another different sort of vacation

they just keep on comin' don’t they?

one of these weeks i'll get the kind of vacation where there's an actual break from working, driving and generalized chaos.

this time, after sleeping a little bit and then working alot, i was in my trusty little Vibe barreling down I-40 towards Virginia, specifically the Richmond area.  on both ends (or thereabouts) of VBS week, both of my grandparents celebrated their 80th birthdays, and so our whole half of the family tree decided we were going to celebrate it.  by working!!!  we were going to do some MAJOR tidying up, doing all the chores and cleaning and housework that they could no longer do themselves.  and then eat and play and talk alot, too.  and eat a MASSIVE cake.

i showed up early because i could and claimed a spot in my grandparents' house to sleep, and the next day  family members came in from 4 states.  except for the older younger brother (who is studying abroad in New Zealand, the lucky guy), we were all together for the first time in almost 2 years (thanksgiving 2010).

i tried the same thing i did last time i drove up, and left Jackson around 6 pm and drove for the entire night.  most of the problems i've had driving were dealing with the other drivers who somehow sneaked through the DMV and got licenses despite their general incapability of minding basic rules of the road (like, "NO!  that's INTERSTATE 81, not SPEED LIMIT 81!!!")  or trucks deciding that they NEED to be EXACTLY where that little bitty car is RIGHT NOW.  forget blinkers- those are for the commoners.  oh look- one of its tires exploded.  super!!! how many accidents can we cause in 1 hour?  i swear i saw one grin and add a notch to his dashboard tally last year.

well at night time, 95% of those irritating road companions are not there, making it in general the most time and energy efficient way to go, especially since i'm night shift and am most alert then anyway.

this time, however, i guess i was just not alert to the things i needed to be.  i'd been going through a generally rough time for a couple weeks, and was not completely sure that spending long periods of time with family members was the right way to relax (yes, a weekend is a "long time" to some of us).

all of a sudden, i look again at the car way in front of me.  the brake lights are on.  i slow down a bit, and 2 seconds later realize that i am gaining on the car much faster than expected.  i slow down more...not enough.  one glance shows a car tailing me, with a car tailing HIM.  (see?  it's not nighttime quite yet, so the crazies are still out!!!)

basically this leads to me doing a rather spectacular 65-0 mph in a spectacularly short amount of time and space.

as it turns out, there was road work involving a 2-lane to 1-lane deal, and there was a STOPPED (not slowed) line of cars.  with no scenery and a straight flat highway, i had NO perspective, NO way to tell.  there was some chaos behind me, but no accidents like there almost was.

i recovered my breath and kept on chugging.

not more than a couple hours later- still during daylight hours, i crest the top of a gentle tennessee hill and find the majority of an exploded truck tire directly in front of me.  Reason #73 why i hate trucks (there are alot...but their tires are a major part of the list).  without blinking, thinking, breathing or looking, i swerve around it.  hitting a truck tire at 70 miles an hour is instant death.  this fact does not escape me- in fact, is causes my heart rate to shoot up, my leg muscles to cramp on that brake pedal like crazy, my vision to freeze and goosebumps to show up everywhere.  it would have made for an awesome cartoon picture, with my left side tires off the ground, giant swooshes around the car, and the fastest "save me" prayer ever prayed.  ever. 

1 am revealed a deer in my lane, trotting about just on the periphery of my vision illuminated by my headlights.  i did the same move i practiced with the truck tire and again narrowly avoided serious injury, if not worse.

pssh-the rest of the trip was smooth as can be.  i did not need the extra coffee to stay awake and was twitching with relief when i finally arrived at 8 am and stepped into the cute little house where my grandparents have lived for almost 50 of their almost 58-year marriage.

one thing i find so great about my grandparents is how they take life- one day at a time.  every day for as long as he can remember (which is a long time) he goes outside during the summer and counts how many day lilies are in bloom that day. there were only 7 today because the patch by the house was almost done for the year but the ones by the garage are only now starting to come out.  this year is about to blow last year's total right out of the water.

somehow, knowing how close last wednesday was to being my last day to bloom makes me want to make THIS wednesday different.  3 hours of it are already gone!  3 more hours that were never promised to me.

but what WAS promised was that God already knows.  and He was there on I-40 (and the dumb deer on I-81) that night.  and He used even a stupid (stupid, STUPID) truck tire to tell me so, in no uncertain terms.  i needed the diversion- to quit focusing on what's "wrong" and instead to just see what "is."  before the "is" becomes a "was." don't miss or neglect what He gave you now, even if it looks really sucky- He gave it and wants to be with you for/with/despite it.

may you never encounter a truck tire in your lane, but may you ever live like it's RIGHT THERE.  because something, anyway, IS.

a differnt sort of vacation

i don't even know how long it's been since i've last posted, but it's been one of those...months, actually.  so this is more like me catching up on my journal writing as well as proving to my 7 followers that i have not died :P  so it might mean more to me than anyone else, but hey- nobody's making you read it!!

this is ending 4 solid weeks of pure, unadulterated craziness on the highest level i can remember.  some of it worth that title, most of it not :P

the pinnacle, however, was worth it, and a whole lot more.  i'm not sure how much more i would have gone through for it, because there's not a whole lot more that COULD have happened, but i'm putting a big ole' glittery star sticker by last week on the calendar.

