Summer So Far

Last week marked halfway through summer “break.”  For me, I’m not sure “break” has been the word—more like “busy.”  Please accept my apology for lack of blogging and the ensuing list of excuses as to what I’ve been up to.

As soon as I packed up my classroom and finalized grades, I hit the road to help chaperone our youth group at church camp on Oak Island.  Caswell has been a longtime summer highlight for me; I always love making some summer memories with the teens that I’m so blessed to help lead at church year-round.  Caswell is an amazing place for strengthening friendships as well as that most important relationship with God, and I highly recommend that anyone involved in youth ministry check in out!

I plan to enroll in graduate school classes this fall, so when I got back from Caswell, I had less than a week to study for the GRE.  I quickly found myself regretting some of the “this is a piece of cake” pep talks I had given my own students only a month before.  I ended up with the scores I needed but not without reaching my limits of frustration and exhaustion.  Being on the taking side of a test again was an eye-opening experience for sure; I’ll take more pity on my students next end-of-grade testing season!

Next came Fourth of July week and we headed off to my parents’ vacation home at White Lake for a few days.  Our dog, Skittles, loves when we go to the lake because it’s the only time she gets a vacation.  She was even more excited this time because our friend Amy was both her backseat and bedtime companion.  My husband Brent, otherwise known as Olan Mills, did some Internet research and came away with some pretty cool fireworks photographs with his Canon digital SLR, even if I do have to admit this after making fun of him for a half hour straight.

The lake weekend began a three-week stretch in which Brent and I lived out of our suitcases and next we headed to Las Vegas.  The reason for the timing of the trip was that I attended the Teachers Pay Teachers Conference at the Venetian, where I learned so much about taking next steps on my TPT journey.  Teacher friends, stay tuned for some major changes from me to this end come fall.  However, the trip wasn’t all work and no play and we also had a great time with our friends Jeff and Janice who came with us for their first trip to Vegas.  We all enjoyed an amazing view from our 53rd floor hotel room at the Elara!  

We were home for less than a week after Vegas before heading to Florida with my sister and brother-in-law.  We visited Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in Florida for the second time in three years.  Our love for Harry Potter sucked us in both times, but our love for these theme parks will keep us coming back!  We were very impressed by the new Diagon Alley section in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  The Gringotts ride is amazing and Universal outdid themselves with the Hogwarts Express.  It’s definitely worth a trip in itself If you’re a Harry Potter fan. (And who isn’t?)

In a completely unexpected turn of events, I also braved my first real roller coaster EVER when I decided to take on the Hulk.  Anyone who knows me knows this is shocking (I’m afraid of heights and my adrenaline threshold usually maxes out at about 20 mph).  I'm still not sure what got into me and I honestly wasn’t sure I could do it until it was halfway over and I acknowledged to Brent and Donnay that I was still conscious.  I wouldn’t say that I loved it, but I do think I could learn to love it.  I blame my friend Lisa and her daredevil kids who have been dragging me to theme parks and water parks the last few years and slowly testing my limits.

Over the weekend, my parents joined us and we enjoyed a relaxing couple of days by the amazing pool at the Parc Soleil in Orlando.  This was perhaps the first time I had stopped to breathe in weeks and this is when it occurred to me that summer was over halfway over.  While it’s been a whirlwind, I certainly can’t complain about summer so far. 

Now it’s on to next week’s adventure: Vacation Bible School!  I can truly say I’m super excited.  Anyone who thinks teachers prop their feet up all summer doesn’t know what makes a real teacher tick.  Can’t wait to see how much I can cram into these last four weeks! 

Making It Look Easy

I’ve always prided myself on my strength.  I can push through just about anything in such a way that those around me don’t even realize I’m having to push.  I find it almost impossible to cry in front of others (except for my sweet husband- God bless him) and I’m an expert at putting on a happy face.  At times, my strength is genuine as I rely on God but at other times I’ll admit it’s more of just a really good acting job. 

This strength has allowed me to keep my pride intact these past few years.  I’ve attended and planned baby showers with perceived ease, stoically congratulated countless friends once they’ve worked up the nerve to tell me they’re pregnant, and warded off unsolicited advice time and time again with as much grace as I can muster.  I’ve developed a persona that I’m comfortable with, as much as a coping mechanism as anything else.  During a time when so much was being stripped away (my dreams, my womanhood, my naivety) I was determined to at least hold onto my pride… and for the most part I’ve been successful, for better or for worse.

There’s been little “in-between” for me.  While the bulwark of strength may have been a feasible approach for my public life, personally I could’ve afforded to let my guard down once in a while.  There’s a fine line between private and unapproachable, between dignity and conceit, between self-reliant and alone.  I’ve realized perhaps too late that my strong and steady façade has built walls that may never come down.  Pride is a dangerous thing.  In making it look easy, in some ways I’ve made it harder.

Don’t mistake my outward silence for inner peace.  Sometimes I can’t speak because there are no words that I could make you understand.  If I walk away or withdraw in a moment I can’t handle, it’s not because I don’t care- it’s because I care in a way that cuts to the core.  If you feel distance, it’s not that I wanted it to be this way- it’s that now that it is, I’m not the same person you once knew.  I might make it look easy, but it’s anything but. 

