motherhood – Katie Evans

On the One Hand: A Back to School Reflection

I am a walking contradiction. Depending upon which minute of the day you talk to me, you might hear a different version of this story.

On one hand, I feel relief. Joy. Release. Freedom. I am not the one in charge of two kid’s education. I don’t have to be the one to manage everything all the time. I am not juggling reading lessons with math lessons with diaper changes with meal prep, cleaning the sinks, and getting the laundry into the dyer before it starts to smell. I am not the one convincing someone to write three sentences instead of one or to read a book they didn’t pick. There’s quiet when the toddler naps. I can take a breath.

On the other hand, I am not the one in charge of two kid’s education. I don’t get to create an atmosphere of learning and joy around the table every day. I am not choosing curriculum, ordering books or supplies, nor am I witnessing with delight the incremental progress as they grow in their understanding of this world we live in. I am not planning field trips that ignite our imaginations or stretch our ideas of how God might use us in this life.

We won’t have Friday adventure days (though we can have them on the weekends!) and won’t start our days around the table with steaming mugs of hot chocolate. Instead, you will gain other adults who want to see you grow, spend three days a week in the garden, and get to go to music class twice a week and art class. You’ll learn skills I don’t know to teach you, practice being independent in a safe space, and have opportunities to make friends you will see every day.

I take my toddler on a walk. Even at 10 a.m., it’s so hot we are dripping in no time. We prep dinner, eat too many snacks in too short a time, pull out a puzzle that never gets done, keep her out of the big kid’s room, reassure her that they will come home soon, give her a middle-of-the-day bath, and put her down for a nap. It’s quiet now. And I love it, and I hate it.

But I mostly love it. And then I wonder if I should love it a little bit less.

God, I heard you those many months ago when you asked me to open my hands and trust you with my big kids. It was your voice that put all of this into motion. I’m reminded that obedience doesn’t always make sense but produces a harvest of righteousness. I can’t quite see what you are doing in my life right now. I’m still home with a toddler, but it does feel as though a new season might be just around the corner. Breathe your Holy Spirit into our days.

May we delight in learning more about ourselves, you, and the world you created, whether we are gathered around our kitchen table or at a school desk.

______ is not the Promised Land.

I put a lot of faith in the promised land. The Promised Land, in my mind’s eye, is where everything will fall into place. Once I get married, once I have kids, once I get that job, once we find the house, once we move to a certain city, once we get where we are supposed to be going, or achieve a type of lifestyle. It’s almost as though, my heart believes that the Promised Land is very close, just around the corner. But it seems elusive. This land, flowing with milk and honey remains just out of reach. I tell myself, that if I can just figure out the next right step, if I can just get the last puzzle piece in place, then I will have arrived.

But, what if the thing, whatever your fill-in-the-blank is, isn’t actually the Promised Land?

What if God stands in amazement at the way in which I get stuck in circular thinking and the spinning of wheels?

What if the journey is just as important as the destination?

What if God can meet me in the wandering in an even more real way than I ever imagined?

What if part of it is about being faithful in the before. Faithful in the wandering and the wondering?

What if the thing I am looking for doesn’t bring the salvation that I expect?

What if the very thing I am looking for, I have already found in the person of Jesus Christ?

The Bible starts in a garden and ends in a garden. And in between God’s people are promised a land in which God will be present to them and they will be present to God and they will flourish and bless all the other nations. The Bible Project describes the Promised Land as, “a picture of covenant faithfulness as God’s people try (and often fail) to live out their divine calling”. The thing is, God is always faithful to hold up his end of the bargain. It’s his people, it’s us, that forget and wander off and whether willfully or not, end up hopelessly unfaithful. It’s in Jesus, that we find the One who can keep the covenant for humanity and it’s Jesus who through his death and resurrection ushers us into the kingdom of God – the already and not yet kingdom.

And so, I preach to myself, that _________ is not the Promised Land. I already have access to the Promised Land, to the thing that will most lead to flourishing and to the kingdom of God in the here and now. I already get to participate in the unfolding of what God is doing in the restoring and redeeming of all things – right where I am. No next step needed.

_________ is not the Promised Land, but Jesus is with me.
He is Emmanuel, God with me. And his Holy Spirit, the Promised One is with me and for me.

