Going Deep
In my first or second year of homeschooling, I kept getting invited to the homes of other home-educating moms to hear a local fellow home-educating mom, who clearly and desperately wanted to be the next Beth Moore, expound on her theology. I only went to hear her a couple of times, as it didn't take long to figure out that she and I had subtle but HUGELY IMPORTANT differences in our ideas about Who God Is and What He Wants From Us. She spoke from a God-Has-These-Rules-For-Your-Life-And-You'd-Better-Follow-Em viewpoint, a viewpoint from which I'm recently liberated and to which I have no desire to return.
But lest you think I am condemning her, I am not. I am judging her, in the sense of weighing what she had to say and finding that I didn't agree with much of it. But not condemning. In fact, she said something at one of those talks that has stuck with me over the last 3 or 4 years and for which I have always been grateful. It was one of those rare moments you look back on and realize that God is saying something He really wants you to pay attention to. It was, simply, "Go deep."
At the time, DH had quit a miserable job (with my blessing, FWIW), and we were living very carefully and frugally, waiting for the next thing to come along. It was a place we'd been in before, a valuable and necessary place where faith really stretches and gets limbered up, but a place you hope to escape as quickly as you can. So I was feeling - well, not quite deprived, as all our basic needs were met and we were all very happy to have Daddy back from the clutches of Evil Corporate America - but hemmed in. Limited. I had to count every penny. I had to tell my kids, and myself, "No," a lot. We cut back not only on things, but on activities, and I was feeling bereft of good experiences.
So it was into this soil that the little thought, "Go deep," dropped. I think the teacher was talking about how discouraged she was about not reaching a wider audience with her teaching, and God encouraged her by saying, "You don't need to go wide right now. You need to go deep." Well, He also encouraged me with that thought, in a different direction.
I started seeing our limitations differently after that. I realized that if I had unlimited resources, I would get myself and my kids involved in lots and lots of different activities, but it would be difficult for us to develop meaningful relationships with other people if we were always flitting around from place to place, never available to accept a spontaneous invitation to come and play, never home to be able to offer one. I was reminded that reading and writing and thinking didn't cost me a dime.
Lately this little thought has been trying to push up through the crust of my current affluence and bloom again. DH is gainfully, and better, employed, and the current boundaries seem limitless to me. We spent the first 3 weeks of this summer shuttling off to sports camps and science workshops and church events. But our little camping trip pulled me up short. Now that we're back home, I'm feeling the need to settle down a bit, roast a few marshmallows, play a few card games with the kids, maybe read aloud. Memorize some Scripture. Write in my journal. Slow down. Go deep.
But lest you think I am condemning her, I am not. I am judging her, in the sense of weighing what she had to say and finding that I didn't agree with much of it. But not condemning. In fact, she said something at one of those talks that has stuck with me over the last 3 or 4 years and for which I have always been grateful. It was one of those rare moments you look back on and realize that God is saying something He really wants you to pay attention to. It was, simply, "Go deep."
At the time, DH had quit a miserable job (with my blessing, FWIW), and we were living very carefully and frugally, waiting for the next thing to come along. It was a place we'd been in before, a valuable and necessary place where faith really stretches and gets limbered up, but a place you hope to escape as quickly as you can. So I was feeling - well, not quite deprived, as all our basic needs were met and we were all very happy to have Daddy back from the clutches of Evil Corporate America - but hemmed in. Limited. I had to count every penny. I had to tell my kids, and myself, "No," a lot. We cut back not only on things, but on activities, and I was feeling bereft of good experiences.
So it was into this soil that the little thought, "Go deep," dropped. I think the teacher was talking about how discouraged she was about not reaching a wider audience with her teaching, and God encouraged her by saying, "You don't need to go wide right now. You need to go deep." Well, He also encouraged me with that thought, in a different direction.
I started seeing our limitations differently after that. I realized that if I had unlimited resources, I would get myself and my kids involved in lots and lots of different activities, but it would be difficult for us to develop meaningful relationships with other people if we were always flitting around from place to place, never available to accept a spontaneous invitation to come and play, never home to be able to offer one. I was reminded that reading and writing and thinking didn't cost me a dime.
Lately this little thought has been trying to push up through the crust of my current affluence and bloom again. DH is gainfully, and better, employed, and the current boundaries seem limitless to me. We spent the first 3 weeks of this summer shuttling off to sports camps and science workshops and church events. But our little camping trip pulled me up short. Now that we're back home, I'm feeling the need to settle down a bit, roast a few marshmallows, play a few card games with the kids, maybe read aloud. Memorize some Scripture. Write in my journal. Slow down. Go deep.
posted by Mamabird @ 6:27 AM
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