I was required to attend at the cancer center.  George went with me.  It is not fun to sit in a room filled with terrified patients and their family members.  I understand why you have to bring someone with you; I was not a good listener in those days.    Christy went with me to a class where I was taught all about wigs and scarves, how to apply makeup during therapy so as not to infect yourself, and ways to make yourself look as normal as possible when you have no eyelashes or eyebrows.  My stomach is churning just thinking about it.

My biggest fear was nausea.  I hate throwing up.  I was so terrified that I seriously considered not doing it.  I asked my doctor how long I probably had to live if I decided against treatment.  Even though my lymphoma was considered stage four, he said I would probably have about a year and a half.  I spent half a year in treatment.  It took about a year after that to fully recover.  (They say it takes about a month for every treatment.)  Altogether then, the treatment and recovery took a year and a half.  Since then I have had three years I would not have had without treatment.  I’ve been thinking lately about those years.  There has been a great deal of difficulty in our lives since then, but there has been a lot of joy as well.  I’m thankful for all the things I didn’t miss.

Because God got me through the chemo I have: taught about 150 students, read 137 books, had four new grandsons, been to Europe five times, seen my youngest daughter get married and my youngest son graduate from high school, cheered through four Carolina basketball seasons including a National Championship, sold one house and bought another, knit a sweater, made new friends including my precious girls’ small group, re-connected with old friends on Facebook, and started to blog.  I have also seen God heal old wounds in Reidsville, learned that God loves me and come to believe that He is absolutely good.  I am thankful.

It wasn’t the possibility of death that scared me after my diagnosis.  I was sure of heaven.  It was treatment I feared.  If I am honest, I have to wonder if I would have made a different decision if I had known about the pain and trouble ahead.  But look at all the blessings I would have missed.  The Christian life is a journey that prepares us for heaven.  There are no detours around the tough spots–you’ve got to go through.  It will be worth it in the end, and when my end comes, I’ll be ready.   “You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” Hebrews 10:36

Since it is leap year, I have 366 days to go until I will be considered “cured” by my Oncologist.  I know it is just a number that comes from statistics.  I’m not counting on statistics any more that I consider my thirteen treatments to be lucky.  I’m learning just to be thankful for today and trust God for tomorrow.

Our New Hero

People everywhere are talking about him.  You can’t turn on the T.V. or surf the internet without seeing his face.  For weeks my fellow teachers, and a few students have been sending me articles about him.  As I walked down the hall at school this morning I heard his name over and over again:    “TEBOW.”

I first heard about Tim Tebow when he was playing for Florida.  I heard that he was a home schooled missionary kid who made it big in high school football in Florida.  Florida has a law that allows home schooled children to participate in extra-curriculars at their local public schools. I remember when the homeschool organizations in Florida were fighting for that right.  I imagine Tim Tebow’s alma mater is very thankful that they won.

I also heard that this kid had a radical faith about which he was very vocal.  I have to admit that I adopted a “wait and see” attitude about it.  It is hard to be a Christian on a secular college campus; it is REALLY hard to be a famous one.  The more I heard and read and saw, though, the more convinced I became that this kid was the real, authentic deal.

I remember hearing that he ended up with the Broncos.  I don’t remember hearing anything else until this October. I have followed developments with interest and I have been praying hard for Mr. Tebow.  I am interested and praying for two main reasons.  The first reason is that I am a Christian educator.  Young, male Christian role models are few and far between, and this is one who literally puts his money where his mouth is.

Celebrities often back charities and causes.  They lend their name, and often, I am sure, they give pretty generously.  I remember several years ago I was appalled by a report Michael Medved, the film critic, gave on his talk show.  He told about a very popular actress.  He said she gave an interview during which she talked about her affinity for shoes.  She said she had hundreds of pairs of very expensive ones.  Later the interview moved on to political issues.  She said she was very active in supporting a certain candidate because she believed he would do the most to make sure the government kept up and increased programs for the poor.  This was important to her, she said, because she herself had relatives on public assistance.  REALLY?  You just told the world that you have hundreds of pairs of SHOES and yet you have relatives, whom you profess to care about, who are on public assistance?  There’s a role model for you. Tim Tebow is nothing like that.  He doesn’t just lend his name, or his time and then drive off in his Lamborghini to his palatial residence.  He’s building a hospital on the mission field and hangs out with sick kids after games.  He openly admits that football is just a game and he is using the money he makes through his talent to make the world a better place.

It’s not what he does with his money that impresses me the most, however.  He is open about his faith. He is not ashamed of the gospel.  He gives thanks where thanks is due.  He wants the glory to go to God.  I think it is interesting that he is not the most talented quarterback ever.  They say he can’t throw the ball, so he has to run it.  They say you can’t do that and be successful in the NFL.  Then he passed for 316 yards last night.  Once there was this guy who couldn’t speak very well named Moses, and another who was a coward by the name of Gideon, and a little shepherd boy named David…no one thought much of them either.  God LOVES to use the unlikely. This is a fantastic lesson for my students.  We have had some great discussions thanks to Tim Tebow.

I am not setting my heart on a Superbowl win for Tebow.  I know enough to realize that God’s ways are not our ways.  He may be able to teach Tim and the rest of us more through failure than victory, and Tim is right about football being only a game.  We’ll have to see what happens.  In the meantime I’m praying for Tim Tebow.  Standing up for your faith makes you a target, not just for the press but for the devil.  He needs our prayers, and that leads me into the second reason I’m interested in Tebow.

I am a mother. I have children Tim’s age.  I keep wondering how his parents must feel and I pray for them, too.   I am thrilled and encouraged to see such commitment from a member of this generation.  My youngest son loves Tim Tebow, but he looks like Eli Manning.  I mean he REALLY looks like him.  One time we flew into Newark, New Jersey from Europe.  We were just a few miles from the Giant’s home field.  The official was hardly looking up as he checked and stamped passports but when he looked at Matt’s his head shot up and he said, “DUUUUDE, has anyone ever told you…”  Yep.  That was several years ago.  The older he gets, the more people notice.  He often has people ask for his autograph.  Sometimes they yell, “Hey Eli” and wave; he just waves back.  It’s funny.

When he was home for Christmas, he made a trip to the outer banks with a friend.  He is living away from home for the first time this year.  He is a southern boy trying to survive in the frozen north. While he was home he wanted to soak in all of Carolina warmth that he could and he wanted to visit the lighthouses.  When they got there, they took some pictures.  He might look like Eli Manning on the outside, but I want him to look like Tebow on the inside.  He can imitate Tim all he wants;  I couldn’t be happier.