The boys and I went to the beach this morning. We met a friend and her kids to have some swim time from 10-12 to beat the heat. Thankfully it didn’t end up being as hot as originally forecasted. Like I said, there really has been nothing to complain as far as the weather goes. My sister-in-law lives in Dallas and whenever I check their weather all I see is triple digit temperatures for weeks on end.

We had a nice time together. I consider inviting people to the beach a personal ministry. Really it is just the ministry of friendship and spending time together. Those two things together produce refreshment and joy. Why we don’t end up doing this more often is beyond me. Logistically I see the reasons. Maybe if we did it more often it would soon becoming indistinguishable from the rest of life’s demands.

The boys played volleyball the entire time. Her kids are younger than mine and needed much more attention. As they say in thoughts and movies, “I remember those days”. The regular play-date interruptions when trying to talk to a friend who also was being regularly interrupted by her little ones. There was a popular meme on social media quoting C.S. Lewis or somebody saying something like,

“Children are not the interruption to our work. They are the most important work.” Of course that resonates during a time when truly almost everything you do in a given day is for your children. It is hard to talk about then and now without sounding like grumbling. Words and thoughts are meant to flow freely, and our destined and desired state is wholeness and completion, not fragmentation.

Motherhood definitely made more of a feminist, not less. By feminist I mean someone who notices the personal and societal pains and burdens unique to women and in turn rallies to work and try to alleviate them where possible. I was just thinking that maybe sometime after this LCMS national convention they need to have a similar follow-up gathering for women but without the resolutions and meetings parts.

That’s probably asking too much, I know. And thinking like that for too long will be the actual thing that embitters your heart and wrecks your mind. I love how the Bible talks about bitterness in terms of roots: “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that ‘no root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled (Hebrews 12:15).” A weed pulled up can often send dirt flying.

In other words, it makes a mess. But once the root is gone, once the weed is no longer taking up space, it leaves more room for the soil to breathe. The soil’s nutrients no longer are being sucked up by the roots that are only being used to feed and grow the bitter plant. In the case of the believer, God’s fruit can then grow there, of which there are many and various kinds. In the giver we feast from an undying tree.