Posted on by lgandre · 2 Comments

Last Day of School

I remember my high school graduation. The song my senior class sang. The note I tried to hit and didn’t quite make. The hat I threw that almost knocked me unconscious on the way back down. The speech I gave…last because I’m a “W.” Which also meant I was at the front of my recessional. Unfortunately, no one followed me off the stage and I ended up marching down a very long aisle by myself. I tried to smile enough to make it look like I did the right thing and it was the rest of the class marching down the wrong aisle on the other side of the auditorium.

I knew that night that school wasn’t really over for me. I was already studying so I could earn another paper certificate that said I knew something. Four more years to go. But I was ready for the next challenge because if I had learned nothing else over the prior twelve years, it was what hard work looked like.

Because I was born lazy. Really lazy.

I didn’t like chores. I didn’t like school. I didn’t like to work. Or anything that looked, smelled, or sounded like work.

I didn’t like to exercise. I didn’t like to do math. I didn’t like to clean my room or even make my bed.

So God gave me two very critical character building influences in my life that really boil down into one: Homeschool. And my mother.

And that’s what this story is really about.

My mother was a stay at home mom as long as we were home. But she worked. Yes, goodness knows, she worked.All 1982

My mom raised kids, taught us school, ran an Awana club, ran a homeschool group, cooked, cleaned, paid bills, and taught us and a lot of other girls so many other things…sewing, painting, decorating, driving, and so much more.

I must have made her a little bit crazy because I was not a fan of work. I didn’t like to sweat. I didn’t see any point in doing the same type of math problems day after day, page after page. I didn’t really think I needed to know what happened on this planet 5,000 years ago or even 500 years ago. I didn’t see any point in running around an empty track. And I hated, hated, hated practicing piano.

If I got a lecture about racing through assignments, cutting corners, and being sloppy, I got 1,000. How I hated that lecture.

And I was only one of five kids.

So…here’s the thing: Day after day, my mom trained me and my siblings. She taught us to study, to do chores, to practice music, to memorize Scripture. She taught us to work. Yes, goodness knows, she taught us to work.

After years of persistence by my mother, I made it to graduation. But she had two more kids to go. Five more years of homeschool.

Two more kids who didn’t like doing the same math problems day after day, page after page. Who didn’t really think they needed to know what happened on this planet 5,000 years ago and who hated, hated, hated practicing piano.

When my brother—the youngest—graduated, Mom had been a mother for 26 years and had been homeschooling about 23. She deserved a break.

So here’s the other thing: After all that, my mom went to work.

She started teaching kindergarten, but she didn’t stay with the half day of letters and sounds long. She was turned into a high school science teacher. Physical Science. Biology. Physics. Microbiology. Life Science. Chemistry. Biochemistry. It varied from year to year, curriculum to curriculum. Just when she got something down, it would change.

Over the next twelve years, my mom worked as hard as the US President. She studied. She taught. She wrote tests. She designed PowerPoints. She helped kids prepare science projects and hosted science fairs. She drove back and forth to school on her days off to turn eggs in incubators. She took pictures of birds and flowers that she could use for future presentations. She built robots. She cleaned up roadkill so she could use animal skeletons for future classes. Yep, true story.

Now things were different. She wasn’t the principal. She wasn’t the parent. But some things were the same: she was generally dealing with lazy students who didn’t give a rip about the pictures of flowers and birds.

So, it was a good thing that she is a hard worker. It was years of long days, short nights, and super short summers. Years of commitment. Years of pouring her energy into lazy kids who didn’t want to learn science…and a few who did.

She got paid. But let’s just say, she didn’t do it for the paycheck. That would have been insanity. Okay, it was insanity.

But that’s my mom. Did I mention she is a hard worker? Insanely hard.

And after years of teaching and training, she has made an impact. If on no one else, on me. I no longer think it’s futile to do pages of math problems or study history of the world or practice music. I no longer race through projects and cut corners. Some of that comes from time and maturity, but most of that maturity came from godly influences. Like my mom.

This week marks my mom’s last “last day” of school. She is retiring from her job as a full time teacher. I couldn’t be more excited for her. Or more proud. She has invested so much more than science in so many lives. They may not all appreciate it now, but they have all learned something.

And I know this: if they passed one of her classes, they worked hard. It was far more than robots, hatching eggs, and handling animal skeletons. It was hard work.

Pages of problem solving.

No racing through projects; no cutting corners.

And today, I’m as proud of my mom on her last day as she possibly could have been of me on mine.

Thanks, Mom. Job well done. Now, enjoy a long, long summer!

Posted on by lgandre

Rest for your Soul

I was exhausted.

