Exhausted

I am exhausted. And I am reminded of the purity of childhood.

This morning I FINALLY took real action on my interest in volunteering. I have been wanting to volunteer somewhere ever since school got out last May. Let the excuses abound: Over the summer it didn't happen because we were out of town for 2/3 of it, not to mention I was recuperating from a very tough school year. In the fall, I was going to volunteer at a few places, but they didn't work out for various reasons. I started watching Connor though, and it was just enough "outside" time to keep me sane and connected with others. Once I stopped watching him, I mostly focused on enjoying friends for a bit, especially before they moved. Then there were the holidays. Finally, this winter I was determined to forget all my excuses and make the most of my last few months here. I decided on a place to volunteer; weeks of phone tag ensued to no avail. Alas, however -and now that it is spring, I ran into my old boss Faye at United, of course. It was decided.

I would help at my first real workplace, School for Little People.


Here I am posing with my second class of two-year-olds after our trip to the fire department. Why, yes, I believe that fire hat is flying.

So, this morning I headed over to SLP. I visited with all my old friends from the staff, caught up on who's teaching who and where, and then went to work organizing the library. All I have to say is I am exhausted because I have not had so much conversation and activity packed into three hours in quite a while. I didn't even work in a classroom -which, if I did, I was expecting would be a snap to get back into, but seeing twelve kids in one ten square foot area was enough to overwhelm this out-of-touch teacher!

I am also reminded of a metaphor (for approaching the Kingdom of God like a child) I witnessed yesterday while riding my bike. I was riding down the paved trail, the one families often walk on, too. I approached a small group of women and children. The women saw me 20 yards away and began to corral the kids. The children, however, were oblivious to the presence of me on my bike until I was riding right passed them. This struck me as I passed one of the children, and heard a small excited voice say, "Mommy, a bike!"

The mother's preparation to avoid the danger of the bike was good. Without it someone could have been hurt. I'm wondering though, was the child's presence in the moment better? Kind of like, Martha's preparation in the kitchen was good, but Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus was better.

It reminds me of something Matt read recently in Francis Chan's book Forgotten God. The author was describing how we so often say we want to do God's will in our lives. This is good, of course, but we often talk about this in terms of the whole big picture of our lives all at once. We look so far ahead that we often miss this moment. He challenges us instead to ask God's will in our next ten minutes. Maybe this is better. We probably need both. I love this idea because, in doing so, we invite God into the real action of our lives, not just the planning team. What an adventure this can be.

All this talk about children has inspired me to do another thing children often do...take a nap when they are tired. Good night!