I realize now that I should’ve come right out and asked for more grace along the way.  We rarely get it right the first time around in this journey we call life.  I thought that by making it look easy, it would make things less difficult for my friends and family.  In truth, all they wanted was the real me, not the strong and steady persona I developed.  But there’s no going back now and at the time, I absolutely did the best I could.

A word of caution: if you’re surprised at how well someone is holding it together in light of their circumstances, it’s probably a façade.  If their outward appearance is strong, there’s probably another corner of their heart that’s unraveled completely.   Even if they’re making it look easy, it’s not.  Love them gently, with grace and forgiveness; I promise they’re doing the best they can. 

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” 

–Proverbs 16:18 

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” 

–Galations 6:2

PawPaw

Up until this week, I had been blessed to still have all four of my grandparents here with us.  I had marveled at that fact a time or two, as it feels like a special privilege these days to spend the first thirty years of one’s life knowing four grandparents who not only love you, but also still love their spouses and obviously love the Lord. 

This week has been a lot of things- sudden, surreal, and sad.  But it’s also made me stop and think about what an influence family has over our lives.  You can move away, you can grow up, you can do your own thing – but wherever you go, whoever you are, these people made you who you are.  When we look at our parents and grandparents, we always like to think we inherited all the good parts and none of the not-so-good ones. With PawPaw, it was hard to even see the not-so-good ones.  He was a good man, plain and simple.  And so much of his goodness runs through this family, it’s hard not to smile even in the midst of the sadness.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of PawPaw is that he was so, so funny.  When I was little, I remember often being startled at the constant sound of laughter in MawMaw and PawPaw’s living room.  Not just polite chuckles but deep-from-the-gut, belly-shaking bellows of laughter that could cause a little girl to about jump out of her skin.  One of my favorite parts about visiting was that I always knew I’d go back to school the next week with a new joke to tell my friends, straight from the lips of PawPaw.  He loved a good laugh, and he kept us laughing.  When I picture him, that’s what I see- him throwing his head back in laughter and then quickly looking back at us to see if we even understood the punch line yet.  Something tells me heaven became a much funnier place this week.

The other thing you knew as soon as you met PawPaw is that he was smart.  There wasn’t a topic he couldn’t weigh in on and he was usually right.  I don’t think I even realized how far reaching his knowledge was until about a year ago when he was in the hospital and my husband and I visited him.  Something about the acoustics in the hospital and the state of his hearing didn’t allow my female voice much of a chance in the conversation, but he could still hear and carry on with Brent.  I sat there for at least an hour listening to those two talk: about work, about politics, about history, about engineering, electronics, mechanics, and inventions and all I could do was shake my head and wonder why I hadn’t cornered this man one-on-one for a conversation like this before.  He knew a little something about everything.

Again, we prefer to think that these family traits are only positive and not negative so we’ll call this next one “independent” and not “stubborn.”  PawPaw was a man who knew how to take care of himself, and did so right until the end.  He drove himself to town to get a part for his tractor the day before he died, and you can bet that he was going to make sure that tractor kept running so he could ride it.  Last spring, we came down to help clean up their yard after an ice storm, and we used both a tractor and a lawn mower to move a ton of brush.  At one point, PawPaw went through all the directions of how to drive the lawn mower with my husband, telling him step by step how it worked.  Brent was all ready to take over and give him a break, but instead he just cranked it back up and kept going.  Brent sort of looked at me and shrugged saying, “I guess all that was just a matter of information.” I laughed and replied, “You didn’t actually think he was going to let you drive it, did you?”

Which brings me to my next point: PawPaw was quite possibly the most hardworking man I’ve ever known.  If it could be done, he could do it and do it himself.   He was creative, innovative, and willing to try new things- every visit to their house inevitably turned into show and tell of what he’d come up with most recently.  There are many things that cause me to call my dad “PawPaw” jokingly on a regular basis, but perhaps this is the trait that I see most clearly living on.  If something needs to be built, invented, or fixed, go see those Hall boys—they get it honest and they won’t let you down. 

Not only did PawPaw teach his family well, he also loved us well.  He truly cared about every member of his family and we never entered or left that house without a hug, an “I love you,” and a “Come see us again.”  This was true for his children and us grandchildren, as well as whomever we brought with us- our dates and our friends.  If you are there with someone MawMaw and PawPaw love, then you are loved as well- no questions asked.  PawPaw simply loved people- I believe in exactly the way that God wants us to love other people.  With a smile, with an occasional word of advice, and often with an offer to help- however he was needed, however he could. 

One of my favorite memories about PawPaw is that he always, always had a new stuffed animal for us when we were little.  Often they came from those stuffed animal machines at the grocery store, the ones with that frustrating claw that no one can really operate- except, our course, for PawPaw.  As we got older and didn’t want the stuffed animals anymore, he would tell us stories of still capturing those stuffed animals with the claw but instead of saving them for us, he’d pass them out to random children at the grocery store.  He’d always smile as he talked about the looks on their unsuspecting faces- nothing made him happier than making someone else happy.  In my opinion, there’s no clearer proof of a good man than that and I couldn’t be prouder that he was my PawPaw.