Change

Half a Century | A Reflection

~ Heather Davis ~ 1 Comment

On March 10, 1974, a tiny human protested the forceful eviction from the warmth of her first home into a cold shock of light and noise.

That is to say, this past March, I turned 50. Oddly enough, checking the box labeled 50-59 doesn’t make me feel as old as the day one of my kiddos (then in middle school) exclaimed in utter disbelief, “You were born in the 1900s?!?” (emphasis unfortunately hers).

Yes. Yes, I was. Thanks for pointing it out.

Born in the 1900s, I am a member of Gen X who worked 40 hours a week during high school, began paying rent at the age of 19, and out of sheer stubborn, stupid pride, shouldered a variety of adult responsibilities and challenges that would probably cast many of today’s young people into a state of horrified catatonia at the mere suggestion. And I didn’t even have social media to document the trauma.

My earliest memories are rather vague: my great-grandfather, who shared his birthday with me, bending over and opening his arms wide; my great-grandmother lying oh-so-still in a bed; my dear Mammaw standing up from a rocking chair, sobbing with a tissue to her face, and walking toward my mama. These are shadowy pictures of great-grandparents; people who passed into eternity before I turned three.

Another early pictorial memory is of a smiling lady with short, dark hair. I recall her taking my hand in the church nursery and lead me out into the parking lot, where we were joined by a pair of trousered legs to her right. Then, the hand holding mine abruptly let go. Afterward, only vague, mixed-up images and a recollection of terror: a sense of being very, very alone and fear as a large car passed very close to me. Somehow being found by a kind older lady. Then – oh joy! – my mama bolting toward me, black hair streaming behind her.

Years later, my family filled in the gaps of this wordless memory, and I learned how close I’d come to leading a very different life. This was my brush with trafficking.

The more concrete memories began when I started school, and I won’t bore you with them. However, I am fascinated to think back on how the world has changed. For example, I began school in first grade, before mandatory kindergarten; a fact I recalled in high school when reading Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

“The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That’s why we’ve lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we’re almost snatching them from the cradle.”

Excerpt from Captain Beatty’s monologue; Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Both my grade school experience and this quote leapt to mind the first time a younger mom confided to me during my homeschool days how she worried her 3-year-old wouldn’t be prepared for kindergarten if she couldn’t afford preschool.

How susceptible we are to suggestion…

Still, I’ve enjoyed a rich half century filled with highs, lows, in-betweens, fascinating people, and beautiful sunsets. I’ve seen certain fashions cycle through cool -> dated -> laugh-inducing -> cool.

I’ve shed tears and shared laughs; I’ve followed my heart into a cramped & stifling chamber of horrors; I’ve visited the depths of despair and found God there waiting to bring me home.

Then there are the crazy technological changes I’ve experienced, especially in telephone tech:

  • The rotary dial phone with its restraining cords redeemed by the gratifying wham-ching! of the angry hang-up. Bonus: these babies doubled as formidable weapons.
  • The first push button phones = less time to dial + retaining the pleasures of slamming the handset into the cradle.
  • The wonders of the first cordless phone and testing the bounds of its range before losing the connection. Sometimes you could even make it to the mailbox!
  • The advent of call waiting and caller ID – and screening calls.
  • The first cell phones for rich folk and doctors; monstrosities about the size of a brick.
  • The first time I saw a grandparent Face Timed into his grandkid’s birthday party brought a sense of Star Trek come to life.
  • Then there’s today, where people who can’t even afford milk still manage to pay their monthly cell phone bill. Formidable weapon turned formidable distraction.

<Random Phone-related Memory>

Waiting tables in the 1990s: one afternoon, the hostess led a party of four to their lunch table, each member of the party clutching their 90’s-era cell phones to their ear. The dining room din quieted for a moment, followed by a single snicker. Soon, the whole room was filled with poorly-stifled laughter as the four red-faced businessfolk quickly ended their calls and hid behind their menus.

<Cut to Modern Restaurant Lunch Scene>

Several people are staring at their phones while the hostess seats a party of four who have Bluetooth earbuds in, unobtrusively finishing their calls. All four send a text from their watch before using their phones to scan the QR code and read the menu onscreen. No one notices because this has become normal. And yet, despite the physical proximity of diners remaining the same as in the 90s, there is a vast and subtle social distance surrounding each one.

<Back to the Present Reflection>

Even email, now pervaded with marketing and scams, began as something different. I remember a time one checked emails on occasion via dial-up, hoping to hear the cheery voice proclaim, “You’ve got mail!” – and the email was from an actual, flesh-and-blood acquaintance.

