pocket reminders: brave things

a lengthy excerpt from Ann Voskamp's 7/1/15 blogpost "dear You: a handful of brave things to keep in your pocket for hard days in a hard world"  that is worthy of sharing (and remembering!) ... And yeah, I know, I know — this is the point. The whole point of welcoming kids into your life is to wave good-bye to adults embarking out on their own lives.  So...this is the thing… maybe everything boils down to a handful of things?  I can’t pack your bags anymore — you’re all too grown up for that…. but maybe in a deafening world, I can hand you handful of Brave and Beautiful Things for your every day? Straight off the top, can I just quietly say — no one needs to go around with that parental policing voice in your head — you know? The parent, superego voice that  lives in your head: You always get things wrong… You are always behind and I can’t believe you didn’t get this right and how did you blow it again?! Parents aren’t supposed to be the loud police voice in your head — but the gentle pastor at your side. It’s always there — if you always listen for that quiet, gentle voice of Grace on the inside: You can do this thing — because you were made to do hard and holy things. You are always enough — because You have Jesus and He is always enough. You don’t have to get it perfect — you just have to get back up and keep going. So maybe yeah, think of all this as a gentle note to tuck in your back pocket —  and that this getting up every day and listening for His Voice, that’s Number One of the handful of brave and beautiful things for your every day: Number One: Fall in love with the One who is The Way — and the way you’re supposed to go will follow…. as you follow Him. You’ve got to want to be one with Him — more than you want to be a Someone. You’ve got to want to serve more than you want to be seen, you’ve got to care more than you want to be comfortable, you’ve got to want to give more than you want to get. You’ve got to want His approval more than all the other things that will prove to be worthless. Promise yourself you’ll remember this because you will need this most: You can always have as much as God as you want. Number Two: Taste the grittiness of work — or you won’t ever taste success. Every day you can get up and get scared — or you can get up and get yourself ready. Nothing erases stress quite like preparation. Bury all your nagging fears in your faithful work — or your fears will bury you in nagging doubts. Promise yourself you’ll remember this because it will effect your joy: Be entirely engaged in the process of your work, and be entirely disengaged in outcome of your work. You can’t determine outcome — but you can determine to come and put in everything you have. Let your joy always be in doing the work — not in the outcome of the work.The journey not only matters more than the destination — the journey actually becomes the destination. Success is always showing up and bending down. Full stop. Number Three: Don’t love your present self more than you love your future self. Give your future self the present of being loved more than your present self. That means: Make your present self a gift to your future self. Trust me —this is what really want — more than what you think you want. Love your future self — more than your present self. This is one of the best gifts you can give yourself. That means: Do hard things in the short run — to give yourself holy and happy things in the long run. Though everywhere tells you the point of living is to avoid suffering — please: Always embrace the struggle: You know there’s no way around pain — there’s always either the pain of disappointment or the pain of discipline. And don’t ever, ever, ever be concerned with failing — only be concerned about failing to keep on going. Number 4: Be a Giver. Get up every day and just do that: Volunteer to be a Giver. Never stop looking for a way to be the Giver. The world’s going around with a big sign: Wanted: GIVERS. (Sorry — The world already has enough takers.) Be a Giver — and you will get the most. People may forget what you did or didn’t do — but they won’t forget how you made them feel. Hearts have the longest memories. This is what makes you love people people and love life and never be intimidated in any setting: Lean in and make eye contact and simply listen to hearts.  Listening is a revolutionary act of liberation — it will liberate you from the prison of your prejudices and free you to love large.  And? Always speak through your heart — not through your expectations or your frustrations or your provocations or even your lips. Always let every word you speak come through your heart. Because the bottom line is: It doesn’t matter if you have some big title — what matters is that you have a big heart. A big heart will trump a big title every time. Number 5: Watch your fingers so your heart can care.   Maybe the most important part of your body to control is your index finger — because it’s most like the devil:  It most wants to point and prosecute. At all costs — don’t be a finger pointer… and avoid joining packs of finger-pointers — who point and blame peers and parents and circumstances and society and somebody else. The world doesn’t need any more finger-pointers. It needs more people to honestly point out their own sins — and humbly point up to everyone’s Savior. The world doesn’t need more loud people who think they have it all right — it needs more people compassionate people to sit down and listen long enough to quietly realize they had some of it wrong. The world needs people whose sacrificial giving is loudest and largest thing about them.  People who quietly weep with the wounded and listen to the hurting and generously serve the Other — because that’s what it means to genuinely love one another: not to love people just like you, but to Love the Other.  The Givers and the Listeners and the Lovers — we can be part of His beautiful healing of the world….  So when you get to the end of the day, when you get down far down that road your on, when you get to wondering what it’s all about that — I don’t know, maybe it’s just this handful of 5 Brave and Beautiful Things I wanted to tuck in your back pocket in a world that’s hurting everywhere? And maybe I just wanted to look you long in the eyes and memorize this in the midst of everything: Trust that Grace will always meet you. Believe that when God made the universe, that He breathed Grace as the air of the universe. When you believe that the earth’s atmosphere is actually Grace: You aren’t afraid of people or asking questions or risking big or laughing loud or believing the best or believing in beauty or loving across fences or walking up to people and taking off your mask and making every step you take into a leap of faith. Please, always:  Believe that Grace will always, always, always meet you. Because Grace has a name. And He always meets you. In everything, through everything, in spite of anything. Grace has a name — and He always, always meets you. So go on, keep going on, Braveheart — you are loved more than you know, liked more than you can imagine, and are stronger than you dreamed….  so: Give love. And live large — And love larger. You can’t even begin to imagine how there’s always amazing grace up ahead.

