I wanna be a momma

It's December 29th and I miss my students so bad.

It makes me excited to be a mom.
So I dream.
Someday, when I can't teach, and my kids are at home,

I want them to have their friends over after school every day to do homework.

And I'll make 'em all cookies.

And ask 'em to stay for dinner.

And we'll have conversations around the dinner table

Like we do in my classroom now . . .

About funny things and difficult topics - controversial things - values building.

And I want to take my kids hiking and skiing and to the beach.

And to soup kitchens and prisons and street ministry.
I want my kids to learn to love deeply, without being afraid of hurt. I want them to know how to have discernment about evil, but not to be afraid of broken people. I want them to learn to look on every individual as an image bearer of God. Not just the ones that look like them, believe like them, behave like them - all people.

And I want to teach them about the value of being in a community and BUILDING it . . . investing deeply - incarnational ministry. I want to teach them to love the church and to serve there with all their hearts, even when they get burned.

And teach them about how special prayer is and how much I love the Bible, and how Jesus really is trustworthy and good and always faithful.
I want my kids to learn to hate evil because God hates evil, and to love God because God is love.

And I want to have picnics in the backyard and do face paints and drink hot tea in the kids' section of the library and read books sitting on piles of pillows.
And I'd teach them how to ride a bike and throw a ball and drive a car and use a savings account.

And my daughters and I would paint each other's toenails and my sons and I would wake up early on rainy school mornings to take the dogs for walks together through the neighborhood that we love so much - where we know all the neighbors by name and have em over for dinner.

And my teenagers would learn to make time to visit people at the hospital when they're sick, even if it means skipping a basketball game.

(sometimes, i never want to leave seattle)

(but if I lived here forever, i'd want to live in a little house on Cherry Hill right next door to juvi.)

and we'd spend xmas eve there.
And every Tuesday afternoon.