Archive for the ‘My Life in the Kingdom’ Category

11 Nov

Title 1, High Priority

Posted by kingdomcivics in My Life in the Kingdom.

When we were first house hunting in Nashville, the area we were looking at was zoned for a really great public school with a sterling reputation and sky high test scores.  I was excited because it seemed like, as good as Luke’s school in South Carolina was, this one was going to be significantly better.  Thus, when my husband called to tell me that he had found the perfect house in that area, I was ecstatic.  There was just one catch:

“It’s zoned for a different school.”  

He had spent the past five minutes gushing about the house, so I was not initially alarmed.  I was already on a real estate site on the computer looking at the house, and I asked him what the name of the school was, so I could look it up.

The first statistic I saw made the blood rush from my head:  “99% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.”  There was kind of a roaring sound behind my ears when I read that.  I also saw the statistic that said that my child would be very much in the ethnic minority, but I was more hung up on the first one.

Greg told me I was a racist.

“Classist,” I corrected.  “I’m a classist.”

This was another “rubber meeting the road” moment for me.  I like poor people, and I want to help them.  But to send my child to their school, which I could only imagine had the host of societal problems that I had come to see were associated with poverty?  Yeeesh.

Then I looked at the test scores.  Double yeesh.  They were not good.

Greg, who was still in Nashville, said that he would suspend judgment until he toured the school.  I, on the other hand, immediately began researching “school choice” in Nashville.  Turns out that they do have a school choice option…if  your school is a “Title 1, High Priority school.”  I looked it up.

My child’s potential school was a Title 1, High Priority school.

Even the city of Nashville recognized that I would not want to send my child to that school if I could help it.

The next day, Greg toured the school and was actually pretty impressed.  He talked with the volunteer coordinator and with the principal, who was new and very enthusiastic.  He saw the big map on the wall that highlighted all 27 countries from which these students came (like, they were born in those countries).  He saw the well-behaved students sitting “criss-cross applesauce” on the floor while the teacher read to them.  His report was heartening, but to say that I was still hesitant would be an understatement.

Now, you might be wondering my son’s education situation would be featured on a blog about Kingdom Civics.  I really do believe that every part of our life should be lived to the glory of God.  And I know that God probably doesn’t care whether I have pancakes or waffles for breakfast, but I think that something as big as the education of my child would fall into His purview.  I think He cares about those kind of decisions, and while there may not be an objective right and wrong in every case, I believe that the reason we make such decisions does matter to God.

I also know that many Christians believe that our number one goal as Christian parents is to protect our children from the world.  I understand that belief, I respect it, and I even agree with it…to a degree.  I also believe, however, that as Christians, we should not make decisions out of fear, and that we have an equally important goal to teach our children how to interact with the world around them so that they will be equipped to reflect God’s glory to their culture in a way that their culture understands.  That is my personal understanding of “IN the world, but not OF the world.”  As such, I am a strong advocate of public schools.  I think that Christian families need to be participating in the public school system, especially in the early grades, and that it provides maybe the best way for Christians to get involved with their local community, their “neighbors.”

You can agree or disagree with that assessment.  What is relevant at this time is that those words represent my firm conviction, and that Luke’s school situation was testing it.  Far from making a fearless decision, I was actually quite terrified of sending my child to that school.  I’m not justifying the assumptions behind that terror; I’m just being honest.  And though in theory, I want my kids to be well-versed in other cultures, the idea of my son being the only white kid in the class was boundary-stretching for a mom who has spent all her years comfortably in the majority.  Again, it is a great idea in theory, but when it comes to your child, your child…well, let’s just say, the theory gets tested.

When we got to Nashville, we toured a couple of the schools with the higher test scores and then headed down to the Board of Education to explore our school choice options.  Turns out, that was a total bust.  The “choice” we were given was for two schools that seemed no better than our own, and were further away!  So our real choice turned out to be between “our” school and scrimping to make our private school option work.

