Thursday, December 20, 2012

May you find a Light.

 
 
My world is covered in snow.
It is glorious.
The snow makes the dead decay of winter
look clean again.
Pure.
 
Had a little extra time today,
to sit at the feet of Jesus.
I got up from my place there,
grabbed the dog from off the bed.
And felt a prompting for me to sit right back down.
That He had more for me.
And did He ever.
My soul, full up.
My soul feels like the whitewash outside my window.
A blizzard of new,
pure joy.
 
Friend, I wish I could take your hand,
and touch it to this place.
Where the soul finds peace.
Where fear is gone.
Nothing but hope abounds.
 
The talk today is of the Mayan calendar,
and prediction of the world's end.
The chatter, the talk, the superstition...
It reminds.
That we all have this gaping hole
in our soul.
That longs to be filled.
We wonder about the end of the world,
We wonder about the start of the world.
It is too big for us to grasp.
We push heads hard into entertaining our
minds to death.
Stare at screens.
The empty in our soul
cries out for us to hear.
 
May you find the Light.
 
May you drink,
even just a sip,
from the well that Jesus is.
Living Water.
 
This Christmas,
may you find the Light
to guide you home...
 
"I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
My soul will boast in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together."
~from Psalm 34~
 


Saturday, December 8, 2012

The Jump from Inertia.










 
How to point precious children toward Love, God of the Universe?
Without letting blundering, stupid self trip them all up along the way?
How to just keep head lowered, pointing them to The Way?
Apologizing all along the path for mistakes, for harshly spoken words,
for undeserved reprimands...for tired.
For a brain that doesn't always do well with all the noise.
I actually calculated it one day:  my noise limit.
My brain can handle two things at once, music and a chattering child,
head-noise of reading a recipe while gently disciplining the running of feet,
but throw in a third?
And that third hits my overwhelmed button.
How to lasso up the pharisee inside of me, who always wants cut-and-dry,
black and white rules, and to herald flaws?
In my search for a pure Christmas,
I am face to face with my own heart, which can be so ugly.
So in need of washing.
 
  And even in all my mess,
that baby born in a manger, DIED for me.
I imagine the incredible sacrifice of forgiveness.
Him laying down His very life,
and washing all of my mess away.
And not just my mess,
but the mess of billions just like me.
How to hold all of that mess, but supernatural?
I sit right there, at His feet, pure white.
How undeserved!
Yes, that's the entire reason He came to this wretched, broken earth.
And so I venture to remove stumbling blocks from their little paths,
To not place anything there that glitters temporal, distracts.
To not point them toward idols that woo, stuff that pleasures for a mere breath.
How to find balance of this in a world where stuff takes over?
How to teach LESS, when my basement is clogged?
When I just placed my sixth amazon order?
When my eyes are always roaming.

I desire to teach it,
to learn it myself.

Stuff never satisfies.
Never.
And to herald the ancient birthing of miracles, with eyes focused on stuff?
Is missing fulfillment.
Is missing out on the gift that IS fulfilling,
soul-filling-fulfillment-eternal!
I know the pureness of joy of this filling!
I would trade everything I own just-for-His-soul-filling.
And yet how do I let myself get distracted so easily?
In the words of my favorite author and blogger, Voskamp,
I am plagued,yes, by perpetual soul-amnesia.

I know how easy it is for eyes to fall, for time to rush forth unstoppable,
for the overwhelm to set in.
How easily amnesia can creep into a soul.
It is a deliberate eye-fixation on that baby wrapped in a manger,
that cures.
 
It seems like, often, the prayers that God answers profoundly for me,
are not the prayers that I word-just-right.
The prayers that He jumps on top of are the ones that I utter in spirit.
Just a few thoughts.
Barely penned.
Just heart.
These weeks, my utterance was my lack-of-brain-power to sit down,
to plan it all out.  This pure Christmas I am seeking --
it is a lot of work and thought to chart a new course and jump from inertia.
Would He just take over, make it clear?
Point the way?
 
And within a few days, the pointing begins.
My eyes brimming wide with wonder that the God of the Universe,
He hears and He nudges and
the ideas and clarity that have fallen into my tired, overwhelmed lap?
Could not possibly have been my brainchild.
No ~ in my weakness, He always shines bright.

Yes, the conversations between husband and wife here have been divine.
And I can feel my heart swell with Holy Spirit joy,
As each piece tumbles into place.
While I pray.
And wait.

