Life on Lock-down

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and very courageous, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)

Bonjour from France! I’m Jen, the crazy person who made it to France the day before all shops and restaurants closed, and two days before the country went on full lock-down as the government amped up the fight against Coronavirus. Elissa and I are currently sequestered away in a tiny hilltop medieval town in the Loire Valley, surrounded by breathtaking views and acres upon acres of vineyards.

Our lovely apartment is 400 years old and includes 4-inch-long iron keys! The grocery store at the bottom of the hill is calm, orderly, and well-stocked with French food. If we take our pass with us (!), we’re allowed to walk alone through the empty village streets and vineyards for exercise. Elissa is very pleased that the village cats aren’t on lock-down and often come out for a visit.

Saying bonjour to Minette.

Frolicking through empty streets.

Week One of lock-down is in the books. I’m forever thankful that I brought our homeschooling supplies with us, so we’re able to do our normal math/reading/writing routine. The Osmo program for Kindle is our new best friend and has made learning much more fun and interactive. The week was full of balmy days with such abundant sunshine that we were compelled to throw the windows open and have dance parties. All our language classes have been cancelled per social distancing, so we’re doing our best to learn French via Skype and Duolingo. As a surprise bonus we’ve even met several English-speaking saints in this obscure little French town, and have found creative ways to visit between the streets and each other’s windows.

Elissa and her doll, Poinsettia, hard at work.

Next week predicts chilly, overcast weather. We’re getting tired of walking past closed cheese shops, bakeries, and Michelin-starred restaurants. We were chastised by police when our “exercise” took us too far from our apartment! We’ve read our books, played our games and now the cabin fever is sinking in.

An abandoned fromagerie.

Only the pharmacie is open!

What a weird, crazy, unforgettable time to be in France. I’ve thought a lot about all the events that led us to this place, where we don’t speak much of the language and are an ocean away from our family and friends. Was it a colossal mistake to move out of our house, put all our belongings in storage, and move to Europe for six months at the precise moment that the world shut down to battle this virus? Obviously, no one could have seen this coming during the many weeks and months that I spent preparing for this next chapter of our journey. And at any point I could pull the plug on our adventure, spend hours being screened in airports, and find an Airbnb in Maryland to self-isolate in along with everyone else in my community. But, as I’ve sought the Lord about why we’re right here, right now, I’ve felt that there was no mistake about us coming at this exact time. We’re staying in a lovely, spacious apartment with everything we need, down to blackout curtains that helped us recover from jet-lag. We have more than enough food, opportunities for exercise and fresh air, and technology that miraculously connects us to friends around the globe and endless opportunities for learning.

It can certainly be unnerving to dwell on the fact that we are technically homeless and, like countless others around the world right now, every single one of our plans is up in the air. What a good reminder that our true citizenship is in heaven, and though we will encounter trouble in this world, we can take heart because He has overcome the world (Philippians 3:20, John 16:33). During this time of uncertainty, I’ll do my part to deluge you with photos of la belle (et tranquille!) France. I hope to post regularly with updates, pictures, and ways that we’re making the most of this unplanned staycation. I also want to hear from each of you - how are you, and what are some of your favorite ways to stave off cabin fever?

Lots of love from France!
Jen et Elissa

My sunshine when skies are gray <3

Wasted

If the most precious gift we have is time—

Why would we want to kill it?

-Ben Sasse-

 I vividly remember getting ready for bed late one night years ago in Houston as Nathan pounded steadily away on his laptop, working on a dashboard he was creating in his “off hours” for Literacy Advance, the nonprofit whose board he had joined as a volunteer earlier that year. Finally, at my urging, he reluctantly powered down the laptop and called it a night.

“Why do people have to sleep?” he groaned as he flopped on the bed beside me. “It’s such a waste of time. We could accomplish so much more in life if we just stayed awake!”

I remember being amazed at his tenacity. After a long day of work I was more than ready to snuggle down in my cozy bed and surrender consciousness to blissful hours of sleep. But to Nathan, coming home from work was just the beginning of a long evening of tasks he was passionate about and couldn’t wait to start.

My conviction that Nathan was truly one of a kind in this regard has only grown in the years since he’s been gone. Our generation is increasingly obsessed with all manner of time-killers, particularly in the electronic form. Netflix binging, games, social media, and communication forms of all kinds steal our time in staggering amounts. A personal example is the book list I made at the beginning of 2018. I excitedly chose 12 books of different genres and posted a photo, vowing to read a book a month and write a book review so I didn’t promptly forget what I’d read. To my utter chagrin I finished a total of three books and only wrote reviews on two. To be fair, I listened to other books on Audible and read many chapter books with Elissa – but I am haunted by the nine books on my list that never even got cracked open last year. What stole the time that I should have devoted to reading and digesting those books?

If I am honest, it was the mindless rut that I fell into every evening after Elissa was in bed. Exhausted from a day of parenting struggles, homeschooling, traveling, home projects, and all manner of other things, I’d reason that I owed it to myself to relax, to chill – i.e. to veg on my phone while the evening slipped away from me. The inevitable result was that I never felt rested and invigorated by that time spent on my phone. Instead I was always shocked to realize what time it was. I felt robbed of those minutes that I’d had such high hopes for; they were stolen from me. They were wasted.

