branching out and being grateful

Please don't hold this against me, but I'm starting to become a regular podcast listener.

Recently, on a roadtrip to visit my friend Renza, it was just me and Thomas in the car, I listened to several episodes of the Jamie Ivey podcast. Highly recommend for women! And I love to listen to Bob Goff interviews via podcast, and a few other topics, and well, I think I'm hooked, for road trips or long walks at least. If you have never listened to a podcast before, it's so easy -  it's an app that is already installed on your iphone and it's really easy to figure out. I won't bore you with directions now but feel free to ask me for details so you too can become a podcaster.

Anyways, today on the way home from Austin, Drew and I listened to two sermon podcasts. One was from our church - Wes Carpenter speaking about loving each other. Type "Grace Bible Church Houston" into your podcast app and it'll be a recent one.

We also listened to Matt Chandler for the first time. He's a well known minister out of Dallas, at the Village Church, and I've read articles by him before but never listened to his sermons in entirety.

Matt's sermon we listened to was titled "Time" and talked mostly about parenting, and talking to your children about God, and being grateful for what God has done for us. Basically, he talked about purposeful ways we can view the time we have with our children.  It was a great reminder, rather you have young children or not, that we have a limited amount of time on Earth, and yet when you think about it, we are given massive amounts of time with the ones close to us - how many meals do I eat with Drew per week? What do we talk about during that time?  (Instead of Drew, insert your roommate's name, or spouse, or friend you get together with on a regular basis, and you get the idea.)

Anyways, Matt talked about how we are too hard on ourselves - who doesn't love to hear that from a minister?! He went on to say that 10 minutes a week reading the bible and talking about it is really important, and not to be made too little of. He says we should focus on consistency of our time, and then clarity. Be really consistent with your time, schedule in those 10 minutes per week. Then make sure what is discussed is clear.

"All of life is a battle for clarity," Matt Chandler says. Ask your kids to repeat back to you what they just heard, after you tell them something or read them a bible verse. It's a good way to know if they understand what you're discussing.

Matt said something that sent my mind running - he gave examples of practical ways to talk to our children about God's blessings, and I found myself thinking I need to talk to MYSELF about the many blessings in my life.

For example, Matt said: when you eat out, take the time to talk to your kids about how blessed your family is, that you get to eat out at a restaurant. He said, yes, we forget that it's not something every family does, eating out. Most of the people around us go out to dinner so we forget that some people never do.

A former student of mine immediately flashed in my head. We'll call her Lucy. Lucy was raised mostly by her grandmother, her mom worked nights and was not around much, and she didn't have a supportive parent to sign her up for soccer like many of my other students. Most of the other girls in my class of third graders were playing soccer that year, and I wanted to go to a few games. Lucy and I had gotten close the first weeks of school, because to be honest, she was barely on a first grade reading level, and was the lowest student academically in my class who was not in a special education program. I knew she was going to need some help to get up to speed that year, and Teach For America emphasized building strong relationships with students so they knew you believed in them and could reach where you were pushing them to go. Anyways, I asked Lucy if she wanted to go to the girl's soccer game that Saturday. I would pick her up and we'd go to the game together, and we'd get lunch and I would take her home.

We went to Subway for lunch after the game. I felt bad for not taking her somewhere that wasn't quite fast food, but as we ordered, I realized she had never even been to a Subway. I don't know why I assumed she had eaten at subway at least once in her 8 years. She was in awe. Of a Subway. Somewhere I frequented hundreds of times (I kept the College Station subway on Holleman and 2818 in business I think.) When they gave her the reusable tote bag that came as the "prize" to her kids meal, she could not believe she got to keep it. She kept that bag in her backpack for most of the school year.

Another time, we went to Jason's deli together. I realized quickly her family never ate out. Mine ate out all the time. Jason's deli was where I grabbed lunch when I was "watching my spending." It almost didn't feel like eating out, I'm so spoiled. I felt almost sick at how fortunate I am - from a hardworking family, yes, and from parents who taught us the value of a dollar, but still - so fortunate.

Lucy and I had grown much closer by that point in the year.  As we sat in a booth at Jason's on I-10, she looked up at me with her dark eyes and quietly said "Ms. Rob. You know it's only my colored people that work here, and your color people that eat here." This left me quiet for a few long seconds, and led to a conversation about race (Lucy's family was from Mexico) and education and jobs. I commended her for her honesty, her willingness to point out an observation to me that might come off as rude or awkward. But she was right - other than the manager on duty that afternoon, everyone else was Hispanic. The person that took our order, the person that delivered our order, the person bussing the tables.

Listening to Matt Chandler's sermon reminded me of Lucy and how good it made me feel to spend time with her - I knew it meant the world to her, I could see it in her smile at school on Monday after we had hung out on a Saturday. It's been too many years since I spent time with someone who was desperate for some attention, who needed to feel needed or wanted, who needed a leader to follow after. I probably benefitted from my time with Lucy more than she did. I learned so much seeing the world through her eyes.

Yes, life is much busier with Thomas, and our family of three is certainly a priority. But, we could always be giving more of our time, ourselves, our gifts, our resources.

And as Thomas grows older, Drew and I want him to see that life is about much more than ourselves. It's about the sermon from Wes Carpenter we started with on the car ride: loving others. Treating others as above ourselves. Seeing a need and filling it: Lucy needed someone to love on her. To remind her that she mattered. There's thousands of Lucys out there.

Let's make the time to love them.

And in the meantime, when we eat a meal at a restaurant, even a casual inexpensive one like Jason's, let's remember that our city is full of families who never, ever can afford to eat out. We are so blessed.

(PS - Lucy finished the year with a level 38 reading score (40 means 4th grade ready.) She worked her butt off and had almost two years of growth in one school year, and she passed both the reading AND math state tests.