Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are being formed; his blood is being made;his mind is being developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow. His name is today. Gabriela Mistral

One of the most surprising things I learned about myself when I became a mother, is how much I love children. Not just my own, but other people’s children. I find great comfort in my daughter’s friends, in my friends’ children and in the child that asks “Mrs. B, if my Dad doesn’t show up can I go with you?”. I love a car full of kids, yelling “She touched me, make her stop!” or “He won’t let me play his Gameboy, it’s my turn!!”. Many adults will get frustrated and annoyed by such clamor. I feel blessed.

In 1996 Hilary Clinton wrote the book “It Takes a Village…And Other Lessons Children Teach Us”. The opening paragraph of this book states “Children are not rugged individualists. They depend on the adults they know and on thousands more who make decisions every day that affect their well-being.” The premise of the book being that, it takes a village to raise a child. Every day I encounter children that are not mine, that I don’t know, that need me to one of those thousands. Oh, if they only realized how much I need them.

They are God’s gift to me. When I bring my daughter to soccer games, I don’t have time to complain about being the snack mom for the zillionth time in a row…I am too busy enjoying, watching children play and getting plenty of fresh air and exercise. When I take my daughter to the movies with her friends and they want, soda, popcorn AND candy…I don’t have time to complain aobut the cost…I am so happy that they can all be together and act like the kids they are. When we go to the pool in town, I don’t have time to complain about the hot sun…I am too busy watching children teach each other to dive, to swim, to play Marco Polo. God has placed many children in my life because He knew.

He knew I needed to have a childhood. He knew I needed to see and experience what running free in the park is all about, what sharing an ice cream cone with a best friend is like. How laughing at nonsensical stuff is not stupid. It is a magical moment.

In the busyness of your week, stop and look and listen. Breathe in the essence of your village. It is the ordinary pleasures that make an extraordinary day.

Embrace what God has given you and don’t say tomorrow… for the child only understand today.

This post was previously posted on July 1, 2006 on my blog The Whippoorwill Chronicles.

From where I am sitting it appears that people (not statistics) are what make up our communities, our towns, our cities. As I look out from my front porch and I nod and wave at the individuals that make up Whippoorwill Hill, my mind tries to wrap itself around the thought that we are all different yet we are all the same.

How can this be? What choices have we made in our lives that brought us all to this place? How did we make these choices individually and end up as a group of people that make up Whippoorwill Hill?

With each smile and nod I see a representation of personal values and beliefs that are meaningful to the individual, thereby meaningful to the community.

Common values like fairness, honesty, tolerance, courage, integrity, forgiveness, commitment, and teamwork.

Have you made a choice lately that you now hit yourself in the head and say “What was I thinking!”? Perhaps your choice was not in line with your values.

This is an original post from The Whippoorwill Chronicles dated January 26, 2006.

Today I am grateful: that I am keenly aware of what I value. This equips me to make better decisions for myself and my family.

My teaching schedule provides me with the freedom to pursue my second passion, photography. I have been an avid scrapbooker for almost thirteen years. However, it has only been since the beginning of this year that I have taken my love of ‘viewing the world through my camera lens’ to a more professional level. There are times when my love of photography has me considering embarking on my third small business venture but I manage to rein myself in and be content to simply display my photos on my blog.

Although I have always defined myself as a relatively independent person, looking back over the years, I have to be honest and state that my behaviors spoke otherwise. After several (!!) relational mistakes, I now find myself quite happily married to the only man I ever loved. At a time when other women were experiencing symptoms of menopause and a midlife crisis or two, I was experiencing labor pains. At the age of forty I was blessed with the most intelligent, beautiful child that God has ever created. That explains why, twelve years later (almost thirteen), I am a decade behind on the midlife crisis curve (grin).

Yet, here I am. a woman with many a tale to tell, experiences to share and threads of wisdom to tie it all up with. This is who I am. A wife, mother, photographer, and college professor navigating her way through one midlife crisis after another.

Then in one fell swoop, seventeen years ago, my life as I had known it – ended. It was quick and painful and the side effects would last several years. Three to be exact. I walked around lost and hurt. I had no direction, no purpose, no sense of who I was….just who I had been.

I was able to go through the motions of rebuilding some semblance of a life. During those three years I got a job, I got an education, I bought my first car, I even made a friend or two that didn’t “know me when”. But there was no joy…no happiness…no sense of “wow, this is great”. That is until I walked into the biggest First Baptist Church this side of the Mississippi.

I knew there was a God…what I didn’t know was that he was a forgiving God, full of grace and mercy and unfailing love. A God that wanted to have a personal relationship with me. Me?? Imagine that!! A God that wanted me to walk with Him and talk with Him and love Him and trust Him. A friend that “knew me when” and loved me even more. How could I not commit myself to this relationship and accept this God as my Lord and Savior. What could it hurt?