Our phones are addicting, and have been ingeniously engineered to meet our specific habits and preferences in such a tailor-made way that they become indispensable to living. The average American checks their phone every 4 minutes, and if you’re like me, “checking my phone” can quickly turn into chasing a rabbit trail that spirals out of control – clicking this link, reading that article, scrolling those photos – and before I know it 20 minutes have been lost forever.

If I’m going to break the hold that media has on me, I need to be smarter than my smartphone. I need to take a careful look at my electronic habits, anticipate the moments when I’m tired or stressed and most susceptible to distraction, and set myself up for success. This might mean keeping my phone in my bedroom, silencing my notifications so that I’m only alerted to phone calls (this was the original purpose of a phone anyhow, and if the need is urgent people can call!), designating 5-10 minutes each day to catch up on social media (because guaranteed, nothing has happened in a day that deserves more than 5-10 minutes of my time), and keeping books strategically around the house where I can pick them up and read a few pages instead of scrolling through Facebook and Instagram.

As Ben Sasse so insightfully points out in The Vanishing American Adult, time has historically been our most valuable resource, and this generation is obsessed to an unprecedented degree with wasting it. Tellingly, we call the hugely popular pastime of binge drinking "getting wasted” because, not only are you good for nothing when you are blackout drunk, but the hangover the next day is time wasted and never recovered. Drinking isn’t just a waste of time – but of faculties, resources, and good judgment. It can and does result in the waste of lives. My husband – who lived each moment with incredible purpose and insatiable drive – was killed by a young woman almost lethally drunk. Not only did she waste her own life and leave her daughter an orphan, she stole the resources and potential of a new father with a family and unbelievably bright future ahead of him. It is tragic that these losses are commonplace. Our generation is in bondage to wasted lives and the terrible consequences that often result. Losing my husband at 26 has forced me to ask the question: what is more tragic? A short, full life lived to the hilt, or a long, empty life wiled away in meaningless past times?

Given my track record from last year, I’m a bit wary of setting concrete goals for myself this year. Instead, I am dedicated to creating habits that will breed lasting change. I’m sending them out into the cybersphere so that I have no excuse not to live up to them. Firstly, I vow to go to bed on time so that I can get up early in the mornings and write – something that I am deeply passionate about. Second, I vow to beat my smartphone at its own game by relegating it to another room and only engaging when it can be of some use to me. Third, I vow to fill my days with meaningful thought, work, play, and learning so that the downtime doesn’t encroach on my personal goals and development. I vow to be present for my daughter in her formative moments, leaving her a legacy of meaningful relationship – never that she had to compete with a beeping screen for my attention.

What are your goals for this year? Leave a comment below, and let’s be a community that spurs each other on in not wasting our lives.

The Most Generous Man in the World

I wrote a little story for my dad's birthday, and wanted to share it here so everyone can know how amazingly generous he is. Happy Birthday Dad, I love you!

Once upon a time there was a man with a wife and six children. They lived in a little house and were very happy. One day, the man decided to sell the little house and move to a big, beautiful house up the road. His children played games in the huge yard, slept in spacious bedrooms, and explored the comfortable neighborhood. They were even happier than they had been in the little house. The man worked very hard in the big house. He kept the lawn cut, the trees trimmed, and the pool sparkling. He threw massive parties for his children and their friends. Everyone loved the big house. Everyone loved the man's parties. 

But the man didn't stop there. He wanted his children to see the world, and so he would pile them into a big gray van that he had bought, brand new, and take them on spontaneous trips. They traveled up the coast to Canada. They traveled down the coast to Florida. The man bought his children things and memories. But that wasn't the most important thing. He gave them the gift of relationships, that couldn't be bought with money. He liked to have his children sit up front with him and talk. He spent time with each of the six children, listening to them, learning about their hopes and dreams. And when the man spoke to his children, it was with wisdom and understanding. He taught his children about God. He showed them how to love God and each other. The man raised six children who became best friends. 

When it was time for the man's oldest child, a daughter, to go to school, the man let her choose where she wanted to go. He took her to visit the school, and when she was accepted, he sat down and wrote a check for the first semester, and for each of the semesters after that. Sometimes the man ran into hard times financially. Often his children never even knew. He did everything he could to give them the best life possible. After the oldest daughter graduated from her expensive school, she planned an expensive wedding. And the man worked harder than ever before. He worked long, long hours all of the months before the wedding so that he could walk his daughter down the aisle in the setting of her dreams. 

Three years passed, and the man gave his second daughter a wedding just as exquisite as the first. He sent his third daughter to an expensive school. And he worked harder than ever to make it all possible, to make his children's dreams come true. At last, it seemed, life began to slow down for the man. The full nest began to empty as, one by one, his children set out to make their own way in the world. Then, terrible tragedy struck. The oldest daughter found herself alone in the world with her newborn baby girl. And the man once again made a home for her. He moved to the basement of his own house and gave his bedroom to his daughter. He found furniture and pretty things to make her smile. He bought her crepes and coffee and listened to her when she was confused. He loved her baby girl like his own. 

Every year brings the man closer to retirement age. Every year, the man works harder than ever. He brings his mother into his home. He drives to North Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, and Canada to visit his children. The man does not stop working. He does not stop praying. He does not stop loving. He does not stop giving. He is the most generous man in the whole world.