End Times

I realized when I was pregnant for the first time that there are many things in life people will inevitably tell you a bzillion times which you can cognitively know to be true, but which you will not really "get" until much later.

Things like, "You think you are tired now..." or, "Just wait, you have now idea just how hard it is until the baby is born," and so on. True statements, but ones which only experience make comprehensible.

Fourteen plus years since that first go-round with growing a baby and I am just now "getting" one of the world's favorite adages for new parents: "They grow so fast; he's a baby now, but tomorrow he'll be asking for the car keys, and the next day he'll be gone."

Well, Boy 1 has another year before he can have the car keys at all, but the experiences of the past few weeks have been, for me, the experiences by which I have learned just exactly what "they grow so fast" really means.

Finishing 8th grade has been the first real experience of end times; of witnessing the end of a major part of my son's life. Of course, kindergarten marked the end of those earliest years, the end of 5th grade was the end of elementary school, but for me those endings were far less monumental. Boy 1 was still a child at the end of all the previous ends.

Not so now. The end times of middle school point to the end of his early years, the end of his education as a child.

My experience of the various markers of these endings (the last middle school concert, the last awards assembly, the final projects) have been a fine combination of sweet nostalgia. I do not long for the olden days or wish he would always stay as he is now.

Rather, I sweetly remember his little pixie face and the many Mother's Day gifts from his elementary school years while celebrating who he is now and eagerly looking forward to watching him grow through his next adventures.

How true it is that they grow so fast. I am glad to say that the truth of this statement has been a source of excitement and joy far more than the sense of impending doom so often misread into before we really have a chance to "get" it.

The Communion of the Lord's Supper

Nearly every Sunday of the past 26 years I have enjoyed the feast of the Lord's Supper. Being a person who thrives on interaction, I am always looking for the communion of the Lord's Supper. That is to say, ways in which to commune with my Christian family through the Lord's Supper.

You can imagine how much I love it when we take communion around tables. Or when we serve one another and are able to look each other in the eye as we share the body and blood of Christ. I call it putting the commune fully into communion.

Yesterday I reveled in a whole new experience of the communion of the Lord's Supper while, for the first time, all three of of the men in my life served the Lord's Supper together.

As I lifted my head after the prayer, I watched as Boy 2 walked past on his way to the front row, plate of unleavened bread in hand. Close behind was Mark coaching him through his first serving of communion. Glancing to the right I noticed Boy 1, with already three years of experience serving, passing the bread at the other end of my set of rows. And so it went with the cup and the offering.

I experienced the communion of the Lord's Supper in a new and deeper way yesterday, and I treasured it all up in my heart.

Promises, Schmomises

When I began this blog on November 26, 2009, I promised it would be a "light-hearted" look at turning 40. I guaranteed it would not be full of complaints of creaking joints, menopausal menaces, or otherwise irritating medical TMI.

A glance through my archives remind of the first man-shirt I bought for Boy 1, the blizzard we barely survived earlier this year, and the realization that Wee 1 is almost as stubborn as I am. I have laughed a lot and cried a little through the writing of this blog. I have shared the stupid moments and looked at the deep richness of my life, but I have kept my promise.

Today I am breaking my promise.

In March I spent a week in bed with some kind of flu. A few weeks later I spent several hours in the ER with the most excruciating stomach pain ever. Since then I have experienced a level of fatigue rivaling that of any new mom, and various joints and whatnot seem to have begun some kind of mutiny, plaguing me with pain and more fatigue.

As a result, blogging has slowed to a bare minimum. But then, so has everything else.

What I have begun to discover through all of this is just exactly what constitutes the "bare minimum." Last year God taught me to truly focus only on the things that are really important. These months of illness and weariness have led to discover what things are truly non-negotiable.

Here is my list:

• Daily walking in the flow of God's grace.
• Loving and being loved by my husband and sons.
• Touching the lives of others in meaningful ways.

Short, simple, non-negotiable. And when illness, weariness, or other ebbs and flows of life demand a choice, that which does not fit the categories of this list must go.

It almost seems silly that I did not know this before, but I confess I am quite susceptible, to the whims of pride and ambition.

Now, before you go expressing condolences for the myriad things I may have to give up if this physiological mutiny continues, let me stress that a clear knowledge of the non-negotiables is more precious than any achievement I can think of. It is, perhaps, one of the greatest blessings God could have offered to me and my family.

Now that I have fully disclosed medical TMI and thrown my promise to the wind, I plan to get back to the light-hearted look at life I set out to blog about. But be warned, if I have to choose between blogging and having the energy for the nightly family walks Boy 2 recently initiated, blogging will lose every time.