Is there something you find yourself placing your hope in today? Something that feels very much like the Promised Land? As though perhaps you can just figure it out and get that last puzzle piece to fall into place, you might have made it? Maybe if you squint hard enough you can just see it in the distance?

Can you join me in simply saying, ________ is not the Promised Land; But I know the One who promises he will never leave me, will never forsake me. I put my trust and hope in Him. I re-center myself today on his promises and goodness. I ask Him who is faithful to help me to be faithful in the waiting.

You’re Moving Where? For How Long?

– A Short-term International Move with Two Young Kids

These were the two questions uttered most often when we shared the news of our short-term move to Australia. Many laughed and then stopped when they realized we weren’t joking.

I get it. It does almost seem laughable – it’s a long, long way. And it’s not exactly an easy move, there are lots of logistics and it’s a ton of work for a relatively short time. However, as I found, the internet is full of ex-pats who want to help you with your own move. And it’s not as odd as it sounds…others have done it. If they did it, you can too!

Here are the top tips we learned in preparing and actually making the leap.

1 – Decide what you are bringing and what you are leaving

There are a lot of different things to weigh as you decide how much to bring and whether you will ship any of your belongings. This is a great time to experiment with being a minimalist! You can always pick up whatever you didn’t end up bringing – you just might pay a little more for it.

Here are some of our thought processes:

We were only planning on a 1-2 year stint in Australia.
Due to Covid, it was taking 3-5 months for shipping companies to ship a container on an ocean liner. And it was excessively expensive to ship via Air Freight. It would have cost more than our items were worth.
Because this was only a short-term relocation, we didn’t want to move ALL our things (sentimental, winter clothes, kitchen appliances, furniture). We rented a storage unit in the States (make sure it’s climate controlled) to store items.
Bed measurements are slightly different in Australia, so unless you are bringing mattresses, don’t pack your linens.
The voltage is different, so unless you are also packing voltage converters, don’t bother bringing your appliances.

2 – Decide How You Will Pack

We opted to pack in suitcases and duffle bags and check our luggage via airplane. This way, we always had everything we needed and it was ultimately the cheapest way to travel.
Check your airline requirements. This might be a good thing to do as you compare prices. I just assumed that international travel meant two FREE checked bags with every ticket. However, Delta only allowed us one each and the other bags could be checked for a $100 fee. However, it’s still less expensive than shipping them with a company.
You could also look into Send My Bag courier services. We didn’t know where we were going to be assigned to quarantine, so had no address to send luggage ahead.
We ended up packing in three large hard-sided suitcases, two carry-on suitcases, and four large duffles. I asked an ex-pat community on Facebook what type of bags to use for a move via airplane and received amazing input! We ended up with THESE. Spoiler alert: They survived the trip.

3 – Pack Your Bags

The best two things we bought before packing were a bag scale and compression bags for our clothes.
In an effort to put a cap on the items we were packing, we divided our bags into different categories. Once a suitcase (or duffle) reached its weight capacity, we had to stop adding things or begin to trade out items.
We had a Kitchen Suitcase, a Homeschool Suitcase, a Kids’ Toy Suitcase, a Tech/Books carry-on, a Day of Traveling Carry On, and duffles of clothes.

Look Inside our Kitchen Bag:

Two good knives
Plastic cutting boards
Measuring cups and spoons
Silpat
Rolling pin
One plastic plate and bowl for each child and child-size utensils
One water bottle for each family member
Silicon smoothie straws
1 cookie sheet and 1 muffin tin
Aeropress and filters
Small travel-size dish soap
Laundry detergent for 10 loads of laundry
Two yeti mugs
Two kids’ mugs
Hot chocolate mix, Starbucks Blonde Roast ground coffee, Mason’s Marks and Spencer’s tea, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and peanut butter
Various utensils for cooking: meat thermometer, Wine/Beer opener, can opener, cooking spatula
Bose Speaker

Look Inside our Homeschool Bag:

Luke’s 1st-grade Math, Language Arts, and Handwriting curriculum was purchased before leaving the United States. You can order American curriculum from Australia, but be prepared to pay a much larger shipping cost.
Chloe’s handwriting book, letter and number flashcards
Science Curriculum
Select educational books that no one could say goodbye to for the year
The New City Catechism for Kids
Jesus Storybook Bible
2 small dry-erase boards
dry erase markers
sticky notes and pens
Watercolor paper and watercolors
Coloring supplies
Nature Journals and colored pencils