I could go on, but I won’t. There is so much; far too much.

Yet what amazes me most in this last half-century is how God has shored me up through it all. From the moment He sent an older lady out for air at the exact moment a strange couple had spirited three-year-old me half-way through the church parking lot through the times I rejected Him and embraced the values of secular humanism all the way to the moment I recognized those values left me with a life bereft of meaning.

He’s seen me through a long season of intense physical pain and fatigue due to chronic, intractable migraine and post-viral syndrome. What’s more, He even sustained me enough to lay an educational foundation for my three children (then homeschooled), enabling all three to graduate from a private high school with honors and do well in college. The eldest just graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering. The two young ladies will graduate in 2025 with degrees in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Pre-physical Therapy respectively.

Since I was operating in a semi-conscious pain haze during most of their homeschooled years, I cannot claim credit for one bit of it.

Even better, two have maintained their relationship with God through college and the one who ventured away seems to be returning to the Truth that sets free. Only God can do this; I got more wrong in my part than I did right.

And today, the same God is sustaining me through a new season – a season of renewed health and reduced physical pain; a season of reevaluation and reflection. A season of burying the corpses of dreams and mourning what could have been.

Even in this season of upheaval and change, God is good; my Sustainer, my Counselor, and my King. Every moment of pain has only made Him more real, and so I bless His Name for all of the last half century – the good, the bad, and the truly terrible.

In seasons of joy and wonder, I am reminded these are mere glimpses of the true joy and wonder of eternal life in the presence of my King. And in seasons of suffering, loss, or disillusionment, He prompts me to remember this world is not my home as He removes all entanglements out of His lovingkindness.

No matter what the next few years or decades bring, I know I can rest in the completed work of Jesus Christ, my King; for in Him, my sins are forgiven and my future secure. Everything else is just another stepping stone toward glory.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
(Romans 5:1-5)

New Year… Almost

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

On the first day of 2022, a Saturday morning, I took a walk at 10:00 am in shorts and a t-shirt, working up a bit of a sweat in the 73-degree weather. I tried to squeeze in some yard work but the expected rains drove me indoors. The next night, snow fell. I woke up yesterday morning to about three inches on the deck railing, though the roads were clear and the ground was patchy due to the previous day’s warmth.

Gotta love Tennessee. We have all the seasons, sometimes in the same week.

Anyway, this new year doesn’t quite feel like a new year to me… yet. The homeschooling journey I began in 2005 eventually led to a part-time teaching position at a private school, and so I still operate by school calendars. For me, the new year will begin in August, and with it a brand-new season of life.

That being said, January 2022 kicks off a semester of change for me. My baby is starting her final semester of high school. There is a possibility of a career change on the horizon for me. God has been up to so much, it’s almost too much to share.

Many of these changes will be reflected here. Keep checking back… You never know what you might find.

So I’m dusting off this underused space, and planning some changes. As I survey the cobwebbed corners, I find myself eager to get back.

Until then, please click the linked title to read the most recent offering for my church family: “Lifestyles of the Rested and Reliant.”

I hope to see you around soon!

Renovation

~ Heather Davis ~ 6 Comments

This is my living room right now:

WIN_20170725_12_25_07_Pro

You’ll note the assorted pieces of a sleigh bed stashed behind the couch or atop the dog crate, the random rolled-up rug, my messy desk devoid of my photo processing desktop computer, the filing cabinet adorned with two lamps, and so on. If you could look to the right, you’d see a couple of dressers, assorted computer parts, a couple of nightstands, and a whole lot of homeless junk.

Not far beyond that lies a room which used to sport yellow and red handprints on a cheerful blue background, custom cabinets filled with curriculum and home school supplies, three desks, and a whiteboard.

Now the walls are muted to a neutral gray, the paint-stained carpet has been replaced with vinyl planking, and the room currently houses the planking and materials for a new flooring project.

I assure you, this is not the normal state of affairs at our home; we are in a state of flux. My husband has a little breather in his crazy work schedule and we are beginning  a long-desired (and possibly long overdue) removal of the carpet in as many places as we can afford.

Why am I telling you this?

I suppose it is metaphorical. My entire life is in the midst of remodeling project.

One week from today, all three of my children will attend the first day at Zion Christian Academy.  In other words, one week from today, I will officially be out of a job.

Naturally, I will still be parenting. I am assured that job has no end; only changing requirements. But for the first time in 16 years, the full-time parenting, shepherding, and educating of my children that is homeschooling will be at an end. We are in a state of total transition.

So what now? I wish I knew.