Greg and I talked about it, and we both agreed that if we had no safety concerns about the school, then we should at least give it a shot to see if it would meet Luke’s educational needs.  One reason the test scores were so low is that they had to teach many of the children English, so they were already starting behind.  If, however, they could find a way to also challenge students like Luke, who not only knows English, but also knows how to read, then we would continue sending him there, as long as he didn’t have any huge social problems.  We figure that since the children are given standardized tests at the end of every year, we could see if Luke was falling behind, compared to other schools in Tennessee.

We toured the school.  It looked very much like my own elementary school, right down to the antiquated lunchroom.  There was definitely a melting pot of children there, and Greg even saw a girl wearing a hijab that lit up like those light-up shoes.  We both laughed at what seemed like a clear influence of American culture on foreign traditions, for better or worse.  We saw whole classes of “newcomers,” who spoke no English, and learned about the distinctions between the Kurds.  The principal gave us a tour and candidly answered all my very frank and decidedly politically incorrect questions.  It’s funny how you don’t worry about being “pc” when the best interest of your child is involved!  She was open and honest, and we really liked her.  Later, I took Luke back to see it, and the secretary took us around.  Her daughter had attended a similar public elementary school with great success and was now attending high school at the same private school we were thinking of for our children.  She was great to talk to, and I asked her lots of questions, too, including things like, “Would you send your child to this school?”  Without hesitation, she said, “Without a doubt.”  Both she and the principal marveled at how little discipline problems they had, especially when compared to the other schools where they had worked.

So this was the bottom line:  Luke liked the school and the kindergarten classrooms.  The school seemed safe.  The children in it seemed happy and well-behaved.  There were no red flags that suggested that their method of educating children was inherently faulty.

We had a choice to make.

What would you do?  Would you send your kindergartner to that school?  What if you had the same beliefs about public school that I do?

10 Nov

God on the Job

Posted by kingdomcivics in My Life in the Kingdom.

In January, I am going to teach a couple of classes at my alma mater.  Because it is a faith-based university, I had to write a statement explaining how I was going to incorporate my faith into the classroom setting.  I had been prepped beforehand that the wrong answer was to talk about starting class with a prayer or a Bible reading.  I’m teaching English, not a Bible class, and they were looking for something a little more subtle.

It was honestly a little bit of a stumper:  

How do I subtly integrate my faith into teaching English?

Basically, I concluded that since my whole life was to be lived to the glory of God, teaching English fell into that category.  I determined that I would try my best to imitate Christ in my personal interactions with the students.  I would treat them with love and compassion, recognizing that as college students, they are at a very vulnerable time in their lives.  Many of them have been displaced from their homes and everything they know, and are in a completely new place, where perhaps the only adults they know are their professors.  I will be mindful of that and try to support them personally as they navigate their brand new existences as college students.

Furthermore, as a Comp teacher, one of my main objectives is to teach critical thinking skills, which I believe are absolutely vital, both to a student’s personal development, and to the future of the church.  As Christians, we are called to interact with the world around us in a way that it can understand.  We need to know how do deal with different perspectives and different worldviews, and we can not effectively do that if we have not seriously examined our own worldview.  I have found that many students lack the critical thinking apparatus that allows them to do that; thus, one of my main jobs as an English teacher is to equip students to effectively engage with the “texts” around them, be they on paper, on the television, or coming from a pulpit.  The critical thinking skills they develop in Freshman English can serve not only to strengthen their own faith, but also to help them share that faith with the world.

That’s sort of the gist of what I wrote.  Maybe it was lame.  

But honestly, it’s harder than it looks.  Try it!  If someone were to interview you and ask how you integrated your faith into your job, what would you say?

9 Nov

My First Trip to the Hippie Stores!

Posted by kingdomcivics in Acting Justly, My Life in the Kingdom.