Look Inside our Kid’s Toy Bag:

Scooter for each child (Pro Tip: You can take them apart to fit in a suitcase for travel!)
Magnatiles
Legos
Books
Lovies and 2 stuffed animals per child
Sarah’s Silk and clamps for fort building
Art supplies for crafts (glue, googly eyes, yarn, etc).
Odds and ends that couldn’t be left behind and that fit among the scooters

Overall, we were happy with the decisions we made in packing. I almost felt like we took too many clothes, but it’s so hard to know exactly what a climate is like until you actually get there. And we had the added twist of a Covid lockdown, which means we left the house far less than we might have under other circumstances. The only thing we really regretted not having (and we couldn’t easily find in Sydney) was our cheese slicer. Which, isn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things!

All things being equal, I would likely pack in the same way if we were to do another international move – unless the company wanted to pay for our move.

What would you pack in your bags for an international move?

The Rush is Inside of Me.

There’s a saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

It means that you can’t outrun yourself or your problems or the places where you find yourself struggling. You can change your location, your environment, your job, or the people you surround yourself with, but the common denominator between all those things, you, will still be there.

Wherever you go, there you are.

It’s both a beautiful and a terrifying idea.

I felt a lot of pressure to do everything well in my pre-Sydney life. I served as a part-time pastor, a full-time mom to two kids, and a first-time homeschooler. Sometimes I felt so rushed, as though there wasn’t enough time for everything to get done. And the reason I felt like that was often that it was true. There literally weren’t enough hours to do all the things I wanted to do well.

I must not be the only one who experiences this, because there is an actual name for it: Hurry Sickness. (Thanks to John Mark Comer for highlighting this in, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.)

Psychologists define hurry sickness as a behavioral pattern characterized by continual rushing and anxiousness, or an uncomfortable feeling in which someone feels chronically short of time, and so tends to perform every task faster and to get flustered when encountering any kind of delay.

I’ve experienced this for most of my life, I just didn’t know it had a name. I find myself believing that everyone else has much more time and that I am the only one who feels so stretched.

In high school, I wondered what it might be like to be some of my friends with more margin in their lives, jealous of what I perceived to be their lack of time anxiety. I imagined them watching Dawson’s Creek, painting their nails, and relaxing. Who knows why they were painting their nails in this scenario?! That must have been the ultimate dream for me.

Even today, when I see someone out for a midday walk or run without children, I think, “Must be nice to have that kind of time!” That knee-jerk thought reveals a deep longing inside of me.

Hurry Sickness is such a part of me that I believed that quitting my job and moving to another part of the world might be the cure to end all cures. And it was kind of. I no longer move from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting, from congregant coffee to staff member coffee. I no longer spend hours wrestling with a sermon before coming home to prepare dinner, do bedtime, throw in laundry, and plan our lessons for the next day.

However, I’ve only been in Sydney for four months, all of them under strict lockdown restrictions, and I can feel it creeping in again.

Wherever you go, there you are.

The rush is inside me. The anxiety doesn’t come from the outside pressure or the environment I’m in. The anxiety and pressure and hurry must come from within.

As we walk to our weekly play date with the one friend we have in Australia, I worry we will be late. As we came home from the playdate, I’m afraid we will miss the window for naptime. During naptime, I rush to the grocery store, anxious that I’ll take longer than the kids will rest. Then, while they were less than enthused to play by themselves, I made homemade dough for our pizza night, with a gnawing sense in the pit of my stomach that I wouldn’t finish everything that needed to be done before our Sabbath evening started. As I was kneading dough, between helping the kids with their shower and vacuuming the living room, a single thought hit me.

The rush is inside me.

I am the keeper and the carrier of this pressure I feel. I am the author and the instigator of this anxiety. In lockdown, on the other side of the world, with no one to answer to other than myself and my family, with no deadlines other than those that are self-imposed, the hurry starts with me.

I think about the words of Jesus, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

And I want that life. I want to recover my life. I want to discover real, restorative rest for my soul. I want to stay close enough to Jesus that I can say that I am walking and working with him. I want to learn the unforced rhythms of grace and learn to live freely and lightly. I want to pass this way of life on to my children.

