Boredom is Okay

In the 1970’s summer vacation meant: staying up late, sleeping late, beach bumming, Bible camp, and eating ice cream…lots and lots of ice cream. If we were bored, our mothers would offer us plenty of chores or look over their cat-eyed frames with one raised eyebrow and say, “And what are you gonna do about it?”

So what did we do when we got bored and we’d watched enough reruns of The Brady Bunch, Leave it to Beaver, Captain Kangaroo, and all the Looney Tunes Cartoons you could stomach?

We played.

That’s right. We played unorganized games with neighborhood kids like us; sometimes made-up games with silly names and rules that changed. We pool-hopped around the neighborhood, rode bikes to the corner store for ice cream, candy and soda (fully loaded with sugar), played school and house, colored, painted with water colors, drew pictures, read books, and of course we did our household chores.

As teenagers, we spent days and nights at our best friends’ houses, took drivers ed classes and drove our friends to the beach as often as we could afford the gas and our work schedule permitted.

That’s right, we also worked. We worked wherever we could find a job—the local grocery store, department store, fast-food restaurant. Work was a right-of-passage at sixteen. It meant we were gaining independence from our parents, earning adult money and taking on adult responsibility.

I passed this training-out-of-boredom onto my children. Early on they learned that boredom is okay. I was not responsible to fill up their boredom hours, they were. They used their imaginations and abilities to fill their lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer as was fitting and according to parental boundaries. 

(Struggling with over-scheduled or bored children? Join me at the Christian Children's Authors blog for the rest of the story).

Rainy Days and Mondays

"I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint." Jeremiah 31:25

I need a rainy day, now and then, when heaven pours down buckets of cool, refreshing rain under overcast skies. It's days like these when my mind relinquishes its normal scatter-brained push and pauses to hear the sleepy, pitter patter rhythm outside my window.

On these rainy days, when my "to do" list is blank, I slow down and enjoy a few simple pleasures: an hour more sleep under fuzzy warm blankets,  long, hot sips of pumpkin spiced coffee, extended quiet time curled up in my comfy chair, the new book aroma, the glide of my pen across blank pages, or simply an afternoon nap under Mom's hand-sewn quilt.

The rains fall and wash over my soul reminding my spirit who God created me to be. It's days like these when I can reflect on what God's done, focus on what He's doing now, and ask Him where He's leading me.

It's in the peace and quiet - the nothingness - where I hear God whisper and feel Him draw nearer. (Okay, in all honesty, it's in the nothingness where I'm left speechless, my mind declutters enough to hear God speak, and I lean in closer to Him).

Today is one of those days.

What kind of day refreshes you? What simple pleasures satisfy your heart? {I love it when you share your thoughts, so please don't be shy}.

Father,
Thank-you  for slow, rainy days and empty "to do" lists that serve to draw us closer to you.
Amen

A Jesus Whisper and a Healing



Pops and Dakota



“O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike."

Luke 10:21

We spend a lot of time with our four-year-old granddaughter, Dakota and last Thursday she joined us for the Maundy Thursday service at church. (That was our deal...if she wanted to sleep over at Grams' & Pops' house that night, she had to go to church with us).

 

She agreed, wholeheartedly, but I wondered if she'd really last through the entire service or glean anything from the service between playing with her Littlest Pet Shop toys and the noticeably painful sty on her eyelid. 

The band started playing and she hopped into my arms, ready to worship. Half-way through the first song she points to the inlaid cross above the baptistery and says, "Jesus died on that cross, you know, Grams."

"Yes, he did. That's why we're here tonight--to remember that and to say 'thank-you' to Jesus for dying on that cross."

The next morning the swelling and redness from her sty had dissipated. I mentioned how much better her eye looked and she immediately responded, "Yes, it is better. Last night in church I heard someone whisper, 'Look at your sty. I've made it better.'"

I asked, "Who do you think whispered in your ear?" and as any preschool girl with an overactive imagination may respond, she answered, "I don't know. I think it was Hello Kitty." Hmmm. Now what? Obviously, she wasn't making this up. Her eye was markably better, so I seized this teachable moment and continued the conversation.

"No, Dakota. Hello Kitty isn't real or alive. She's just a cartoon character, but remember you mentioned Jesus died on the cross? Well, he is real and he didn't stay dead. On Easter, God raised him from the dead, made him alive again. He's alive, with God, in heaven and he talks with us, just like he whispered in your ear last night. That voice? That whisper in your ear? That was Jesus. Jesus made your eye better."

Throughout the day, I watched her eye for any reoccurring redness or swelling and periodically asked her if it still hurt but her eye kept improving. When her parents arrived late in the afternoon, the first thing her mother said was, "Wow! Your eye is all better."

She looked up from her artwork and answered, "Yes, Jesus made it better."

Although she didn't recognize Jesus' voice at first, does not negate the fact that she heard him whisper, "I've made it better." Just like us, childlike in our walk with the Lord, we train our ears to hear his voice through simple faith.