One thing that made me excited about moving to the Nashville was that they had organic-y stores in a decent driving distance from my house.  It’s odd that having a Trader Joe’s and a Whole Foods nearby would make me excited b/c I’m really not that into buying organic.  However, I have recently been convicted about buying chocolate after reading this blog, and I have decided to buy start trying to buy fair trade chocolate.  I know, I know, it sounds crazy, especially for a penny pinching, coupon clipper like myself, but I just have this thing about child slavery.  I just don’t like it.  Like, at all?   And hearing about the child slavery used by the major chocolate brands kind of led to a little crisis of conscience.  I know that there is so much I don’t know about the chocolate industry, and so many systemic problems involved that I don’t know how to fix.  I know that one person buying fair trade chocolate doesn’t make any kind of difference.

But here’s what it came down to for me:

The whole purpose of my life is to bring God glory.

God loves children.  (And all people, but it is clear that children have a special place in his heart, both because of their vulnerability and because of their trusting nature.)

I also love children.

I will answer to God one day for all of my choices.

So…if I knew beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a high probability that the chocolate I purchased was made in part by children who were forced into slavery…

…and I knew that there were alternative brands of chocolate that cost a few dollars more, but were not made using child slaves…

…and I still bought the slavery chocolate to save a few bucks…

…could I answer to God for that?

The answer I came to was no.  I tried to mentally weasel around it in a thousand different ways, but my conscience would not play ball.  To knowingly buy the slavery chocolate was simply unjustifiable in my mind, and I would fully expect God to hold me accountable for my willful selfishness.  Like I said, I love children, and the thought of one of them being hurt because of my casual purchase of a (let’s face it) luxury item was just unconscionable.

So that’s how I found myself in Trader Joe’s for the first time on this rainy Tuesday.

I walked in and wandered around aimlessly for a minute or two, honestly a little overwhelmed, before I ran into a sales rep.  Of course, I could not think of how to say what I was wanting, and it came out like this:

“Excuse me, I’m looking for the…you know, the…the non-child-slavery chocolate?”

Nice.

She blinked, but didn’t miss a beat:  “You mean the fair trade chocolate?”

Yep, that’s what I mean.

I was mainly looking for chocolate chips, and I told her that.  Surprisingly, she said that she wasn’t sure if they had any, and went to ask a manager.  A few minutes later, she came back with the news that they had NO FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE.  What???  It’s Trader Joe’s!!!  Man, I thought, if Trader Joe’s is not with me, then how hippie am I?

They also don’t have sales.  Did you know that?  Nothing ever goes on sale at Trader Joe’s.  What kind of place is that?  As someone who literally plans her family’s whole menu around the weekly grocery ad, that just made my heart hurt.

Thankfully, they did have a good selection of fair trade coffee, which I was also looking into, and she told me that the nearby Whole Foods would most certainly have the chocolate.

On the way out, I did find some crunchy green beans and tried them out:

I was actually looking for something more like these

Snapea

which my neighbor, Molly, had at her house.  They were uhhh-mazing.  The green beans weren’t as great (too green-beany, if you can imagine), but they were an okay substitute.

Next it was off to Whole Foods.  They did have one brand of fair trade chocolate chips, but it was quite small and cost *sniff* $5.69.  They had all these other brands of chocolate chips, including the Whole Foods brand, which were cheaper.  Were they seriously not fair trade?  I was beginning to think that I really had these stores on too high of a pedestal.  I found a worker and asked him about it.  Together, we scoured all the bags for some sort of indication that they were fair trade.  The big mystery was the Whole Foods brand.  I mean, I just couldn’t imagine Whole Foods using slavery chocolate, not necessarily b/c of innate morals, but b/c of their clientele.  Aren’t they supposed to be super ethical and conscientious?

