Getting Weird at the End of the School Year

My dad was an air traffic controller and pilot for fun.  My mother was a stewardess.  Life's analogies for me often appear in terms of airplanes and flying.

So this morning, after dropping off the kids at their schools, I found myself thinking about the pace that comes at the end of school.  I decided that, with multiple children and a foreign exchange student in the home, the end of the school year feels more like bracing for a Sioux City, Iowa crash landing than placing my seat back and tray table into the locked and upright position and gliding into a "normal" landing.

Awards assemblies, yearbooks, youth group potlucks, finals, preparing exchange students and host families for the students' departures, band concerts, graduation, graduation parties, gifts for teachers...the list is long and exhaustive.  And potentially exhausting.

I recently finished a powerhouse of a book called Weird...because normal is not working, by Craig Groeschel. You can read more about this book here.  I'm continuing to learn that the difference between exhausting high-speed living and comprehensive high-capacity living is focusing on staying "weird".

When I'm "normal" I say, "Yes" to everything and complain to everyone within listening distance about "how overloaded" I am.  I pretend like I'm complaining; but I'm really bragging about how terrific I must be.

When I'm "weird" I focus on saying, "Yes" to those activities with lasting significance at the beginning of the year SO THAT our Stephens family can continue our tradition of family dinners at the dinner table together.

Let's examine one recent common end of year activity:  The End of Year Band Concert.  If your child is not playing an instrument this year, you can easily substitute sports playoff game, awards assembly, science fair...you get the idea.

When I'm "normal" I spend the entire band concert texting and talking on my phone in the back of the room.  Or I even step outside to make or take calls.  There are so many details to handle, after all!  When I'm not texting or talking on my phone, I'm trying to connect socially with the other moms in the room (taking roll, if you will) so that we can meet later and commiserate about our busyness.

When I'm "weird" I spend the entire band concert making eye contact with each of the children on the stage, smiling and cheering them on!!  I am not thinking of the next place I need to be.  I am concentrating on being fully present. And I file some moments away in my mind so that I can show the kids how important they are by retelling specific parts of the concert where I was proud of their behavior or the behavior of a classmate.  I focus on stories that will build their character.  My phone is put away (unless I use it to take a picture or two).  And, whenever possible, the pictures I take are of our child flanked by Nana and Papa and Sissy and Bo SO THAT our children can recall and remember the devotion of family and reproduce it later in their own lives and families.

I commit to being weird that God would be Glorified and pleased and for the lasting effects on the next generation!!

Join me?