Don’t misunderstand…the years that followed this acceptance weren’t all peaches and cream, sunflowers and honeydews. Still aren’t. And my faith walk hasn’t always been on the straight and narrow. There have been spits and spurts and stalls along the way. Still are. But the one constant in my complicated life…is how God simplifies it.

He even gave me a guidebook for the journey, knowing how complicated it would be. My Bible…now worn and frayed with several chapters falling out. My Guidebook – telling me how to live, teaching me what to believe, showing me what God is like, protecting me from sin. God, in His infinite wisdom knew…to know how to live, you must first know what you believe.

I believe that Christ died for me and rose again, and will save completely all who come to God through Him.

Dear Lord, May we continue to travel steadily along your path. Understanding that we are the ones chosen by you to do your work and speak out for you. Help us to step out of our comfort zones and boldly tell others of the night-and-day difference you have made in our lives. Help us to keep it plain and simple, according to your Word. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Welcome to a new weekly feature on The Hill…

Tuned in Thursdays…Listening to God

You may have noticed from previous posts, that I am having a difficult time lately in my walk with God. I have been feeling like I may have missed an important road sign and I went one way…and God went the other. Early this morning while sitting here on the porch, I noticed an envelope fall out of the back of my Bible. I picked it up and opened it. Inside I saw the little slip of paper with My Decision to receive Christ as my personal Savior and my Certificate of baptism:

In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the imitation of His example Sissy B. was buried with Him in baptism, March 18, 1993.

How long ago that seems…both by the calendar and in my heart.

In a previous post I wrote about the fine art of listening. Being the educator that I am, I began to do a little research about listening to God. I found a great article at All About God.

If you want to hear God speak, you must be quiet. It means making a deliberate choice to block out the chaos that swirls around our daily activities. It means learning to focus your thoughts in an ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) world.

There was also no surprise when I read that the Bible is one of the main tools through which God speaks. But I needed this reminder…listening to God requires a heart committed to understanding His message. It is here that I felt God slapping me on the back of the head. “Your heart, dummy, look at your heart…is it fully surrendered to Me?” For “God honors the heart that is fully surrendered to Him” Psalm 40:8 Sadly the answer has been no. Hence, my need for a fresh start with God. So please join me as I embark on some new “first steps”. I hope you enjoy the journey.

For a frest start with God there are certain things that I need to place in my heart and believe.

I need to believe that I am a new person in Christ. That I have truly placed my faith in Him and invited Him into my heart. But I need to understand that I am not instantly made perfect.

“What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old is gone, a new life has begun” 2 Corinthians 5:17

I need to believe that I have been adopted into God’s family. I am a child of God. He wants to have a relationship with me. I need to believe that because I am His child he will:

• feed me
• direct me
• protect me
• give me strength

But I need to understand that a relationship is a state of connectedness between two entities…I need to include myself in the equation, it cannot be one sided.

“His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him pleasure.” Ephesians 1:5

Restarting this journey takes trust. Trust in God’s character, trust in God’s plan and trust in God’s goals. I must listen carefully and follow closely. To do this I must do these things daily, not just every thirteen years or so:

• I must admit that I have sinned and that I am not walking in oneness with God.
• I must repent of my sins and turn to God.
• I must receive, by faith, His forgiveness based on His dying on the Cross for me.
• I must open my life to receive Him as my living, resurrected Lord and Savior who has promised to come and indwell in me by His Spirit and live in me as the Savior and Master of my life.
• I must walk with Him day by day…reading and listening to His Word, spending time talking with Him in prayer…and realizing the role He has in my life.

Dear God, help me as I begin this fresh start and learn to listen to you more clearly. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

I am using the Following God Discipleship Series as a basis for this fresh start with God.

From where I am sitting it appears that people are what make up our communities, our towns, our cities. As I look out from my front porch and I nod and wave at the individuals that make up Whippoorwill Hill, my mind tries to wrap itself around the thought that we are all different yet we are all the same. How can this be? What choices have we made in our lives that brought us all to this place? How did we make these choices individually and end up as a group of people that make up Whippoorwill Hill? With each smile and not I see a representation of personal values and beliefs that are meaningful to the individual, thereby meaningful to the community. Common values like fairness, honesty, tolerance, courage, integrity, forgiveness, commitment, teamwork.

Have you made a choice lately that you now hit yourself in the head and say “What was I thinking!”? Perhaps your choice was not in line with your values. Hmmmmm.

While announcing to my fellow inhabitants here on Whippoorwill Hill that I was going to start a blog, I encountered a variety of responses:

Why on earth would you want to let anyone know that we even exist?

What would you ‘blog’ about?

Are you sure you want to try your writing wings nooowww??

It’s cold and scary out there in the blogosphere…why not stay in the comfort of Whippoorwill Hill??

I was unable to answer their questions. I am unsure why I am putting my little world out there. The one thing I do know, is that I cannot keep the treasure of Whippoorwill Hill hidden forever.

Be back soon.