We are late ~ it is the second week of December...
The plans barely unfurled.
I fret.
Others are well on their way of celebrating advents,
And still my printer is whirring and my heart filling.
And I see it there ~ this little 3x5 card at my computer,
the Psalm that I am penning permanent to memory.
Within the lines of my weekly piece,
"...do not FRET - it leads only to evil."
{ Psalm 37: 8 }

And I picture the "perfect birth" that Mary may have visioned,
And how last minute, she is riding a donkey...
Last minute, she is still on her journey.
She doesn't even know where her journey will end.
Just that it will end with God's perfect plan.
She is led to where Holy would unfurl.
There is no such thing as perfect human planning.
Just divine intermingled with our mess,
Leading us, and showing us glory!

Right there, glory.
Amidst barnyard smells,
and long journeys,
fatigue,
and lack-of-room.

Glory!
 
 
 


Friday, November 16, 2012

Look, children, LOOK!





above: handprint lambs by Gabe and Quinn ("Adventures in My Father's World "curriculum, Week 19)

 
My imperfect journey toward a pure Christmas?
Each year, maybe a step closer.
 
When my first baby turned one, there were gifts under the tree labeled:
"From: Santa!"
Truly, there are pictures in scrapbooks to document this.
That was the last year that Santa stepped foot in this home.
I kicked out Santa Claus.
 
Extreme?
Yup.
Me: quiet, reserved.
Maybe somewhat shy.
But a realist,
with adventure in her heart.
 
It takes a little courage to kick out Santa Claus.
He is everywhere, after all.
 
I guess, I just wanted Christmas for my kids to
NEVER CHANGE.
To always be majestic and mysterious and peace-filled,
focusing on a Super-Hero
who would never leave them.
Whom they would never outgrow.
 
My son once asked me, "Mom, why exactly do we not do the Santa-thing?"
I simply told him my heart.
"Son, Santa is a fun tradition for many children.
But I traded in Santa for truth.
I purposed in my heart that I would never lie to you.
Even in good fun.
So that you really understand that I am telling
the truth,
when I teach you about Jesus.
Some parents walk this line between Jesus and Santa really well,
as the idea of Santa comes from a historical figure who helped many poor,
named Saint Nicholas.
But I knew I couldn't walk that line well.
So I chose a different path for us."
 
Fast forward over a year.
We are pulling into the garage, and my son is asking me a simple question.
One with an obvious answer, like "Mom--are we home?"
And I said "No.  Not...yet....."
Being silly, jesting with him.
He was hurt.
He told me so.
"Mom, I am sad."
I laughed it off thinking he was frustrated with my humor,
and that child floored me with:
"You told me that you'd NEVER lie to me.  And you just did.  You just LIED."
Like two tons of bricks fell from the sky and landed on my heart.
He remembered our conversation about Santa,
and it colored his world view.
Through our road-not-taken, the road of Santa,
he remembered my vow to him.
And this imperfect momma apologized for jesting.
Apologized for lying.
And oh-the-line-we-must-walk-as-parents.
I stumble along it right along with the rest.
Intending one thing ~ changing our entire family tradition,
and still falling short.
 
We kicked out Santa,
but somehow we still do the overload Christmas gift thing.
And every year I encourage the children to write "wish lists."
Only we don't send them to the North Pole.
I never wanted to rid the world of the jolly-fat-fellow-in-red,
just wanted to make it a clear path for my kids toward Jesus.
And yet...somehow....
I am waking up, looking around, and realizing:
Santa was only part of my problem.
 
I haven't quite mastered this Christmas thing yet.
As the snow gently falls here outside these old windows,
sky darkening with the sleep of impending winter,
I am carving new path,
fighting off new enemies of the soul.

*********
 
I know what I want my children to see each Christmas.
Right here, yes ~ THIS is my heart:
 
A trifle over 2,000 years ago,
the God who spoke the world into being, All Powerful,
poured joy and hope upon the earth.
The earth, with it's mess and evil ~ evil that we opted to taste.
Evil that still rolls right off this tongue of mine.
He sent us part of Himself, His glorious son.
All along, His divine plan to bring us back to Himself.
Our dirty, ugly, sinful hearts.
Loved.
 
