Crossing Thresholds

The first two days we had Sailor home, she planted herself on our living room couch and hardly left it. She had decided that would be her home base and she would only venture from it with persuasion. When she did walk around, we noticed she was hesitant to cross thresholds. Getting her to proceed through doorways took us getting down on the floor and calling her name excitedly. We acted like fools, but that is what happens to people when they come into contact with puppies. It's part of their charm.

We have three types of flooring in our downstairs - carpet in our bedroom; laminate wood in our living room, dining room and office; and slate tile in our entryway and kitchen. Sailor hated crossing thresholds so much that she didn't even like to walk from one type of flooring onto the other. She was probably glad when we rolled up all our rugs and put them away to save them from puppy destruction. One less surface change!

It took Sailor about a week to explore the whole downstairs and move through it without hesitation. Now if she needs a change of scenery she leaps from the couch like a deer and runs across the slick surfaces like Scooby Doo. She (almost) owns the downstairs now. We have the upstairs gated off because she's not ready to be trusted there yet, but we've carefully prepared the downstairs so that she can go anywhere and be safe and thrive.

I, too, am a reluctant threshold crosser. I fought tooth and nail for our season with littles at home not to end yet. But whether I liked it or not, the time came to cross the threshold. I have felt the Lord near to me in the last two weeks, as if He were crouching down and calling my name, willing me to walk into the next room. "This room is yours too. Come and see it! Look at the things I have for you in here."

Our whole lives we cross thresholds. We never stop doing it until we cross the last and most important one of them all.* I want to get better at this. I think I will always be the kind of person who has to process big changes deeply, but I want to do it without fear and dread. Hopefully I'm making progress.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer's;

    he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk 3:19                                        _______________________________________

Reading "Twas the Night Before Kindergarten" with Annabeth before she went to sleep. 

The first day of kindergarten and third grade. 

Here they are walking into school. I shed a couple of quiet tears when we walked out. Then I had breakfast tacos with two of my closest friends who also have kindergartners and we celebrated, mourned, and did everything in between. 

Curtis told Sailor this was the very day for which she was born. She is such a love.

The end of a successful first day! 

*A wonderful book that has recently helped me through loss and  crossing thresholds of unwanted change is A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser. I highly recommend it.