It’s sad, considering the magnitude of the evil involved in child slavery, but I really did not want to pay $5.69 for a tiny bag of chocolate chips.  This was where the rubber met the road for me.  It’s one thing to think, “Oh, I love the children!  I want to be like Jesus!  I want to stand up against slavery!”  It’s another thing when you are actually standing in the store holding the outrageously priced bag of, like, seven chocolate chips while living on a youth minister’s salary.  Especially when the Ghiradelli’s brand is on sale for *sob* $2.79.  Get behind me, Satan!

I told the guy my qualms and concluded with, “I mean, if this is all you have, I’ll buy it for the good of humanity, but is there any way I can find out if the Whole Foods brand is fair trade?”  He had already talked to a couple managers and came back with nothing.  But he said, “You know?  I really want to know, too.  Let’s look it up.”  He went to the computer and searched the Whole Foods website.  While he couldn’t find anything definitive, he did print out their brand’s official commitment to ethical standards and such.  It was comforting, but if I’m going to pay extra for chocolate chips, I really want to be certain.  Before I left, though, he asked if he could see one of my fair trade bags.  He used a marker to “x” through the bar code and said,

“I’m going to sample this one out to you.  You can just have it.  You know, for the good of humanity.”

That was so nice, and it made my purchase a lot easier…because I also had (yes, had) to have some fair trade cocoa mix, and, shockingly, it was not super cheap, either.

As I drove home, I pondered my emotions, especially the fact that I was feeling a little guilt at spending so much for chocolate chips and cocoa mix.  Yes, I know they are luxury items, but right now, they are not something we are willing to give up.  Plus, one of the benefits of Nashville is the superior grocery situation:  better coupons, better dairy prices, and the presence of Kroger stores.  I figure that if I double down on my couponing efforts, I can make up the difference in price between the fair trade chocolate and coffee.  And even if I can’t, I see this new purchasing move as one tiny step closer to living fully in God’s kingdom.  I want His kingdom to come, His will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  And surely it isn’t His will that other children suffer so that my children can have chocolate chip cookies.  Surely taking the time and money to buy fair trade advances His Kingdom and His will on earth, even if in the tiniest bit.

What do you think?  Am I crazy?  Do you make any purchasing decisions for moral reasons?  

4 Nov

Juuusssst Like Jesus

Posted by kingdomcivics in My Life in the Kingdom.

I think we heard it on the John Boy and Billy show.

It was back in high school, and I was driving to school with my brother while listening to our favorite redneck radio show.  One day, they started making fun of some human efforts to walk on water.  Apparently, there was some kind of tourist attraction somewhere, where a bridge was submerged just under water, so that people could walk across it and feel like they were walking on water, “just like Jesus.”

John Boy and Billy had a good time with that idea, laughing and repeating sarcastically, “Yeah, just like Jesus!”  My brother and I got a kick out of it, and from then on, whenever we heard of someone doing something ludicrous in the name of Christ, we would look at each other and laugh, “just like Jesus!”

That picture of someone walking on a bridge and pretending they are walking on water makes a good object lesson for a lot of reasons.  For one, I think it could be used to provide a vivid contrast between surface imitation and the inner transformation that God desires in us.  But right now, what strikes me is the ridiculousness of trying to imitate Jesus in ways that you simply cannot.

Listening to the John Boy and Billy show was one thing I did back in high school.  Another thing I did was wear a WWJD bracelet.  I thought that trend was great, and I loved the idea of asking myself, “What would Jesus do?” and using it as a guide to life.  I soon realized, though, that as much as I loved the idea in theory, it often fell flat in practice.  For example, if I was getting dressed and wondering if my shirt was modest enough, I couldn’t find much help from “WWJD.”  I doubt Jesus ever wondered if His shirt was modest enough.  He wasn’t a girl.  And there were several other issues and decisions I made that I seriously doubt would have interested a Galilean carpenter in the least.