Just as this shuffling of furniture brings about much reorganizing and re-evaluating of possessions, so also I am finding myself sorting through many familiar habits and routines and trying to discern which ones will need to stay and which need to be tossed. Some I know must stay – my time with God, my study of His Word; these are non-negotiable. Others, well… we shall see.

Also, as the gutting of rooms brings many discoveries – some of great value like a letter to me from one of the kids when they were young; some less wonderful, like the cigarette butt left beneath the carpet by the builders – so I am finding many discoveries beneath the surface of my life.

Some are bittersweet – an increased intentionality in my time with the kids as the quantity of time together naturally diminishes. Still, each precious moment with my brood is so much sweeter even as they become more rare, so there is great joy.

Other findings are less lovely, like the lack of a college degree coming back to haunt me – the carelessly discarded stub of a reckless and wasted youth buried for years beneath the duties of a homeschool mom.

So today at the age of 43, I am sifting through the topsy-turvy assortment of abilities and desires that have shaped my life, evaluating them for usefulness during this next season, exposing them to my God for examination, and seeking His help in deciding what to keep and what to discard.

At this crossroads, I do not know which direction to take. Until I do, I will simply stand, prayerfully exploring my options and ready to obey once the order is given. It is a season of transition; a humbling time of reckoning for past decisions and a painful exercise in trusting God to reveal His purposes for me. During it all, I doggedly cling to the promise that His grace is sufficient for me even as I survey the wreckage necessary for renovation.

And I praise Him that no matter how crazy or hopeless things look to me now, the work He is doing will be well worth it in the end. Just like our new floors.

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words…

…And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:25-26, 28

What’s New With Me

~ Heather Davis ~ 7 Comments

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5

I know I’ve been something of a random poster these days; sometimes once a week, sometimes less. There are various reasons why, but today I thought I’d share the most complicated one of them with you.

You see, quite a bit has changed in my life lately. After 15 years of full-time motherhood and 10 of homeschooling, my oldest two (tenth grade and eighth grade) are attending a private school. While I still homeschool the youngest, this has been a rather dramatic alteration in our lifestyle and schedule.

Now instead of letting the kids sleep until 7:00, the older two get up at 6:00. The youngest gets up at 5:00 — don’t ask me why. She’s just like that. We do our Bible studies in the predawn hour but in separate rooms. It’s kind of cool, actually.

Instead of a quick trot to the school room, I am now hauling two of them on a thirty-minute drive south. That’s thirty minutes one-way, which means an hour is spent in the morning commute.

The youngest either comes along or stays home and works on her own schooling, depending on my husband’s schedule. Also, depending on his schedule, that hour commute is sometimes doubled.  Either way, there I am standing with one foot in two worlds.

And then, of course, there are activities and extracurricular events. There is church and community group. There is striving to find the time to stay in shape — or rather, in some semblance of shape — despite an odd assortment of injuries I have managed to accumulate, apparently just to keep things interesting.

I am also endeavoring to learn Hebrew; a task at which I am progressing at a snail’s pace. A dead snail’s pace. But it’s great fun, probably because I am the quintessential nerd.

Also at this stage of my life, there are the teenage years and puberty happening all around, along with the great emotional needs that accompanies this life stage, much more intense and exhausting than the toddler years as far as I can see. Or maybe I’m just exhausted because of age… or because of chronic migraine and its various treatments… or just because.

And so on, and so forth.

But to me, personally, the biggest, most exciting, and yet most frustrating new thing is that I have finished the first draft of a novel.

No, really. It’s true. It doesn’t seem possible to me, but it is true.

As a matter of fact, I am writing these words now with something of a guilty conscience, mainly because I am taking a break from rewriting a stubborn paragraph that simply will not come together.

All the while I am hiding from my intractable characters that have chosen this night not to behave and docilely speak sensible sentences as they ought, my Hebrew vocabulary cards are staring at me balefully, reminding me that I have not even glanced at them today and here it is eight o’clock at night.

But that’s another matter. The crazy, exhilarating, and intimidating truth is that I have actually typed out an entire novel and am working through the revision.

So what’s next?

Who knows? I consider it highly unlikely the thing will be published, but then that is in God’s hands, as is everything else.

Either way, I look to Him for wisdom in all of it — the rewriting, putting out feelers for publication, raising my teens and tweens, homeschooling, private schooling, being a wife, facilitating a small group, prayer meetings at church– all of it. It is either all for His glory, or it is worthless.

Either way, I am praying almost all the time these days because, frankly, I need God every second of every minute of every day no matter what I am working on.

So that’s basically all that’s new with me! Drop a line sometime and let me know what’s new with you. 🙂