Finding Routines

Good Morning, Afternoon, or Evening!

This is Mr. Matt again, and I am coming to you today while sitting on a lawn chair in my garage that is getting much more clean and organized, listening to some Vivaldi and having some coffee at noon! There honestly has not been all that much that has happened since I last wrote... but I think that we are beginning to get to the point where we are trying to find what our daily routine and life looks like while we are attempting this stay at home - quarantine lifestyle.

My house is almost to the point where I can just upkeep it and just enjoy it without having to constantly mold it more into the home that my family wants. And, I have found that I have actually been enjoying working on it. My Dad actually called me out the other day when we were working on our floors. I may have slightly complained about all this work that this house will require out of me and the amount of effort it takes to upkeep it. And he raised his eyebrows at me and looked me in the eyes and said, "Son, it is an absolute privilege to take care of a home. You GET to be tired from working on it. You GET to be sweaty from putting effort into it. You GET to share your efforts with other people and invite them into your home that you have been making. And if you can’t handle it, then you don’t deserve to have it. So I don’t want to hear that from you ever again.”

…He gets pretty intense sometimes. But I will always remember that! I said "yes sir" and I have been working hard at reshaping my attitude when it comes to working on my home and I hope that you all are getting to this point as well. What a blessing from the Lord when a home and a family is when it works well together! And when it does not… there are few things more miserable. We all have a part to play in the making and forming of our homes. My role used to be that of the oldest son. Now I am the father of the home and I get the privilege of making my home the home that I thought about and desired when I was a kid under my mother and father. When you get older, you will have the opportunity to make your home into whatever you want it to be, but not yet. Now is the time for you to help and say ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘yes sir’ and work hard with the hands that the Lord has given you and rest in the fact that you are not yet at the time being the one who is going to be held responsible for how they managed their family from the Lord. It is a tough calling! Listen and learn and think about what kind of home builder you will be when you grow up!

I titled this post ‘Finding Routines’ and I hope that this is also something that you are discovering how to do when the day and weeks seem to blur together and each day feels like the last. Routines when they are missing can be very felt and although for a short time it is nice to be different, life is pretty tough to stay ‘above the water’ when time doesn’t have much of a meaning. Try to think about how each day can be different from others and splitting up time in different ways to help your body and mind make sense of it. This is a very hard thing to do and takes a massive amount of intentionality and discipline to do it well. .. I have not figured it out yet in the last 18 months of being at home with Kirk, but I am getting better!

My last note that I wanted to give to you is from a book that I am reading called Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Here is a short snippet from the last moments of his life from the viewpoint of someone present. He was born in 1906 and died in 1945 in Germany at a military prison.

“Bonhoeffer always seemed to me to spread an atmosphere of happiness and joy over the least incident and profound gratitude for the are fact that he was alive… He was one of the very few persons I have ever met for whom God was real and always near… On Sunday, April 8th, 1945, Pastor Bonhoeffer conducted a little service of worship and spoke to us in a way that went to the heart of all of us. He found just the thoughts and the resolutions it had brought us. He had hardly ended his last prayer when the door opened and two civilians entered. They said, “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, come with us.” That had only one meaning for all prisoners-the gallows. We said goodbye to him. He took me aside: “This is the end, but for me it is the beginning of life.” The next day he was hanged in Flossenburg. The text on which he spoke on that last day was “With his stripes we are healed.”

Today is April 8th, 2020. Although we are not in a military prison in Germany during the end of World War Two awaiting the gallows… and I hope that none of you feel like you might be… I pray that we could take time today just to be thankful for what the Lord has given us today. I have one last snippet to give to you and I will sign off. Here it is from Dietrich in his book Life Together in the chapter about The Day with Others focusing on the reading of Scripture.

“It is not in our life that God’s help and presence must still be proved, but rather God’s presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today. The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day. I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ.”

This book was published in 1939. Bonhoeffer was 33. He was arrested in April of 1943 and was killed in April of 1945. He knew how important reading his Bible was and “making the most of your time, because the days are evil: (Ephesians 5:16).

Bonhoeffer would tell you during this time, to spend more time learning and figuring out the Bible and the birth, and death, and resurrection of Christ and learn to have hope and trust in God so that, no matter what happens, for better or worse, you can have the confidence that you too, shall be raised on the Last Day.

Love you all and praying for you and your families!

Hope your quarantine is going well. Stay safe and healthy,

Mr. Matt