A Land To Possess

Yesterday, was by any estimation one of the best Saturdays in a long time, maybe ever.  It included all the elements that would add up to perfection (for me)....sleeping in, getting out of town, being at the ranch, hanging with my brother and his family, reading, hiking, watching the kids play basketball, no computers, no tv, no wii.  I'm telling you, it was the kind of day that ended with climbing into bed completely satisfied, no regrets.  I also learned a lot about my kids, my boys in particular.  I embraced there joy as they jumped out of the suburban exclaiming, "Lets run around".  And thats what they did for the first thirty minutes, they ran and ran and ran, dogs chasing them and yelling "lets go here".  They checked each of their favorite places to explore, making sure everything was how they left it.


About an hour into our  time at the ranch, a new repetition started to arise from the troops, when are we hiking, when are we heading to the hills, when?!?!?!?!?  So, once again I'm watching them explore and yet respond with recognition and a sense of knowing.  There is something about new adventures, but there is also something about having a land to call their own, a land to possess and know.  Our youngest son scurried to the top of the bluff with binoculars in tow and a small pocket knife in hand and looked over the land he had just been playing in.  He watched the birds flying over it and commented on the cracks and crevices that can only be seen when looking down on the ground.

I watched my kids and my nephews eagerly waiting for their insight.  I love how kids cloak their insight in sarcasm or complaining or joyful exuberance, I love that if you listen long enough, you can hear their hearts, you can hear their battle cry.  So, as we walk and climb, it starts to dawn on me..... the boys need a land to possess... a land to call their own and a land to know.  They love these canyons and burnt trees and falling rock intensely and they are enjoying the process of knowing the land....knowing it is a way a child cannot know land in middle-class suburban America.

The thing about possessing the land is that for them its not an individual task, it is something they do together because they belong together.  They not only need a land to possess but they also want a people to belong to.  They love saying they are cousins and Crockers. Yesterday, they moved passed understanding that they are all Crockers... to understanding that they are all Shauls, because together they have a land that ties them together and grandparents and aunts and uncles and great-aunts and great-uncles and second cousins and we somehow all belong to each other.  As we walked, my brother and I told them stories of sledding and chokecherry picking, feeding cattle and searching for treasures with a metal detector, pretending to be Indian Scouts and riding horseback through the hills.

When I shared my insights with my husband, he reminded me that God had given his children these same things I want to give my kids.  A land to possess and a people to belong to.  And so I'm reminded that even now God is giving me a people to belong to.  He has blessed me with a physical family to belong to and to be honest I love being a Crocker and a Shaul.  I love my connection to the land our family calls home and I look forward to our extended family being together again.  I love being with my aunts and watching my kids play with "cousins".   But God has also given me a people to belong to that aren't "blood", but still family.  I love our church family.  My kids have already started the count down to InsideOut on Friday night.  It is the spiritual family they know they belong to.  Our youngest will ask me no less than 5 times a day, "How long 'til InsideOut?"  Its funny to watch their connection, because they don't necessarily engage in conversation and they tend to do their own thing but they just like knowing that for one evening we will all be together, we will eat together, pray together, laugh together, play together, cry together and those things that families do together.  We might even get irritated with each other, but that only serves to make us more of a family.  I love to be in this place where we can't wait to be with our spiritual family, whether its our "immediate family" on Friday nights or our "extended family" on Sundays.

I love that God chose a perfect day and seven children to teach me some valuable insights and most importantly to teach me how much He loves me.