On a Winter’s Day {Why I make them go outside}
Posted in Home Life, Homeschool | 9 comments
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. ~ 3 John 1:4
We walk through snow and ice and sometimes we wear rubber boots. Three days a week, I tell them, just three times are you required to get out here and raise your heart rate a little.
There are complaints and pleas, there is sometimes a giving-in, but these minds need air and the cold just makes us walk faster.
I am teacher-mom, and that means I have to be the whistle-and-gym-shorts kind, too. Or in our case, the layered-up goof with ear muffs and a camera around her neck.
I even bought umbrellas, because it’s Oregon and we are nearly aquatic. There’ll be no weather-related excuses.
So we walk and there are kids spread out for a quarter-mile in front and behind me, some of them trying to keep up and some of them trying to break free, I think. I annoy them with my camera and my pep-talks, with my smile and my Pollyanna-isms.
“Look at how the buds are coming on the trees!”
“Oh they put fresh gravel down!”
“If you are cold you could always run!”
I annoy them because I stop to take pictures, because I walk too fast, because I run circles around them sometimes in my goofy tights and neon yellow shirt.
I think they love me anyway.
I am freezing and there are at least 30 other things I could be doing at the moment but we walk. Out and back, the same route, and sometimes we talk or hold hands or race home.
Sometimes there are just 5 separate people, walking alone but in the same direction.
I think we’re making memories that will be stored up for one day, for a day when we can’t take walks together and make each other laugh with our cheesy jokes. I want them to see all the joy I see and be satisfied with the simple things like frost on branches and budding twigs.
So when we go for a walk and they complain, I press on because I know it’s the moments that are important and the years are only made up of so many. I press on because I know that seeing takes practice, and nothing is perfect so we take the imperfect and find God there.
I know that the exercise profits a little. I know that it’s cold and torturous and there are other things to do but this moment has to freeze and we have to seize it.
And I know that there is always a truth to see in walking. Not a Pollyanna, look-at-how-the-ice-forms-on-my-eyelashes attempt, but a true Truth that the seasons change, the ground freezes under you, but everywhere in every corner God is at work.
That’s the Truth I want my children to walk in.
The world will tell them otherwise, that the ground freezes and the leaves fall because there is no God at work. They will have people try to tell them to take the easy road, to stay warm and comfortable. To live in ease and find beauty only in the work of their own hands.
Not so, my children.
I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in the whole truth of this created world and the God who made it and them.
See how the tree buds after a long winter.
See how the road is made firm for our walking.
See how far you can run.
Linking up with Emily at Imperfect Prose, #TellHisStory, and Crystal at Thriving Thursdays
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Beautiful post. In our CA summer we get out and explore the mountain ranges. It builds memories all year long of God’s glorious handiwork. You are definitely making memories and building a legacy!
Such a beautiful post. We all need moments like these. In our busyness we forget to make pleasant memories for our kids! I must admit though, that I’d rather make our memories on a warm and sunny beach!
Holy long-lost-twin, Batman! You and I have so many of the same thoughts on this! I literally just posted to a linkup a post called “Why We Go Outside,” scrolled up to check out some other links, and lo and behold, I found your lovely blog covering the same topic! And SO beautifully. I love the words and pictures here…love the last section especially. Gosh, it just made me shiver a little.
Oh, in case you want to check out my post: http://www.morefunmom.com/2013/02/why-we-go-outside.html
This is absolutely fantastic, and I can’t wait to share it on facebook. I need to take my children outside more, even if it is cold. I love being outside in the cold b/c I think of all the cold mornings and evenings I used to spend in the barn. Those were happy times. My children are very little (and, right now, kind of sick), but, like your kids (like all kids!) they need the outside time, even (especially?) in winter. Thank you for sharing your heart, here.
The way you write? Utterly beautiful. Your prose shimmers. It makes me want to walk outside, right now. Except then, I remembered, we’re in the middle of a snowstorm, and it’s 9:30 p.m. But you made me forget that for a little while.
Grateful for your participation in #TellHisStory.
yes, yes, yes.
all in on this one. especially cuz i’m kinda die-hard when it comes to cold weather. “it’s good fer ya, y’know? you’ll thank me one day.” and all the other mom-isms you can imagine.
and because there’s something very spiritual about putting one foot in front of another down a gravel road in a cornfield (where we live) and letting it speak its whispered reminders of Something Larger, the Joy we all catch when we are brave enough to believe.
and what you said about watching them run . . . oh, amen to that. beautiful.
Tresta! I love this and so relate to this calling outside, to the teaching them to see. I loved the fresh, crisp clear of this piece and the building of memories. This is beautiful, friend.
Brandee recommended this post, and I’m so glad she did. I’m not really nature girl, or exercise girl, but my husband dragged my kids and me up, down, over, and through many national parks during our homeschooling years. There was a lot of whining and complaining, and not all of it from the kids. For Christmas this year, I put together a slide show of our years of adventures together. I got a lot of things wrong as a homeschooling mom, this is is one thing I think my husband and I got right.
Keep that camera hanging around your neck, and keep dragging those kids outside!
There are no words–only tears—-