The thing is, I wasn’t Jesus.  I wasn’t going to walk on water, or clear the Temple, or heal people, or go around teaching as a lifestyle.  And so, if I was going to live the way Christ wanted me to live, I was going to need a little more than an interesting thought experiment in which I mentally replaced myself with a 2,000 year old Jewish man and acted accordingly.  I needed a larger framework, a larger code of ethics around which to order my life.

That’s one of the (many) reasons I have fallen in love with the idea of the kingdom of God.  I have read the New Testament several times in the last few years, and the kingdom of God is the one idea that has jumped out at me over and over again.  Jesus’ teachings about the kingdom of God provide the paradigm that can center one’s whole life, every moment, around God’s will.  It gives me a whole new way of looking at the world, one that is radically different, from both the prevailing culture and my own selfish practicality.

In the next few days, I am going to explore the idea of the kingdom of God in a series of posts called, “Citizenship 101,” which will hopefully become the backbone of this blog.  Although Jesus talks about it a lot, there is much debate about what it is and how fully it is present in this world.  In fact, despite the fact that I have studied the idea of the kingdom for a few years now, I myself am often torn in my opinions, and I welcome lots of feedback and differing ideas.  I would love to hear from some of my sisters and brothers, to see what they think of this radical, often controversial kingdom that Jesus spends so much time talking about.

30 Oct

Learning The Most Excellent Way

Posted by kingdomcivics in Bible, My Life in the Kingdom.

Yesterday was moving day.

Last night, after a long day of hauling furniture, every muscle in my body was sore, aching from 27 too many trips up and down the stairs and from stubbornly carrying things twice as heavy as my back would have liked. It was an exhausting end to an exhausting week of packing.

While my body silently cheered contact with a soft bed, my mind, in contrast, was spinning with all the beautiful lessons it had learned in one short week. And as my body quickly shut down, my mind struggled to process the thoughts that swirled around in it, until it, too, finally fell silent under the weight of slumber. Before it surrendered to sleep, though, my brain spit out one last attempt at making sense of my recent days:

“I have seen the most excellent way.”

As a Christian, I tend to value the gifts of teaching and preaching. I just love the way that people can use words to convey deep truths of God, the way a well-delivered lesson or a well-written book can illuminate your mind and elevate your thoughts to greater heights. There have been a few times lately that as I read a great book about God’s Kingdom, my heart was literally racing, and I can almost felt my mind actually expand as I read. It is so exciting to have people use words to convey such wonderful and life-changing truths as the ones I have read and heard in these last few years.

And the Bible talks about how teaching and preaching are great gifts, ones to be desired. Paul lists wisdom and knowledge, the keys to great teaching, among other wonderful abilities, in 1 Corinthians 12, when he talks about how the church is one body with many parts. However, he concludes his discussion with the interesting line, “But eagerly desire the greater gifts.” That line, of course, begs the question, “Which ones are the greater gifts?” Thankfully, Paul provides the answer quickly, declaring,

“And now, I will show you the most excellent way.”

What follows is a systematic devaluing of every other gift—tongues, knowledge, faith, generosity, courage—in comparison to the greatest gift, which is love. Without love, all those other gifts are absolutely worthless. We are nothing with them, and we gain nothing from them. This week, I saw that greatest gift over and over in my brothers and sisters.

I saw it in the meals that were voluntarily made for my family.

I saw it in the childcare that was graciously provided several times by others.

I saw it in the hospitality that was offered to my family to come share a meal or even to stay at another’s house while mine stood empty.

I saw it in the immense physical effort that was expended to move each and every piece of heavy furniture out of my house and into a van.

One way I especially saw it was through two families who, due to economic hardship and unfortunate circumstances, have had to move several times. Their repeated displacement has bred in them certain skills, such as expertly packing boxes and loading trucks. Even more, their hardship has bred in them compassion for others who are going through the same situation. I personally hate to move, and after I move, I never want to see another box again. These people feel the same way, but instead of running from the inconvenience of moving, they use their experiences to help others. At different times, both of these families have run the moving ministry at my church. Last week, the wife of one of those families, herself having recently moved, repeatedly dropped by to drop off boxes, called to offer her services at packing, and came by on Saturday, not only to help load, but also to help clean the house afterward. The second family was also there on Saturday, spending hours of the husband’s day off carefully and meticulously loading our oversized moving van.