 
That Christmas Day ~
He sent us our redemption.
At great cost.
A baby born in a lowly manger,
Sent to wash us pure white.
That baby's walk-upon-this-earth,
And his brutal death at the hands of us,
Allows me, sinful me,
To come right to the very throne of God,
bathed pure white,
and be called a child of the Most High God.
 
Look, children, LOOK!
See the gift He has given!

**********

Rocking the baby to sleep,
this song came into my head.
I think, just maybe, I am meant to share it here.
Funny how music can sing the song of souls.
Enjoy.


 
 
.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Monday, November 12, 2012

The Road Not Taken

 
 
 
 
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth....
                        (-excerpt by Robert Frost)
 
*********************
 
This is where I am.
Standing, peering, pondering that forest.
I have these little, teeny feet following me.

And, truth be told...
I would probably stand at that diverged road forever.
If it weren't for time speeding forth,
beckoning me make my way, or it be made for me.
 
I am thinking...Christmas this year?
Will be the start of a new trail.  A little unconventional.
A bare-naked Christmas.
And I'm not talking exposed skin and blushing.
Just a stripping of all the distractions.
Honestly, if I were to bare my heart ~
facing forth a trail less-trodden is a bit SCARY.
And is going to take some real courage from this momma's heart.

Every year, as Thanksgiving heralds its approach,
I have the children dig deep and offer-up tales of what they are thankful for.
There is pure joy in the act of giving thanks,
breathing life and fanning the sometimes graying ashes of contentment.
Such peace.
Hope.

Then...BAM. BLACK FRIDAY.
Feel it?
Feel that peace and contentment just vaporize...
As the rush toward -stuff- begins?
We were all just THERE:  basking and washing ourselves in joy.
It is the greatest mass-hysteria-soul-amnesia-pandemic.
Within one week, I go from teaching-the-counting-of-blessings,
to teaching-the-counting-of-wanting-more-always-more.
I go from having my little ones write lists of thanks,
to handing them paper and inspiring them to write a list of all their lack.
And the focus shifts.
Innocently enough,
But shift -- it does.

And like tectonic-shifting changes the very placement-of-continents,
The shift of heart-plates, away from gratitude, forever changes the soul.

I am finally understanding what the retail world has known all along.
There is no real profit to be made at Thanksgiving.
Because when people are giving thanks,
They are not out looking to buy joy.
They already have it.

I could probably write a ten page, okay twenty...
journey of my muddled ponderings, staring down this fork in the road.
Hearing those little feet, eyes just watching what way we'll take.
I love that these little ones are safe with me!
And at the same time --whoa, the responsiblity--
Inviting you to watch this journey unfold?
Starting here..
at the decision place.  Long.
Where I am still a bit muddled and uncertain and
building, building --always building, courage.

As this momma is standing there,
Ready to forge ahead into a new path toward
heralding in the birth of sweet Jesus ~
our home is full of the buzz of gratitude.
Joy.
Contentment.

And it is well within my soul.

May I be the flawed vessel, infused with glue-of-supernatural strength,
that holds those heart-plates in place?
Holds them in place,
Focused.
On where real joy is found.


***********************************

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost.


 
 


Wednesday, October 31, 2012

"THIS IS IT"







 
I told my husband,
as silly a girl as I am...
would he please, please be open to taking the long route?
There was, after all,
all this history along hwy 8.
Not a straight shot, abandoning GPS,
but surely abounding with pieces.
Of me.
He smiled.
He knows.
 
The heart of this girl?
Watered, nourished.  Over the years.
With the trees, with the quiet...
of the Northwoods.
 
I gushed all ten-again,
how we always knew we were close to the cabin
when we saw it: the mystical-parting-of-the-trees.
Like waters bowed up on either side of a secret passage to peace.
Parted just for us.
And then--like a storybook come-to-life,
we saw it.
Unchanged.
Open and just as secret and divine as ever I remember it.
There at the intersection of hwy 8 and H.
My childhood began unfolding.
 
Then there's the bend...
And then the highway that slips right between two glorious, unadulterated lakes.
You can see that highway from my childhood pier.
The one I sat on every. single. summer.
As we slipped our way right along that highway-between-the-lakes...
I could not understand,
I was trembling and crying.
Trying to look out the window and hide tears from little boys
who would wonder what-in-the-world-had-gotten-ahold-of-their-momma?
 
