Breathing Space

There’s a window beside my bed.

Every morning, I wake up and look out of the window to see what kind of day it will be . . . weather-wise. Yesterday, I woke up to the most beautiful sight I’ve seen in a long time.

Snow was everywhere.

Six inches of snow covered the ground. It clung all the way up to the tippy top of the branches of the trees. The sky was clear blue and the sun lit the tops of the trees as it rose.

I had a full day planned for school.

In fact, looking back at the past two months, my jaw drops when I see how full our calendar has been. I’ve always tried to be discriminating when choosing my own activities . . . meaning that I don’t like being busy just for the sake of having something to do. And, over the years, as we’ve helped our children choose what activities they’d like to be involved in, we’ve tried to guide them towards the ones we felt would stretch them the most. The upside to all of that is that they like to participate in life . . . the downside is that we sometimes get caught up in busy-ness that crosses over into chaos.

When we woke up yesterday, the Big Guy said “you’ve got to let the kids play in this today.”

And so I did.

The kids were up with the sun and, even more surprising, they were dressed . . .
with coats, gloves, hats . . . and even socks. If it had been any other day, I would have had to ask where their gloves, hats and socks were and my question would have been met with a chorus of “I don’t know.”

They say that the most important meal of the day is breakfast. Not wanting my babies to go out in the snow without proper nourishment, I whipped up a heaping bowl of snow cream which was devoured by all. The kids reminded me of little kittens sopping up bowls of milk.

Those that wanted seconds, refilled their bowls and then they were all out the door to play in the snow. They played all day. And when they were cold, they invited their friends in to watch a movie and have some popcorn and hot chocolate.

Then they were back in the snow.

They had such a great day. And I loved watching them enjoy it!

I’m reading God’s Joyful Surprise, by Sue Monk Kidd (author of The Secret Life of Bees).

On page 163, she writes:

Consider how carefully God has designed space into the world. It’s the spaces that shape and define creation. Walk through a forest. Instead of the trees, look at the spaces between them and you’ll know where the peace of the woods comes from. Think of the spaces between the notes of a concerto or symphony. Without them there would be no music . . . And it’s the spaces we make in our life for God’s love that bring us peace and make sense of everything else.

Once Ann (Monk’s daughter) insisted on “typing” a letter to her grandma. She climbed up to my typewriter and pecked out a sentence one key at a time, very proud of herself. But unfortunately, you couldn’t read a word of it. She never hit the space bar. The words were all run together in one long meaningless jumble. If we looked at a sentence like that, we might see our lives. Throughout many of my days, I never hit the space bar.

Yesterday was our space bar.