As I watched those two families work so hard and with such dedication, I was amazed at how they had taken pain and hardship and channeled it into love and service. Unfortunate things had happened in their lives, and through the love of God, they had transformed their obstacles into blessings for others.

That is the most excellent way!

And more than any book I have read recently, the simple selfless actions of my brothers and sisters this week illuminated my mind and elevated my thoughts to greater heights. They conveyed wonderful and life-changing truths to me, in a deep, tangible way, truths like

God loves you.

And,

You don’t have to do this on your own.

This week, God’s love was tangible. It tasted like warm broccoli and cheese soup and homemade bread. It sounded like peaceful quiet while boxes were being packed, like silence unbroken by bored and neglected children. It looked like the sweat running down the faces of men who gave up their Saturday to move load after load of furniture. It smelled like clean bathrooms and baseboards. And it felt like a soft bed to fall into after a long, hard day.

Sometimes I read the words of Jesus, and my mind bends and struggles to figure out exactly what they mean. In fact, I was going to address those feelings in the post I was supposed to write today. I will probably still talk about them soon, but yesterday, I was reminded that following the radical way of Jesus doesn’t have to be that complicated. It can be as simple as bringing two carafes of coffee and a couple boxes of donuts to a tired moving crew, as an elderly gentleman (and founding member) from my church did yesterday.

Also, as much as I love great books and speeches, I realized yet again that you don’t have to be a theologian or a scholar to communicate great depths of truth to people. Simple, selfless love trumps all the trappings of intellect and reason.

This week, I was blessed abundantly by people who showed love to my family. Their sacrifices brought me joy and peace, and overwhelmed me with gratitude. Even more, they taught me wonderful lessons about God, lessons that transcend mere words.

They showed me the most excellent way, the way that I long to pursue myself.

29 Oct

“I’ve Been Quiet”

Posted by kingdomcivics in My Life in the Kingdom.

Sometimes I get embarrassed by how loud my kids are in church, especially with my husband being in ministry. There are a couple of larger families who go to my church who have kids who behave perfectly. They sit upright in the pews so quietly, and actually appear to be paying attention. In contrast, my kids aren’t horrible, but there is a lot of rustling and coloring of papers, jostling for position, and forgetting how to whisper that goes on in our pew.

A couple of Sundays ago, Anna decided to be different. Instead of the usual squirm fest, she perched quietly and attentively in my lap during the first part of service. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. When the Lord’s Supper came around, however, Anna reached expectantly for a wafer while telling us by way of explanation,

“I’ve been quiet.”

Our concentration on the communion experience was temporarily shot as Greg and I pulled her arm back, while trying not to crack up. We quickly and softly tried to explain to her why being quiet did not give her a pass to take the Lord’s Supper with us. I had to chuckle inside as I thought about my three-year-old’s analysis of communion. Apparently, we have not sufficiently conveyed to her the idea that the Lord’s Supper is for Christians, and so based on her observations, she determined that the ones who took communion were the ones who could be still during the worship, who could stay quiet.

There was something profound about that conclusion to me.

We may not be as naive as my toddler, but I do think that somewhere along the line, many of us got the message that the true Christians are the ones who follow the rules, who stay in line, who know how to be quiet and obey.

Which made sense, it really did. Until I really started reading the Bible.

And I saw that Jesus didn’t follow the rules. In fact, Jesus often seemed to despise the rules, all the do’s and don’ts of religion. He seemed to think they kept people from God, not brought them to Him. And while upholding the value of the Law, He also cut to the heart of it when He summed it up as love God and love others. In the Sermon on the Mount, He even outlined what that love looked like, and the picture He paints is mind-blowing. In it’s deeply radical nature, it basically demonstrates the utter futility of thinking that the mere following of external rules will lead you to God.

