But first let me give you a rundown of what a typical day is like in the McKinley-DePoe house.
It's 8am and I am running late. I gather my Hebrew textbooks, pencils, water bottle, phone, keys and toss them in my bag. As I stumble down the stairs trying to remember anything I forgot I hear, "RE-BE-KH!" Landon, my 20 month old housemate, is awake and excited that I will be joining him for breakfast.
As I head in to the kitchen I see that Josh, his dad already made the coffee. PTL. Sustenance. I pour myself a cup, and assemble the rest of my breakfast. While I try to remember how to make cereal, Landon starts singing to me, using a whisk as a microphone. Josh, who attended seminary awhile back, asks me how my Hebrew studying is coming along. He reminds me that I'm going to do fine on my test. I finish my breakfast, giving pieces of toast to Landon, because seriously who can refuse a happy kid at 8:15 in the morning? By 8:30 I'm out the door, but not before Landon waves goodbye to me from the top of the steps.
I then go to Hebrew, eat lunch, study, then go to work. I finish up around 5:15 and head home.
Since today is Tuesday, Megan's (Landon's mom) parents are spending the day with us. Her parents remind me of my own grandparents and it's always a treat to have them over. We, (Me, Landon, Josh, Megan, Grandma, Grandpa, and Baby Brooke) have dinner together. Grandma tells me about her adventures with Landon playing tennis, and seeing the fire truck. Megan fills me in on Brooke's day (at almost 3 weeks old, it's mostly filled with eating, sleeping, and pooping.) I tell everyone about the new Hebrew paradigm I'm studying.
From 6-7:30 I finish up preparing my Hebrew lessons for the next day. At 7:30 I put my books away because it's time for my favorite part of the day, holding Brooke. I like to call her my little Hebrew study break because holding her is the best stress relief. Until she realizes that I'm not mom, and therefore can't feed her. At which point I hand her back to Mom, and go finish studying before bed.
I hope you can see from the above illustration that living with a family gives me stability and normalcy in an otherwise unstable (my schedule changes every 12 weeks) and abnormal (I spend my days reading Barth) life. As a single young woman, I have a whole new respect for marriage and family life. Watching Megan and Josh sacrifice for their children everyday calls me on to be more selfless in my work and relationships. If Megan can endure 20 hours of labor and delivery, I can get up 10 minutes earlier to unload the dishwasher.
But, perhaps most importantly, living with a family during seminary has given me the space to discern my call to ministry. Let me explain what I mean by that. Seminary can be an incredibly lonely place. As you start to live your life in a fishbowl, you are away from your family, your church, and your support systems. Loneliness, mixed with few safe places to be yourself, causes many people to either put off asking God what he wants to do with your call to ministry, or not asking God what he wants to do with your ministry because you just want to finish. In living with this family, God has given me the support I need to ask him the tough questions about my vocation and future family life. While I don't have the answers to the big questions, I do know who I'm having breakfast with tomorrow morning, and that, right now, is more than enough.