That place, it is tied to me.
Like a deep, old friend.
It is the very clay from which I am made.
That little cabin with the wooden sign,
"THIS IS IT"
right there at the edge of its driveway.
Or at least that's where it once stood,
announcing to us that no matter how far we'd come,
or what the year had brought us,
THIS--this place,
It was where all the memories of childhood could be heard,
Seen.  Touched.
Like an envelope waiting.
THIS IS IT.
And it was.
 
When that little cabin went up for sale, $5,000 and needing to be moved offsite?
I was renting an apartment, a brand new wife.
And I swore that no matter what it took,
we just had to find out if we could buy those walls.
The only thing is....
It's very backwards to buy a cabin before your first house.
And before we knew it?
We found out how much we could borrow.
We learned about mortgages.
And we bought our first house.
We bought this house that I am sitting in,
because of that cabin.
Of course,
we had to let the cabin go...
Because life is the story of sometimes having precious places
disappear.
Right off the map.
 
I stood at the edge of that purest water.
I wondered if it remembered me.
Stood there, unmoving.
Letting the memories wash right over me.
That water brought ghosts.
Time is this current that sweeps and washes and moves and never stops...
You can look into it and see backwards...
Faintly hear it swishing forward.
Even as you are desperately clawing and trying to get it to stop.
Stop.
For just a moment.
Can I go back?
Remember the water slide...remember my sisters in diapers...
my dad running into that water fast and splashing and oh-how-we-begged-him-more-more-more.
The minnows in schools and moving all together and me running away.
Wondering how, how could that bravest sister of mine, just a few years my younger...
how could she swim out to that floating dive-deck with all those FISH down there in the deep?
Mom and her laughter, always smiling,
Planning adventures.
What treat would we find today?
Would we rescue stray dogs with porcupine needles in their chins?
Maybe play the 101 Dalmations game up in the loft...
Tucked there on those shelves, where we each claimed a slab as our space?
Catch a chipmunk with a jump rope and a box?
Would Muriel be there, and Gordie...
Would she show us how to sew little bunny crafts?
Would we make it across the entire lake today in the paddleboat?  Just sisters?
I am young again, little.
My future yet unwritten.
This family, this place ~ it is my everything.
When did I grow up?
When did that happen?
 
The air, is frigid.
Snow threatening.
The trees, they are changing colors all around and the smell of change ~ fills the air.
Somewhere between that little girl,
And this 32 year old standing here...
Life happened.
Only I cannot remember exactly how.
Just that I'm back,
and somehow I'm still that little girl?
 
The water remembers, I am sure of it.
It whispers eternal.
No wonder Jesus is compared to living WATER.
The very essence of life.
Unchanging.
 
It is mind boggling to remember yourself as a little girl,
and turn around to watch your OWN babies playing.
It was my mission, you know.
To bring them here.
To seat them down at this grand table, the purest feast...
And have them eat it up.
And never be the same.
And always want to come back.
 
And bring their babies.
 
Suddenly I was overwhelmed with gratitude that my parents,
despite the investment of time and finances ~
they made this place a top priority.
Every year.
We only missed one summer.
But we made up for it the summer that we came for TWO weeks.
We started coming the year I turned five...
and our last summer was the year I was 22.
That adds up to 18 weeks of my life spent on Lake Hilbert,
give or take.
What a precious gift.
 
More than any other vacation, place, or memory.
More even that my childhood home on Madison Street.
This place formed me,
taught me peace.
Helped me deeply know the heart of God.
How to hear Him.
I still have trouble finding peace in the city.
Here?
I just reach out and wrap myself in it.
 
"THIS IS IT"
 











 
 
 
 
 
 


Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Halloween's gift of perspective.






"Mom?
Why do people put up pictures of skeletons at Halloween?
What is so scary about a skeleton?
We all have them!"
Questions of a seven-year-old,
who has been taking this journey with his mother.

I smile inside.
He is getting it.

The Bible is filled with this scripture topic...one cannot escape it,
or help stumbling upon it.
Over and over.
Death.
And fearlessness.
Simultaneous.

Around October, as the leaves are dying and the grass is browning,
We can all see and smell it:  death.
We feel the chill in the air.
And there is a holiday, typed permanent on the calendar,
at the death of October.
The hours of its very last breaths,
dedicated to one thing:  fear.
Scary pictures start to adorn every store, the windows of homes...
Haunted this and that,
Everywhere.
Pictures associated with death:  spirits, ghosts, skeletons...

