True Confessions: How Vacation Bible School Kicked My Butt

I’m tired. Truly, unbelievably, nightmarishly tired. Night out with the girls? An all nighter with a sick child? Making whoopee with my husband in the basement after the kids go to bed? Nah….it’s that dreaded time of year called “Vacation Bible School”.

Sounds innocuous enough, doesn’t it? I mean face it…how hard can it be – drag seven kids to church each afternoon for five days, someone else feeds them dinner and then turn them over to a group of dedicated volunteers who run them around the church for three hours. They do crafts, sing (atthe top of their lungs), eat snacks and at the end of all this you have just given your child enough Christian Education to last them the rest of the summer. Easy, right? Not a chance.

Let me tell you how it really is. Vacation Bible School at our church hasn’t been held during normal working hours in about five years (not enough volunteers). When they went to evening hours we dropped out of it (it’s hard enough to corral seven kids to bed at eight p.m. without the added distraction of coming home two hours later and still needing baths, teeth brushed, etc.)

But this year they got me. I took some time off from church. I admit it. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
This year it seems that Sunday is the only day I didn’t have a therapy appointment, scout meeting, or what ever. My days have started to stretch well beyond the seventeen-hour mark and I just hit the wall. Running. Smack. Right into my face.

Being away from church for a couple of weeks sets you up for other things (God might work in mysterious ways, but sometimes He just hits you over the head with a nerf ball.). You get susceptible to guilt trips (ahh, flash backs to my Catholic school days). Vacation Bible School was coming up the 2nd week after school ended. Guaranteed to be fun, filling (they were cooking) and fast paced. The kids are older and more able to stay up later than normal for a few days. They have the rest of the summer to recuperate. So I decided to sign the kids up for VBS (filling out identical forms for seven kids with identical info is another story in itself). My schedule went something like this:

The first night (Sunday) went reasonably well. The kids ate, played, sang, ran around and generally found Jesus at the top of their lungs. Got to bed at 10 p.m.

Monday morning I got up at 4:30 a.m., dragged my daughter out of bed, drove two hours to see an orthopedic specialist in Grand Rapids (who was on vacation that day). Convinced the nurses at the office that something had crawled inside my daughters leg cast and died. Got the cast changed. Flew home (wheels never touched the ground), went to work, met kids at church, did VBS night #2 stuff, went home, got to bed 10:30 p.m. So what’s an 18-hour day to a mom, right? (And who has time to count anyway?)

Tuesday I got up at 5 a.m., went to work and stared at paperwork, moved my pencil around, met kids at 5 p.m., ate church food, listened to the music program (again), discovered that the music system had only one flavor (loud), went home and did seven baths and seven sets of teeth, crawled into bed at 10:30 p.m

Wednesday, crawled out of bed at 5 a.m., crawled to work, stared out the window, tottered to church, sat there in a dumb founded stupor, got home, threw water at the kids, waved toothbrushes in the general direction of their teeth, got to bed at 10:15 p.m.

Thursday, opened one eye, miraculously showed up at work, imagined I met the kids at church, slept under a table for 3 hours, got carried to my car by several volunteer parents (those still awake) and seven little kids, waved my magic wand and got home, stepped over the door sill and died.

Friday, woke up, blew up the church, locked the kids outside and went back to bed.

So, what did you doing this summer?

As always, love from Buckley,
Where the kids know Jesus, the church won’t let me back in, and I’m still trying to figure
if getting a face lift will put the bags back under my eyes instead of under my chin where
they are currently parked.