Maisy turned six last week, and we celebrated with a sleepover. This, for the foreseeable future, will be our tradition. We stumbled upon the ritual last summer, when Nana was away speaking at a camp during the 5th Birthday Princess Party, and we substituted with a belated sleepover. Which very quickly became Our Thing—for as long as the child is willing. (Oh please God, keep her willing for a good long time!!)
Six is very nearly the perfect age. Oh my goodness. All week I’ve lingered in the memory of sweetest conversations, innocent and thoughtful, so grown up all of a sudden. Together we read books (Little House, of course) and we worked side-by-side making food for a tea-party (which we shared with Papi) and later we took a long walk through the neighborhood, finding flowers for Maisy to photograph. (Her photographer mama gave her a pink kid-camera as a birthday gift.) When bedtime came Nana and Maisy enjoyed a “girls only” sleep-over in adjacent bunkbeds, and in the morning we started our day, snuggled in a chair, musing about Jesus.
I savored it all. The hammock stories and the nature walks and the morning Bible. And all the while I found myself longing to show my granddaughter what it really means to “Kingdom Flourish.”
A year ago, give or take, I stumbled upon an article in a magazine that has permanently altered my priorities when it comes to work and family.
Per Christianity Today, February 2023—Education and the End Times, by Andrea Palpant Dilley:
As parents and caretakers, the vision for our kids’ flourishing starts here on earth but extends all the way into eternity. We’re teaching them to govern creation now but also raising them to co-rule with God in the new creation.
Maisy’s daddy (my oldest son) intuitively embodies this kingdom flourishing better than almost anyone I know. The man is at heart a Worship Leader. And not just when he’s playing music.
They may not know it now, but Maisy and her brothers have been given the priceless blessing of sampling Eden-on-Earth every day of their precious little lives. You’d only need to take a spin down Oakwood Drive to see what I mean—
The Gardens.
The chickens.
The Craftsmanship.
The Winsfield Creative is the registered brand of one of our son’s many endeavors. It is, for the most part, a woodworking business. Grant builds beautiful furniture, while growing his crops, and raising his kids, and playing his soul-mending music. (He also dabbles in graphic design, video production, and home-renovation.)
It is not uncommon for me to get a middle-of-the-day phone call from my son, for the sole purpose of sharing with his mama, some Kingdom Thought—
A ministry vision.
A provocative question.
Grant spends a great deal of time actually thinking about EDEN.
Of all the things Grant does with excellence, perhaps his most supreme investment is teaching his family “to co-rule with God in the new creation.”
Grant and I are both in a season of “landing the plane” so-to-speak when it comes to our current WORK. How do we best steward the time, talent, and treasure God has entrusted to us for earthly living? How do we labor hard in sacrificial toil for family, church and Kingdom?
The fact is… it is not only the children who are learning to both “govern creation” here-and-now, while keeping an eye on future rule in New Creation. It’s the grown-ups, too. Earthly stewards and Kingdom workers in seamless transition. The work we start here, we continue forever.
I have this picture...
God has put into my hands (Grant’s hands, too—and yours) a special basket. It’s The Basket of Our True Vocation. Throughout our lives God continues to add things to it. Skills. Talents. Education. Resources. Interests. The basket contains everything needed for each of us to do the work God has called us to do. We use our baskets here-and-now to their full potential. We invest every talent.* And then. One day, we’ll breathe our last in this earthly existence, and we’ll go on living in God’s New Creation.
And the baskets will go with us.
“The vision for our kids’ flourishing starts here on earth but extends all the way into eternity.”
Ours, too.
Flourishing work. Here. Now. And Forever.
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*Matthew 25:20-21—
The man who had received five talents approached, presented five more talents, and said, “Master, you gave me five talents. See, I’ve earned five more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You were faithful over a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master’s joy.”
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