And so, I sit in silence with Jesus today and say, slowly, with no rush, “Lord, teach me what I need to know. Teach me those things that have felt elusive in the past. Do for me what I cannot do for myself. Holy Spirit, heal the parts of me that I can’t heal on my own. I am ready for a heavenly exchange. I will offer you my anxiety, my self-imposed standards and ideals, my worry, and my hurry in exchange for your unforced rhythms of rest and your freedom.”

Do you long for that too?

Do you want to trade your hurry and your rush and your anxiety for the unforced rhythms of grace? Tell Jesus today. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and ask Him to show you the way, His way, that leads to life.

The altar.

“Will you place your calling on the altar?”

I was pumping gas and heard the words in a split second. The image of Abraham binding Issac and placing his only son on the altar before God immediately followed. These words surprised me and were nothing that I could have made up. How in the world could He ask me to lay it on the altar? To release my grip? Since that moment, I have seen that image and heard those words gently coming back to me in moments of quiet – while driving, drifting off to sleep, washing my daughter’s hair, this persistent small, still, voice that says, “But, will you place your calling on the altar”?

I push it aside because this can’t be the actual voice of God. This can’t be what God is saying to me. I have been waiting to discover the “next thing” that God has for me. The next thing to use my giftings on, that elusive thing that will pay enough for me to get a babysitter and get out of the house. The thing that will give me a role and a place and a seat at the table…any table, besides my kitchen table.

And yet, when I hear the voice again this week, I don’t ignore it. I turn to the story of Abraham and Issac and the moment when God asks him to sacrifice his beloved son. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with this story. Why would God test Abraham in this way? And in a way that feels traumatic for his longed-for and cherished son? What would make Abraham trust God in such a way that he would go through with it?

I have more questions than answers, but I notice that perhaps Abraham didn’t really expect to give up his son. He tells Issac that God himself will supply the sacrifice. In addition, he tells his servants that he and his son will see them in a couple of days. And yet, Issac still carries the wood on his back. Abraham binds him as the sacrifice and lays him on the altar. He raises his knife. He prepares to obey God. Even if it means giving up the very thing that God gave him just a few short years ago.

Does the fact that he doesn’t actually think he will end up going through with the sacrifice make it any less about his obedience? Or make it any less of a story of God’s faithfulness? I’m not sure yet. God, Himself, does indeed provide a sacrifice. And in fact, the story prophetically foreshadows another story about another beloved, only son. This son carries the cross on his back and although he asks for the cup to be taken away, he does not turn away. He remains obedient, even to the point of death. Yet, we find out in three days time, that even death does not have the final word. What appears to be the way of death and the way of defeat is in fact the most glorious victory in history. And isn’t it just like God, just like the way of the upside-down kingdom where in the values and the economy of God, death is actually turned to life?

Even though it feels like death to set my calling on the altar of God, what if it’s actually the very path to life? All I can do, like Abraham, is trust God with the life He has given me. Each step forward is a step into the way of obedience and the way that leads to life.

What is it that you are holding tightly to today?

Are there areas of your life that you are holding onto for dear life? That you are white-knuckling? What might need to die, so that God can bring new life into your life?

May we trust in the God of Abraham.

May we trust that He knows what He’s doing.

That He has our best interests at heart.

May we open our hands in surrender and rest in His faithfulness.

Still Little.

It must have happened right under my nose because you grow every day and yet every day feels the same. And yet, hundreds of the same every-days must mean that nothing stays the same.

August 4, 2021
Sydney, Australia

Luke.

I looked into your eyes and caught my breath.

In one moment I see you as a baby, a toddler, a five-year-old, and then the young man you are growing into.

You have freckles now. When did that happen?

It must have happened right under my nose because you grow every day and yet every day feels the same. And yet, hundreds of the same every-days must mean that nothing stays the same.

I pray you stay sweet and kind and compassionate.

Just the other day, you explained to Chloe that you would both get married and wouldn’t live in the same house any longer. You were so calm and patient and matter-of-fact about it.

I pray you would come to know God. To love him with your whole heart and to see the world through His eyes.

I pray that you could see yourself through my eyes. Through God’s eyes.

And then the moment passed.

You put on your headphones, turned on Boxcar Children and you snuggled up next to me on the couch. Still little. Still small. And yet, every day a little older.