Nurturing our Family, Closing the Zoo

Five years ago Steve accepted a new position and we joined a fast-paced race called Youth Ministry. ;o) From the very beginning we felt called to this life and, although it has sometimes been wearing or stressful, we have always agreed that we couldn't imagine life outside of full time ministry.


When Seth was born a year later, we didn't hesitate to include him in the youth events we led. Some looked at us strangely or thought we were off our rockers when we brought him with on his first missions trip to inner-city Denver at the ripe old age of four months (he was great).


Two summers ago Haddie was born, and, although things had to be rearranged a bit more (sometimes I didn't have enough arms for an adventurous toddler and a very attached baby!), I was still proud of the flexibility of our children and the ability of our family to take in stride the demands of the job.


Now Seth is four and Haddie is two, and we are still pleased to be in this life God has called us to. We are part of a wonderful and generous church that takes great care of us. We love the flexibility of Steve's job and especially the chance to see firsthand the way many lives are radically changed by God's grace. As our children get a bit older, however, we also see the need to make deliberate efforts to slow down our life every once in a while. We once heard it described as "closing the zoo", and we think that's an appropriate term.


Last week I was standing in the kitchen and realized that I hadn't prepared more than a handful of meals for us to eat at home in several weeks... we had just been gone that much. We could see it in the interactions between Seth and Haddie too. Everyone was feeling tired and cranky. We knew that we needed to reign in the horses and take a break, for everyone's sake. So, we closed down the zoo and took several days to nurture our family (well, we always want to do that, but we decided to dedicate four days to completely focus on that task.)

It was a wonderful four days. Steve had Sunday afternoon and Monday off as he always does, and then he took Tuesday and Wednesday off as well. Steve didn't go in to the office and I didn't do more than the necessary meal preparing and dish washing - we just focused on spending time with each other.

We also realized that Seth and Haddie could use some time apart, so one day Steve took Seth to a near by state park. They had a great time hiking, picnicking, and climbing a huge fire tower. That day Haddie and I had some "girl time". I took her to The Farm where she was delighted to spend time looking at the baby kittens and brushing my horse Kick-A-Poo. She even happily agreed to sit on him with me while my mom led us around for a little while (a big deal because she used to be very timid around the horses.) The following day Steve took Haddie on a date to Perkins and Seth and I had a dinner date as well. It was so fun to spend one on one time with them during our little vacation! Another goal of our mini-vacation was to encourage our children and nurture them spiritually. We decided that on each of our dates, when we were with one of the children alone we would tell them the story about how, when Jesus was baptized in the river, his Father, God, spoke from heaven and said,"This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We had been noticing that in our busyness and travels we were tending to react to our kids in frustration and with shorter patience, so we wanted to take time to work on that, as well as remind our kiddos that we are pleased with them, and that we love them very much.

One other goal we had for our mini-vacation was to nurture our physical bodies. We consciously cut down/eliminated junky and sugary food that we so easily turn to when we are on the road a lot. Steve and I set our alarm early each morning so we would have time to read our Bibles down stairs before the kids awoke. We also asked the neighbor girl to come over each morning for a half an hour so we could go running. I have to admit I was quite intimidated to start that again - I honestly don't think I have set off to exercise by running since I was in college! It ended up going far better than I could have imagined though, and by the fourth morning we both actually woke before our alarm with anticipation of running! Hehe! (Those are some disciplines we hope to continue!)

So, I think I will wrap it up for now. I see that I have rambled a bit, but I did want to fill in our friends out there who might have been wondering where we were this past week.... we were just taking some time out to nurture our family and close down the zoo. ;o)