Ending eras, making magic, and marking time

looking back and forward

Six seminary classes stand between me and graduation. I plan to finish them this next school year and walk in June.¹ Justin insists we will fly out and I will walk. I’m glad to finish this year; my second son will finish elementary school as well. Him going to middle school next year, with sports and schedules, feels like a big shift for our family.² So we’ll wrap up an era together. 

And it has been an era. As I’ve worked at our church this past year, I can’t number the times I’ve realized that I learned a particular skill as a mother of multiple littles.³ Workforce conversations certainly never highlight the skills and capacity a woman can gain in those years home with small children. No one told me that was happening.⁴ It always seemed either the work was nothing, a waste of time, or the work was everything, the highest I could aspire to. I never believed either and instead fought to be faithful where so was while also preparing for what was next. I made magic for the children.⁵ I learned to study—I still credit #personalgradschool with getting me ready to take theological study seriously. I almost drowned, metaphorically speaking though that didn’t make it less real, over and over because I can now reshape those years into something more sustainable for me but reality did not match that vision. I was home alone most of the time, wrestling with unnamed callings with no guide, attempting to parent multiple small children, one with a rare disease, intellectual delays, and undiagnosed autism.⁶

Occasionally I sit and look at pictures from when my children were smaller. Those photos of my babies swimming or laughing over snacks, of me reading to them and carting them to the library or the grocery store fills me with so much satisfaction and gratitude. I crafted a good life for them. Yes, of course, much of that was God’s gift, but I also believe that we partner with the Holy Spirit in his work and I could have done something much different there.⁷ I’m happy for the time we had together and I hope all of us carry those memories forever. It was a long season, an era. When we moved and that season of life shifted, my oldest was eleven. I spent over a decade crafting something for our family and inviting other people into it. 

Seminary put a marker in the ground for me when Covid started. Because of my oldest’s metabolic disorder, we quarantined hard. The risk of exposure was too great for him. There was joy in those days- all of us home together- but there was an neverendingness to them as well. A great ache of what we had lost and could still lose filled my days. I woke before the boys and read my Bible, I greeted them with a smile and a “how are you? I’m so happy to see you,”⁸ and then made as much magic for them as I could: bike rides and walks, movies and books, games and sidewalk chalk, car tracks made on paper with tape and markers. I caught my breath at quiet time and then went the rest of the day.⁹ I tucked them in bed, eventually went to sleep myself, and woke up to do it again. And again. And again. Tuesday was the same was Friday; Saturday the same as Thursday. My first quarter of classes started almost simultaneously with lockdown and unexpectedly I had work to do that wouldn’t need be done again the next day. I could do Week 1 of work and move on to Week 2. I could finish that paper and I never had to write it again. There was new reading. There were markers of progress. There was mental stimulation. I read while the boys played in the yard, while they slept, while we watch movies, while they at their snacks. I watch lectures during quiet time and after the boys went to bed. Seminary held hands with my sanity. 

Seminary is such a gift. Lisa of ten years ago would not believe that I’m here. I’m grateful for each class, each assignment, every word I’ve read and written. But at the same time, seminary’s place in my life has shifted. The time seminary takes now feels stolen from something else: sleep, writing, my boys, work, seeing friends, lying on my couch and staring at the ceiling, personal studies, stacks of books that I want to read. It’s taught me so much and I know I’ll miss it (and that library access!) once it’s gone but I’m preparing to say goodbye. I’ll be ready. 

I wouldn’t say that going to seminary with four small kids during a pandemic while suddenly homeschooling said kids is ideal. No one would say that. But I’m glad I did it. I’m grateful for the chance. Even though the era of parenting tinies shifted when we moved and the kids went to school and preschool, this feels like the true end of an era this year, the cusp of the next. The baby is in kindergarten. A second kid is finishing elementary school. I’ll finish seminary. I want to make as much magic here as I did home with littles, just hopefully with better self-awareness, boundaries and support. 

1. My Appalachian heritage makes me want to add “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”

2. My oldest is already in middle school but his is a unique situation.

3. I’m kicking myself for not keeping a list.

4. Neither in culture nor the church.

5. Sharing old stuff is hard. There’s things I would change about this post (for example, now I do think that’s the start of a pretty good holiness theology) but you see the seed was there when I wrote that in 2017.

6. Naming matters. It made such a difference to be able to accurately name the situation even though getting there was excruciating. A lot of it is still excruciating. Testing. IEP meetings. Even celebrations of progress. They are small but sharp griefs, a reliving of what won’t be.

7. Of course so many things could have prevented me from doing this and I think God would have carried the load. This is no judgment on what your life looks like and only a look back at mine.

8. A habit I hope to always maintain.

9. I was also attempting to homeschool as well.