I hadn’t had much sleep the night before…and that was just the night before. The last several weeks had rolled one into the next without me ever getting a break that felt like a break.

So…needless to say, it felt good to be headed home with something of an evening left. I planned and re-planned what I would do with it several times. And of course, every plan ended with: go to bed early.

I needed rest. Not just physical rest…but sleep would be a good start.

I did a few things on the way in—take out the trash, grab the mail, let my dog out, and take a deep breath. It felt so good to be home. In a quiet house. With a quiet evening in front of me.

But as I opened one of the letters I found in the mail—from my mortgage company—I felt my blood boil. I have only had this mortgage for about six months and it has already given me a lifetime of grief. Just for example, in February, they sent me a letter saying my monthly payment would go up by $600 a month. $600!

I have called the company multiple times and spent a considerable amount of my life listening to their hold music. The last time, I had been assured they would adjust back the payment and all I needed to do was wait for confirmation in the mail. That’s what I was expecting this letter to be.

Instead, it was a delinquent notice.

A delinquent notice was especially maddening because: 1. The customer service rep had told me that I did not have to pay until we got it all straightened out; and 2. I had gone ahead and paid anyway.

And this was the thanks I got: A delinquent notice.

I waiting through the first twenty minutes of music. When a rep finally came on the phone, she transferred me to someone else. Another twenty-five minutes of waiting.

Meanwhile, while my evening disappeared, so was my patience. When the next poor soul came on the phone, I had had it. My weary brain just didn’t care.

I started at the beginning and gave her the blow by blow of how this happened and how many times I had been assured that this was all straightened out. How I had made the payment. Then been told they wouldn’t accept it. Then been told that they would. Then been told that they had…and now this notice…the longer I talked, the madder I became until I am sure I fulfilled every stereotype that customer service reps in India have of rude Americans.

She put me on hold.

I wanted to throw my phone in the bath tub.

When she finally came back, she was again apologetic, but she explained that they wouldn’t accept the payment because it was $92 short. There was no way to dispute this since I have no idea what my payment should be since I hadn’t received the letter they would supposedly send to tell me what my new payment should be. But it was important to me that I not be delinquent.

My coveted evening was gone. I was deliriously tired, so, in a tone that would remove all doubt about whether or not I was happy with their services, I said I would pay the $92 dollars over the phone and be done with it.

She said that was fine and proceeded to take my bank routing number and account number.

As I read the routing number, she stopped me to clarify, “so this bank is America’s Christian Credit Union?”

I was so embarrassed.

Regardless of how incompetent this company was, I regretted that I had represented Christ and Christians with this attitude.

Consider the level of abuse that Jesus took. Meekly. Quietly. Without fighting back.

And here I was…upset with the poor little girl in India trying to help me get my tangled mortgage straightened out.

Yes. I said finally. That’s the one.

I attempted an apology to her, but hung up the phone ashamed. The situation was extremely frustrating, but I knew Christ would not have treated her that way.

As I crawled into bed, my adrenaline still pumping from my anger, and my shame still flowing from my sin, I thought about the words of Christ:

“Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me. For I am meek, and lowly in heart. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus doesn’t promise us no work. No labor. No yoke.

Life in Christ is not an extended vacation. It’s not a day at the fair.

But what struck me was that the antidote to weariness was a Christ-like heart—one that is meek and lowly.

This is profound.

How much of our weariness is from our own anger? From fighting for our own way? From trying to change circumstances that we can’t change? From frustration with people who don’t do what we want them to?

How much of our burden is trying to meet the many demands of pride? Of trying to live up to the empty shadow she casts of life as we think it should look?

Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your soul.

Rest. For. Your. Soul.

I don’t think it’s coincidence that I keep running into that passage—morning reading, a friend’s wall, an index card that surfaced where I had jotted it years ago. There’s a lesson for me in it.

And I don’t think it’s coincidence that April 28, seven days after my mortgage company promised me I would get a letter, I did. That is, I got not one, but four letters. One said I owed $92. One said I owed $600. One said I owed $1700. And one said I owed $2700.

I laughed. I called them. I waited on hold.

After thirty minutes of waiting, I was informed I have actually overpaid and have a credit. They apologized for my four letters and said they are dealing with a computer glitch.

Ya think?

I may have to sell my house to get away from these people, but I was kind on the phone and dealing with it took considerably less energy than the last phone call (which had left me completely spent).

Maybe they will get themselves straightened out before they have a class action law suit on their hands. And maybe I will learn the secret to rest for the soul.

Neither are terribly likely, but I’ve come to appreciate the progression:

Come to me—you who are weary; Learn of me—for I am meek; And you will find rest for your soul.