ADVENTure

Curious Question: What are some of your favorite book series for kids and teens? 

This week I found myself unexpectedly taking a trip down memory lane! And then I decided to take C there with me! 

It started on Wednesday when I drove C to his Bible club and A to her youth group. They’re both in the same area, and far enough from home that instead of going back and forth twice I prefer to hang out in the little town nearby and find something to do. This would be a challenge since it’s literally tiny and there isn’t much there, but anywhere I can find a good place to read or to write, is the perfect place for me! 🥰 

Theres’s a little library open, so I decided to drop in. I’ve only gone in there on one other occasion- and it was glorious because it was actually quiet, which is rare even in a library these days! I remember that time, finding a cozy chair to curl up in, in front of a fake fire place- but with a real glow about it that was enough to have my soul sighing in a happy way. 🔥 

So this week, I went in again, hoping for a repeat experience, but finding someone else in that chair, and the noise level a bit louder. A staff member could tell I didn’t know my way around, and asked if they could help, and when I shared that I was just looking for a comfy place to read- they pointed me up a flight of stairs to a lofted area that fit the bill nicely. 

I laughed when I went to sit down in the couch and this guy was sitting on the other end. I decided to be silly and take a selfie with it. There’s just something about a new place that makes me feel like an adventurer, and gives me a curious and childlike mind- eager to see what I see and to capture in photos like a tourist, the things that catch my eye! ✨ The monkey definitely caught my eye lol. 

The next thing that captured my attention, as I admired the sky and the autumn leaves outside the windows which were placed along the whole top of the building like picture frames, calling my attention toward something higher than books, and higher than buildings, and then back down…to the shelves below the windows…was this boxcar. It was a prop that libraries must have been able to get, to go along with the Boxcar Children book series! I had forgotten all about those books!

A sense of nostalgia came over me, as my mind drifted back to reading them as a kid. Or rather, I think with this particular book series, I listened as a teacher of mine read these books to our class. As an adult, I prefer to read my own books vs. listening to someone else read them, but in this moment I remember- like a scent transports you back to the emotions of a moment- the delightful adventure that it was to listen to her voice, and wonder with my imagination, and picture all of the characters doing whatever it was they were doing as the story unfolded, and wait in anticipation for the story to turn the bends where the unknown becomes known. Like a river journey! 

I had one hour in that library loft, between dropping my kids off and picking them back up. One hour of solitude with God, spent unexpectedly – not according to my plan, and not totally UNaccording to plan either. It was the perfect combination of both! 

Have you ever watched the water whirl around an oar as you paddle a kayak down a river? If you pause and paddle intentionally, and watch, you’ll see a delightful swirling of water. The intentions were to propel yourself forward, but the action actually set off a spinning motion in the aquatic environment around you. Observation becomes delight. Delight is often found for me in the smallest of details! 

Anyway…that is how I felt this day, in this library loft. Sitting beside a stuffed monkey. Looking at a forgotten Boxcar. Being magically transported through time, to a simpler season, and just being read to and allowing a story to unfold before me instead of mapping it all out and creating it. Wonder and imagination. I was transported back to a moment of wonder and imagination, and it was wonderful!

So wonderful that I came home and ordered the first set of Boxcar children books for my six-year-old son. I got as excited as a kid when it came in! 

I pulled him up on my lap, cozy in his pajamas, almost too big to be sitting there- but small enough, still, that I’m going to soak it up for as long as I can. 

And we began:

Chapter one- he had all the questions. 

Chapter two- we started to see which direction the story was swirling. 

By the end of chapter two, he was enchanted as well. 

“Mom! They are going to live in a boxcar! I can’t wait to read about it!”

It was in this moment I wondered with a laugh if this is where the tiny-house movement and shipping-container house ideas were born. From a generation of kids remembering the whimsical delight of Boxcar children books?! 

I tucked him in bed and thanked God for the adventure that reading is. 

The adventure that our world is- 

that even the tiniest, smallest-town places, tucked away in a lofted corner

of who-knows-where- 

can be such a joy! 

Jesus can unlock such surprise and delight, anywhere! 

He Himself is the adventure, really. 

Did you know the first part of that word- ADVENT- literally means Christ coming? 

He puts the advent in adventure! 

Life with Jesus is such a joy ride!