Sometimes it's really, really hard to be around teens.

A couple of the kids at school got caught doing something they should not have been doing, and my response has been all over the map--from anger to compassion to apathy and back again. How could these kids be so DUMB? Why do they run after other gods as if their lives depended on it? Why are they so blind to the good news that is right in front of them--that they don't have to be trapped in the crap of this world, they don't have to look for cheap thrills to spice up their lives, and they don't have to thumb their noses at whatever segments of the adult world have offended them. I ask myself how we in our little Christian school have let these kids down. What could we have done differently? What should we do now? How do we help them see how very ugly and sordid those things are that they consider so appealing? How do we show them their wounds and help them see the Healer?

I'm convicted of my own cowardice and silence in not more boldly holding out the word of life.

I'm making progress...

For awhile now, I've been working on my cardiovascular fitness. Mostly that means I walk...a lot. I haven't exactly become what one could call buff, and I won't be running marathons anytime soon, but I'm here to tell you that those fitness experts who say walking isn't real exercise are wrong. True, nobody ever got fit walking a quarter mile a day at a pace of 2 miles per hour, but if you really get your buns moving, walking can provide a great workout. A leisurely stroll won't cut it, but fast walking that gets the heart rate up has been for me the perfect conditioning exercise, a great stepping stone to running. I spent all summer walking...four and five and six miles a day at a pace of say twelve to fourteen minutes per mile...with the hope of someday working up to running. My goal was to be able to run a mile nonstop before the summer's end, and my bigger goal is to someday run a whole 5K. I started by jogging a quarter mile here and there during my walks. I'd run awhile, walk awhile. And the running wasn't all that hard. I walk so fast and furiously that it was almost a relief to break into a run at times! The mile milestone came and went. I kept at it. After awhile I could run 1.5 miles, and I thought that was about my limit. Not bad, I thought.

So today I hit that mile-and-a-half mark and decided to just keep going. I finally had to quit when a thunderstorm and an uphill grade arrived at the same time. When I looked at my pedometer, I discovered that I'd gone 2.5 miles!! That's farther than I've run for YEARS. And I owe it all to walking. My bad feet would have given out long ago if they hadn't gradually gained strength from walking. Now they rarely bother me. I'm beginning to think that the 5K goal isn't as far-fetched as I thought it was!!

Sing with me now--put one foot in front of the other...

I survived the first week of school...

One week down--35 to go. That makes it sound like I hate school, like I'm a kid counting down to the day the pain stops. While I can't say I'm entirely thrilled to be teaching school or sending my kids off to school, it isn't THAT dreadful, either. It's just a lot of hard work. I'd rather have the freedom to sleep in, spend my time how I wish, choose for myself which people to spend time with in a given day, enjoy the luxury of feeling guilty for not accomplishing tasks that no one but me cares whether they get done or not anyway, interact with my kids on my own terms, not gathered around a mandatory science fair project that both they and I detest. I'd rather have no responsibilities except to please myself and decide for myself how I will order my world. Or anyhow that's what my tired mind and body sometimes tell me at the end of a long hard day. Really, though, I'm mostly finding these days that work is a good thing. Taking responsibility is a good thing. Accepting willingly tasks I wouldn't choose for myself is a good thing. Growing up is a good thing.

It's been a long time coming. I've spent too many hours resenting things I had to do or situations I had to handle but didn't want to, too many hours wishing for something different. This year is somehow different. Maybe it has to do with accepting and finding beauty in powerlessness while simultaneously accepting and finding beauty in responsibility. I don't have a choice; this year I HAVE to work so we can make ends meet. Consequently, I HAVE to send the kids to school even though we'd all rather go back to homeschooling this year. I HAVE to get up early, I HAVE to supervise everything that goes on in this house while Steve is away, I HAVE to eat right and exercise if I want to stay healthy, I HAVE to forge relationships with stuents and co-workers. Those are not situations from which I can remove myself--I'm in them and have to be in them. I have no power, in these areas, to make my life different.

Choice comes only in how I respond. Responsibility comes in acknowledging the effects of my response. I can chafe (and rub myself raw in the process) or I can rest. I can spend my time fighting what is, or I can look for God in it and "do the work He has given me to do before the night comes when no one can work." He assigns; I respond with effort and enthusiasm and gladness, or I respond with whining and complaining or apathy. I invest myself in staying, or I invest myself in running away. In a very real and strange way, I'm beginning to see the beauty of staying. I'm working harder than I ever have in my life, doing things I don't necessarily always love. I have less free time, less freedom, fewer big choices open yet more small decisions and responsibilities that land on my plate--and in spite of that I have more peace, more joy, more love, more trust that God is in his heaven and what I thought was wrong with the world might not be so wrong after all. The unchosen tasks of a day are his assignment to me; accepting the loss of my right to choose for myself has opened my eyes to see his good gifts. I'm seeing them everywhere lately--the love of God poured out in Christ Jesus is all around me, in me. Life can be hard, but God is so, so good.

I guess it's true: it's in losing my life--losing myself in him--that I find it.