And Jesus didn’t stay in line. Instead, He was so subversive, so counter-cultural, that He threatened every power structure of His day. The inherent goal of any power structure is to keep people in line and to maintain the status quo. In His treatment of prostitutes, drunkards, tax collectors, and lepers–not to mention that little incident in the Temple–Jesus shattered the status quo, and He stepped decidedly out of line.

And Jesus didn’t keep quiet. When He saw injustice, He was moved enough to speak up and do something about it. He wasn’t afraid to tell people about a better way to God, a true Way.

You know, I have been a Christian for twenty years now, and an earnest one most of that time. God has used each step of my journey, I firmly believe, to bring me closer to Him. In these last few years, though, I’ve become radicalized. I think it really started when I first read the Bible through, back in 2006. Sometimes, as much as I love the church, I think that our mainstream, powerful status as an established institution has inoculated us to the radicalism of Jesus. At least, I know that I was inoculated. Maybe that’s not the church’s fault, but my own. Regardless, in the last three years especially, some of my “lenses” came off, the lenses through which I had been reading Scripture. The lenses that told me that you could still be a good Christian and follow the American dream. The lenses that told me that you could follow Jesus and still look normal to society. Whether I would have admitted it or not, whether I could even have understood it if I was told, my lenses basically equated the Christian life with a more spiritual version of being a good citizen.

Now, those lenses are gone. I’m sure there are more lenses that need to be shed, like the scales that fell from Paul’s eyes so he could see, but some pretty major ones have fallen off these last three years.

And so, among other things…

No longer am I content to follow the rules.

No longer am I content to stay in line.

No longer am I content to be quiet.

Instead, I want to be like Jesus.

More on that in the next post...

28 Oct

Here Comes the Freight Train

Posted by kingdomcivics in My Life in the Kingdom.

By all accounts, I should not be blogging right now.

It’s irresponsible.

It’s not thought out.

I have way too many things that I should be doing.

I sit here typing in a half empty bedroom. The furniture is all in place, including a messy, unkempt bed, but all the knick-knacks, all the books, all the pictures, all the mementos…are gone.

The closets are empty.

The bathroom drawers and cabinets are bare.

Boxes are strewn through the hall.

Tonight is my last night in this house before I pack up all my earthly belongings into a moving truck and watch my husband drive off with them to Tennessee.

Clearly, I should be packing right now, packing to start a new life. This new life is right around the corner and is about to hit me like a ton of bricks. A new job for my husband starting on Tuesday. A new job for me starting in January. A new preschool for my daughter, and a new elementary school for my son.

My future is a freight train bearing down on me with frightening speed and intensity.

And…I’m actually excited about it. I truly believe the reason I am sitting in the half-empty house that I once thought would be my home forever is because of Jesus. I believe it is due to God’s will that my family finds itself in this crazy transition, one that was most certainly not of our choosing, but one that we have come to embrace. This change, I firmly believe, is the culmination of years of growing, searching, praying, studying and otherwise trying to figure out what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God.

And so, I think it is fitting that I start a blog that pursues that very subject at this seemingly inconvenient time. The Kingdom has made many demands on my life lately, and I know that the demands will continue, as we choose what school our son should attend, as we choose the level of my family’s involvement in my husband’s new ministry, as we choose how to best glorify God through our Christmas celebrations, as we choose how to restructure our various budgets, and the list goes on. In the midst of all that restructuring–and hopefully far beyond this initial transition phase–I believe I need a space to specifically explore what it means to live fully in God’s Kingdom. I hope to share more about our journey as time goes on, and also to gain insight and advice from fellow Kingdom-seekers as we all try to live as aliens and strangers in this world.

I am excited for what the future holds, both for my family, and for this blog.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have some boxes to pack…

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