W in Print

Look who made it onto page 3 of Blue Ridge Bicycle Club's July newsletter. 

End of 3rd Grade

Thompson wrapped up a fabulous third grade year at INVEST COLLEGIATE Imagine this afternoon.  We do not have enough great things to say about ICI in its inaugural year...stellar Collegiate Leaders (aka teachers), fabulous learning environment, creative programs and projects, leadership in action, and the list goes on!  As the school year drew to a close, Thompson was honored with both the 3rd grade Math award and 3rd Grade Spanish award.  Proud of you T!

Thompson with Mrs. Wellman,

his homeroom, math and science Collegiate Leader

Thompson receiving an award from Mrs. Torgerson,

his language arts and social studies Collegiate Leader

Father's Day

We spent Father's Day weekend in Cashiers with Poppy, Annie and Allison (sending our wishes to Papere and Mamere in Greensboro).  To celebrate the occassion, the boys got in a few holes at the golf course both Saturday and Sunday afternoon.  Of course, one event that will be told and retold for years to come (and probably embellished along the way) is Bobby saving me from the "spider" in the wee-hours of Sunday morning.  Thank you love!

The boys before their Sunday golf outing.

Porch time with Annie at High Hampton

Enka Youth Tri

Friday evening, both boys participated in a local youth triathlon.  They had first participated in this event two years ago.  (The organizers took a hiatus last year.)  William completed a 50-meter swim, 1 mile bike ride and 1/3-mile run.  He crossed the finish line running as fast as he could with a smile on his face.  Afterwards, he told us "running is not my strong suit, biking is my favorite".  As for Thompson, he competed in the Intermediate/Elite division (100-meter swim, 2 mile bike, 1 mile run)...and achieved his goal of a 1st place finish.

Family is a Verb

I don't think I could ever describe "family" as well as Ann Voskamp has done.  Below are excerpts from her 6/16/15 blogpost "when family breaks your heart".  Thank you Ann.  We family. ...Look, I’ve got no clue about why somewhere along the way we forgot that family is worth investing in more than college or retirement funds, no clue why climbing ladders to get ahead of each other became more important than laying down our lives to love each other ... No clue why we’re all expected to be captivated with loud things when the heart beat of the really beautiful things are often found in the stillness and quiet — but hey, listen…. who’s got any clue about what ultimately matters before time runs out here?... Put one foot in front of the other and you can put any mountain behind you.  After a whole lot of one steps in front of the other, day after day, you can turn around and see: Every day that you do the hard things that you don’t want to do — you’re building the family you always wanted to have.  That’s the secret no one ever told me… that changes the essence of everything. ... Parents give, and give, and give more, and still give more than they ever dreamed — and end up getting back more than they ever dreamed.  That’s what family means: People love you & keep on holding on to you especially when you’re not loveable. ... One of the most destructive attitudes in society today is that family is a noun … and not a verb.  Family is a verb. Family is an action.  And we aren’t merely born into families, families are born out of our reaching out and holding on and serving anyways and giving always.  Giving always.  It’s not only the blood in our veins that make us family — it’s the blood and sacrifice in our days that makes us a family. ... My closest kin is my husband — and we don’t share a drop of blood — but we share our souls… by breaking off bits of ourselves and sacrificially giving to each other.  Our sharing and giving and serving has been the making of a family. Mother and Father may grammatically be nouns — but theologically they are verbs. We mother and father and parent, we become by what we do, sit down with the kids to read stories instead of scrolling through Facebook updates, hang out the laundry instead of hang out at resorts, clean out the fridge, bite our tongues and bite the bullet and go the extra mile and we become, playing ball in our bare feet on the lawn with the kids till the sun sinks down. Family is a verb. Family is not just what we are, it’s something that we actively keep on making. With every phone call…with every trip to the grocery store and filling up the minivan with gas, with every filling up of the washing machine, with every putting the other ahead of you, so that you can put regrets behind you. Every time we make time for each other, we make family. ... Forget how hard 10 years of family-ing can be, forget how hard the next 10 years will be and just keep the whole thing simple:  Parenting isn’t overwhelming when we simply understand how to serve in this minute. ... Nothing trumps the love of us. Nothing at all comes close to us all being close.  Nothing means quite what it means to family. To family: a verb.  I want to cup all the kids’ faces, look into their eyes, look into the soul of the whole next generation and say it so they get it: Never buy the lie that it matters how you’re ranked in the eyes of the world—- when what ultimately matters is how you are ranked in the hearts of your people…. and the eyes of God. ... “Why don’t they teach you that at school? Instead of trying to achieve some position, what ultimately matters is the affection of your people.” Life’s not about trying to achieve some position,  it’s about the affection of your people. People over position; affection over achievement. When people restore the truth that family means putting other’s needs before ourselves —  then maybe something truly great in this country would be restored. ... When we do hard things for each other every day, we build the family we’ve been dreaming of for years.  With every action that we take and make our life say: I love you. Love is only real when given and shared. Love breaks and gives away your heart. Every time.  Love keeps the front porch light on and the socks matched and the side door always unlocked and waiting and the mudroom cleared of stray shoes and dinner in the oven — for decades. Because: Love never fails when it’s a verb that keeps acting and doing and giving.  We family each other. And family-ing makes the cake year after year and calls everybody to gather in closer and lights the candles because right here and now is a hallowed sanctuary. This is the grammar of love. This is how we family.  Family is a verb.

LBTT - Etowah

Thompson participated in his first official time trial race last night.  He joined Team Training Wheels members Bobby, Herb, Wes and Jason in Etowah for a flat {fairly} out-and-back 20K route.  He completed the 12.4 miles in 45:30, averaging 16.35 miles/hour.