Back to School

50 years ago I started my senior year at Edwardsville High School.  I could use all sorts of trite phrases like, “time passes fast when you’re having fun” or ask “where did the time go?” or quote my mother – “the older you get the faster the time passes.”   I don’t dare tell my students how long it has been since I started my senior year – but I do want to use the video clip from the Farmer’s Insurance commercial.  “We know a thing or two, because we’ve seen a thing or two.”

I’m reading a book that Bethany shared with me this Spring – Present Over Perfect by Shauna Nyquest. – it takes summer for me to slow down enough to get a chance to read and savor every page.  I love what this young mom of two boys says about getting rid of the hustle and high performance – to be able to be present with those nearest and dearest to us.  Being “all there” for them and the people we encounter on a daily basis—not rushing to fill our days with so much busyness to feel “OK” with God and fulfill some higher purpose we have set up in our own agenda.

One of the things that Shauna has shared in her book is embracing the season you are in – throwing off the trappings of the previous season and living fully in the present one.  She believes this is best done in those times of being still with God – remaining in the outdoors soaking up His beautiful creation to start and end each day.

I want to carry that same mindset into this school year –  living day to day in the moment of God’s good grace aware of what HE is sending my way for the day, week and season.