Dipping in Up to My Waist

When I started this thing, this reaching up in the air and grabbing my thoughts and making them into words and setting them free, I named it "Dipping the Toe" because that's what it felt like.  I was a shy, scared little girl on the inside with such big thoughts to share.  Would there be an echo?  Or angry words back?  Or worse.....yawns?  Would anybody care to hear?  Did it matter what I said?  But, the thing is, I'd been let out of my cage and I could feel myself wanting to sing out loud.  I could sense my Creator urging me to.  So I trusted Him and sidled up to the water and put my foot gingerly into just the edge of the pool of letters.  A curious thing happened.  I grew courage and boldness and a tree that seemed to sprout from my spirit and grow words and more words.   So, I planted myself there and grew green and stronger and my words were my heart beating out strong to others and I found others weren't so scary after all.  I made friends with the world around me.

My writing opened the doors to me and I started to think and dream bigger than what I could already see.  What if, says I to me, what if I just walked right into people's lives and stayed there instead of running shy if they noticed me.  Yesterday I sat on the second row of church and watched the kids choir singing and I found myself in that group.  There was one little girl standing as brave as she could make herself, her mouth barely moving; no smile because that may have taken more energy than she had left just to be there in the first place.  I wanted to run up and hug her hard and tell her that what matters isn't whether she gets noticed or doesn't get noticed but that she's here and breathing and please just sing out, sweet girl, while you're alive because it's just so fabulous that you are alive and that you are just exactly who you are!

So, now?  Well , now I find myself on the ledge of a grand adventure, perched  ready to jump, and I'm so jazzed I feel like I could fly! A few months back I spent a day with my girl and a young boy and it lit a fire in my heart, just to watch him run and sing and be silly and eat his ice cream messy and it stayed there with me in the places where my dreams are made.  So, I slept on it for days and nights and days again until one day I ventured to make the dream grow legs and I sent out a little note to my friend that maybe, just maybe, there might be a place for me to go back to school where she works?  Only this time as a mom and a mentor and a friend and a passer out of hugs and smiles and words of encouragement and noticing when someone needs to be noticed.  To love those kids as if they were my own.  To pray for them as I look into their faces.  To find a place for them in my heart.  To make a little home in theirs.

Today I went to that school to sign papers to make me official and to get my key fob and laugh with the accountant because I told her I thought accountants were weird and that I couldn't wait to make her my friend; to hug the school close to me as part of my family.  And the best part is, my girl goes with me as a student in a "real" school for the first time in her life.  She has her backpack filled, 17 days early,  and we talk giddy and make excuses to drive by the school and try and imagine what it will feel like to be included in that world.  I ask her what she's most looking forward to.  "To be bored in class.  I want to experience all the things I've heard kids complain about."  I shake my head at her, laughing at the unexpected answer.  But I get it.

My girl and I?  We're seeing dreams appear on the horizon together.  We're anxious to learn and grow into loving bigger.  I'm looking forward to gathering more stories to tell, to being known as the crazy red headed lady in the student store, walking the halls passing out smiles that won't fit on my face.  Most of all, though?  Most of all, I'm looking forward to hearing, "That lady there?  She loves us in a way that reminds us that God loves us."