*kendraspondence*

I didn’t attend Vacation Bible School when I was little. Catholic doctrine every school day for nine months plus Sunday mass must have seemed adequate for my Jesus learnin’. Summers were for hanging out with heathens anyway, right? Needless to say, I didn’t know how to explain Vacation Bible School to Baby Girl. I told her all day that we were going to Bible camp. Girlfriend knows that certain books in our house are called Bible, but I’m not sure she knows the theological weight they carry. What I do know is that every time this one particular gal pal comes over, who happens to be Jewish, Baby Girl goes and fetches her children’s picture Bible and insists our friend read it aloud to her. Sneaky little evangelist, that one. Anyway, I wasn’t sure if she would dig Vacay Bible Pow-wow Boot Camp Thing since I wasn’t able to give her a sense of the what, who, how, why…only the when…but on our way there tonight, she said, “We’re going to church camp?”

Duh, mama. Why didn’t you just distill it like that?

It was a little over her head, the games and skit-making and so forth. And she kept looking for the organist. But there were juiceboxes? So maybe we’ll go back tomorrow?

I started reading Psalms 91 a couple months back when I felt as though my focus was off.  I was getting trifled by stoopit things and losing perspective on God’s ability to handle the important things.  Psalm 91 reminds us to just dwell in God’s shelter, to trust in His protection and call on His name when we are in danger.

***

I wrote about a week ago, partly in jest, about the potentially dying of a labor-induced fatal nosebleed.

***

Last Thursday morning, I went to the hospital with my husband wearing my Laboring Pigtails.  I mentally prepared myself, nay, I resolved to meet my baby before midnight.

I just didn’t think it would be after eleven hours wherein both my baby and I would find ourselves within inches of our lives.

***

My son, Tatum Jay, deserves to have a record of his birth story, but I cannot write it right now.  The temptation to start every sentence with the personal pronoun “I” is just too great.  I did not do this.  I believe that God did this, He brought this child into the world and now this boy with the perfectly cottony head is on lease to me.  God sheltered us.  God’s mercy and strength abided.  Tatum’s heart rate plummeted many times before I got to meet him.  I lost over a liter of blood and then continued to lose more blood before I was allowed to be declared “stable.”  Through it all, God showed us His care and I am forever changed, so so so happy to dwell in His shelter, drawing in this new little one under His wings.

***

The new man in our life…

I ran across this verse the other day, and I’ve been noodling it around ever since.

In Him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom.” ~ Colossians 2:3

At first I was impressed, just thinking what a treasure wisdom truly is. With each life experience, we can treasure the wisdom gained, and apply it to future experiences. And further, we can share this treasure. It isn’t ours to hole up in some storehouse. We can share it, both in word and deed.

I used to think that the ultimate goal in life was to collect as many amazing experiences as I could. Whoever got to do the most numerous cool things WINS. I was so full of envy as a child, convinced my life was boring, restrained, and that every other kid was more privileged and indulged.

I eventually realized that I was more than privileged, and that boring translated to “safe” and restrained really meant that I was very much loved.

But I still thought well into my twenties that I should be collecting experiences, that I should be taking trips like they were charms to add to a bracelet. I should be pursuing great and important things that will build my resume, my portfolio, a name for myself. I should be networking and coopting and spending and flirting with my destiny.

BAAAAARRRRRF.

Yeah. But coming to Christ for me has meant in so so many ways the loss of self and the greater love for Him, all that I am able to accomplish in His name, for His sake, for His greater glory.

I need wisdom to do all that. And I’ve been grateful over the past couple of years to actually desire, to have that deep craving for wisdom. I need it to get through a day with a toddler that would prefer to be rolled around a shopping mall in a wheely-suitcase.

Going back to the verse in Colossians, though, I realized that in God, all the wisdom can be gained.  That all those fabulous experiences?  Cannot guarantee to make one wise.  This excites me, it really does.  Knowing that He truly is the wellspring of all knowledge and goodness is a comfort to me and quiets my hearts desires to Do Really Cool Stuff, knowing that one day, all that this world can offer will but be a shadow of His glory!

My granny always told me that Jesus hears the prayers of children and doubly counts them.
***
When we got home from daycare yesterday, Baby Girl told me she needed to go and pray.

She knelt down in front of a little table and put her hands together like a Precious Moment statue:

“Dear Father…Thank you for Ava and Malcolm and Quinnie…and good morning…and Jesus. AMEN!”

She is still accepting special intentions….

“My new phone has a reject call feature with text messaging.”

“That’s cool. But I don’t even know what that means.”

“Like I can reject a call and the person will receive a text message. I’ll have to write some automated text messages.”

“Like ‘Busy, banging my wife’?”

“Um, yeah. Like that.”

***

I have felt utterly exhausted by the last two weeks. I’ve been pushing through a couple of projects that were, in themselves, behemoths. I’ve been stressed and cranky and waking up thinking it was Sunday, only to horrifiedly realize it was Tuesday. I’ve showered the absolute minimum that a first world citizen can shower without receiving deodorant samples sent anonymously to my mailbox. Yet. And I entered into a new, financially imprudent love affair with the creme brulee latte (with soy!) at Sixbucks. My lands, is that the tonic of the gods.

***
I recently discovered we have the Gospel channel. This is not your standard Jaysus channel. It has really good programming! Not just Southern evangelical preachers trying to drain your pockets. It’s good! Not that I could name a single Gospel artist, but they have a lot of contempo Christian concerts. I’ve watched the Jars of Clay concert twice already. Excellent. Even though the lead singer is dressed like Mark from “Rent” sans the hipster glasses. I think they are a highly underrated band. Their albums are all quite different in sound but the lyrics are consistently excellent; they are good studies of the uncliched faith journey.

***
In the midst of this end-of-semester distress and the condition of what Loverpants called “living under a rock; you didn’t even know Gisele and Tom had their baby two days ago?!” I have really been moved by moments of sweetness from my family. The moments with Baby Girl when she takes her little pincers to my cheeks and, pinching the Cabbage Patchy flesh of my face, says, “Cheeksies! You so cute!” The moments when I don’t at all deserve a hug and Loverpants gives me several in a morning.

I have also been returning again and again to Micah 5. I never knew how explicit the birth of the Christ child was, in prescription and spirit. That He would be born in the smallest of the tribes, that He would release Israel, and that He would be their peace.

In the last two weeks of fitful sleep and ever-expanding belly, I have called upon this peace to continue to reign in my heart and mind. I think of the sweetness of holding my own baby, and just the profundity of the Lord sending His own baby to earth to be stewarded by mere mortals, and I am closer to understanding how precious is the peace that was sent here for us to hold, like a mild little infant that so needs us to be still.