Thoughts on the first day of the school year

Last school year, I put a little note in Sam’s snack bag each day. He didn’t often comment on them (except for once when I attempted to draw a parasaurolophus, and he said it was a “really good try”), but he would shield his eyes if he walked into the kitchen while I was working on his note, saying “Don’t worry, Mom! I won’t peek!”

When I grabbed his pencil box to clean it out for the new school year, it was filled with a handful of worn crayons, scissors that weren’t the same color he started with, and a stack of post-its with my handwriting on them. He had kept every single snacktime note.

At the beginning of the summer, the kids and I memorized 1 John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us.” Most mornings after, we read stories and passages that showed us what God’s love was like. Like a shepherd knowing each of his sheep. Like a person laying down his life for his friend. Like a tree that gives shade. Like a welcoming father. Like a nursing mother.

That’s one of the most joyful and terrifying—in a word, most holy—things about knowing and loving these kids. The weight and the glory of embodying the love of Christ to their young hearts. 

Not every demonstration of love will be so treasured and meaningful that it is stored away in a pencil box. But every single one is known and held by God and is another thread in the tapestry that he is weaving to tell the story of what his surrounding, steadfast love is like and what is most cherished in his kingdom.

Our oldest two start a new school year today (Kindergarten and 2nd grade. No, I’m not doing okay with it. Thank you for asking.). Our English word school shares the same root word in Latin and Greek as leisure, or the purposeful cultivation of the things that make us most truly human. They will have opportunities to do this in so many beautiful ways this school year, and we are so thrilled for them and proud of who God has made them to be. 

But on this first day of school, I’m praying that these two will know in their bones, through snacktime notes and a million other little echoes of God’s lovingkindness, that the truest thing about them in their humanity is that they are loved, loved, loved.