VBS Week!!!

the treasure of school-aged kids in the Bible belt, the nightmare of, well, almost everyone else who's actually ever helped with the planning, coordinating, decorating, studying, organizing, advertising, UN-decorating, cleaning, teaching, or any other aspect of the multi-faceted summertime affair.

i could sign my name next to at least half of those tasks, but i loved it.  every minute.  being a transplant from the northeast, this church family has become MY family of a sort, which means Vacation Bible School is all the family vacation i get- a whole week hanging out at church with my family members doing all kinds of crazy things with one common goal- to tell people about Jesus.  seriously, how much better could it get?

this year, i was elected lead teacher for one of the two Pre-K classes.  apparently i didn't screw up too badly last year in the same position ;)  the only people who were as excited about this as i was were probably the other teachers who were glad to NOT have the pre-schoolers.  but on top of all the chaos outside of church, i was able to happily plod along with planning, remembering how great it was last year with my little band of 8 three year olds holding on to their rope going between rooms and hallways.

nobody told me my numbers were doubling this year. that part got left out.

the only reason i survived was because these were some of the best behaved 3 year olds i have ever met, so 15 of them was manageable.  they were even pretty smart.  and adorable beyond compare.  i have got to say that even during the expected Thursday Morning Emotional Breakdown (which actually struck them all on tuesday this year instead), they still listened better than i'd hoped.

for my position as lead teacher, the only part i actually had to prepare for was the bible story part.  other people took care of crafts, games and snacks.  20 minutes to tell a story, do an activity and hope like mad some of it stuck.  this year's theme was about how God has control over nature, circumstances, death, my life, and i totally forget what the 5th one was.  and because of… i don't know what, this year again the pre-schoolers had different Bible stories from the older kids.

what i DID like was that LifeWay is incorporating relevant but more obscure Bible stories in their lessons.   Noah, Jonah, and Daniel in the lion's den are great, but so are the other guys!!

but anyway, these 20 minutes was MY time with the cute little tykes.  completely surrounded on the floor by tiny faces while 2 assistant Life Savers (as i call them) ran around doing potty breaks, drying tears, hushing the back-row-ers, and offering extra laps to sit in.

i think the best thing about the whole week is that you absolutely NEVER know what on earth the youngest kids are learning, except that it's probably not what YOUR main goal was.

the first day our story was on Joshua leading the people across the Jordan after God stopped the water so His people could get back home.  then they build a huge pile of rocks so they would always remember what God did for them.  we built a huge pile of shoeboxes, each kids adding one after they said something God did (with...a whole lot of prompting) for them.  even the most rambunctious child Max, who desperately wanted to pounce on the tower refrained after i told him once, permanently securing a prime spot in my heart.

the second day we re-enacted the battle of jericho, despite the breakdown.  wednesday was about simeon and anna meeting baby Jesus at the temple.  once they got over the baby doll i was holding and making sure the pacifier stayed in its mouth (like Teacher, seriously- take care of Baby Jesus!!) i was awestruck that my impromptu idea worked- we had every kid take a turn holding the baby doll and saying their bible verse ("God loved us and sent His son Jesus.") then each kid got to hug it and pass it on.  there was this serene quiet, entirely out of place in a room with 15 pre-K-ers.  but they loved it. 

i think the funniest part of all VBS with these kids was thursday.  i was struggling because i'd just worked my 3rd night shift at the hospital for the week and was running on fumes and donuts by this point.  and our story was about Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the garden after the resurrection and how amazing it is that Jesus ROSE FROM THE STINKIN' DEAD after dying for our sins, securing our faith in this world and our eternity in the next world coming.  kinda epic, huh? 

okay, first of all, they can't even PRONOUNCE "mary magdalene." much less remember it 5 seconds later.

additionally, they have no real concept of death.  at all. they've never lost a parent or friend or anyone close to death and if they have they don't remember it or think they're sleeping. 

my assistant teacher assured me i did a great job and that they were all listening, but i could tell that they could honestly care less.  i still thought it was funny- the best, most incredible even in all history… and the significance was 100% lost on them!! 

my one wish for this week is that i am still around when the lightbulb turns on for at least one of them.  when suddenly a non-dead best friend stopping the exhausted tears of a lonely woman in the early morning garden… when that story becomes more exciting than an army marching around a city and having the walls fall down with a shout.

anyway, coming back friday, i held up the previous day's picture and got- nothing.  a quick review of each story's big color picture revealed that monday and tuesday were still the highlight and simeon, anna and mary will just have to chill.  our last story was about the Good Samaritan and how we can't give God a hug or share our toys with Him or have a cheeseburger and milkshake lunch date with Him, we can do the same things for a friend… or even better, a non-friend or stranger, and show God we love Him that way instead.

i think the most life-changing 5 seconds of those 20 minutes were immediately following when i told these wonderful, well-behaved children that some GROWN UPS actually picked up some rocks and sticks and HIT ANOTHER ADULT.  they were shocked.  i actually heard a gasp or two.  leaving him to die by the side of the road was almost too much for them to handle.  i was fighting back laughter at the impact this story was having on their minds (especially post resurrection-storytime).  i got such a kick we all told the story AGAIN to 3 kids who missed it due to an emergency potty break.  they couldn't possibly believe that 2 men would walk on past, but were all relieved when Mr. Good Samaritan came by and put some "special band-aids" on his "ouchies" (or "boo-boos").  which led to all of them showing off the cuts, scrapes, and bruises that covered their ankles, legs, arms and faces. 

but they ALL know that God stopped the water so His people could get back home.  and Jaelyn always remembers the part about building a tower to remember what God has done.

i'm positive i'm the only one who missed VBS so much last week, after i slept for an entire weekend to recover.  i still have a couple songs going through my head, but i'm okay with that.  they will tide me over until AWANA starts again :)

so there was absolutely no rest (like, literally) for me that whole week physically, but in every other way i was refreshed- hopefully enough until next year!!