Only in Christ?
None of that scares.

It sure scares the world.

Halloween at our house is a time of prayer for the scared.
Because the scared?
God is chasing us with abandon.

Ever stopped to wonder....
how is it, that if we are truly just winners of the survival-of-the-fittest race...
evolved from big bang soup...
WHY...why in our hearts do we think eternal?
Why is it that we spend most of our lives feeling that we will live forever?
That somehow ourselves, what makes-us-us...
it couldn't possibly just up and vanish.
This feeling doesn't assist our fittest-survival.
Often it causes us to do silly things.
Like teenagers behind the wheel, power at their stern.
Causes us to outright give up our lives.

We spend our lives wondering, searching for the eternal...
as if it was a compass, put there to point us somewhere.
Are we listening to it?
Or are we muddled with noise.
Avoiding listening to the quiet that unsettles us.
God place eternity in our hearts.
He placed His Image there.
The Eternal.
Hear it?

I often think about how this survival-of-the-fittest theory
has one big unanswered conundrum:
The fittest?
The top of the chain winners at current?
Humans?
We are ruining our planet...
We are destroying all things good, all the time.
The air.  The trees.  The water.
We are on a one way mission to destruction, all the time.
And death can be scary to a culture who knows deep-down that it will live forever.
That its choices have eternal value.
Only what forever looks like...is the scary part.
And where the Halloween images come to play.

Halloween wasn't always this fearless around our house.

Gabe was five month old.
I simply had-to-have-it.
That little costume.
The peapod one.
So I beelined for the Halloween store.
I darted my eyes among the grotesque and morbid,
eyes glancing FAST and trying to avoid dwelling on an image that would
haunt me.
I have always had a tender spirit.
I see something awful, and it dwells with me.
I wished they would separate that store into sections...
for the easily-scared, like me.
"SCARY SECTION, BEWARE"
in the very back.
And the
"CUTE STUFF COLLECTION"
in the front for those of us timid.
I found that little peapod,
paid way too much.
Got outta there.
Put it on my son on Halloween,
snapped a TON of pictures.
Didn't think twice about it.
It's what people do, on Halloween:  the routine.
Even dressed up the dog.
Handed out candy to the cute travelling door-to-door kids.
While holding back the crazy, barking dog....
who wanted to lick those kids...

That was my first Halloween as a mother.
Going with the flow.

Then the mind, it got to pondering.
The muddled ponderer.

I have always battled with a spirit of fear.
When I was a little girl,
our home was targeted on a few occasions
by those wishing evil.
They left blood in the snow, with an upside down cross.
Because my mother had been writing Jesus poetry for the local paper.
They banged on the door hard another time,
when we were home alone with mom.
We thought they were breaking in,
the police were called, and the neighbor came running.
I think I shook for hours straight.  Pure fear coursing my veins.
It never left.

A few years later, a dear friend of mine had rabbits in a hutch outside.
Little sweet ears floppy and soft little snugglers.
Momma and babies all tucked in for the night.
And someone got ahold of them and murdered them.
Laid them out in a circle on the lawn.
Evil?
Exists, everywhere.
We cry about it when we hear it on the news.
When it erupts in our cities.
Yet one day a year the country worships the idea of it.
Evil suddenly becomes funny, trivial.
How to make that leap?
I will never understand.

I wondered if society realized what they were celebrating?
Or was it more about the dress up and candy...

And I fought myself hard on this one.
Because I wanted my son to be able to dress up and get loads of candy.
Like I did, when I was a kid.

But then I realized,
If I send him out there and we step foot...
how to explain that it's okay to dabble in evil, as long as it's done lightly?
In a world where there is no longer a line in the sand between good and evil...
just wavy, just skewed, just choose-for-yourself grayness.

I chose to stop and make a line in the sand.
To make it easy for them to see it right there,
to avoid any confusion.
When I drew that line, initially, it was in fear.

Parenting?
It's a journey.
A journey littered with mistakes,
but one that grows me.
More than my kids.

I know the stories about Halloween,
its roots, its traditions, its evil.
A little googling on the net?
And one can be scared right outta their wits about it.
I know loving, honorable parents who still do the trick-or-treat thing.
But I've always been a black-or-white kinda girl.
Always thinking about the motives just under the surface.
Not wanting to wishy-washy.
Never doing a single thing just-because...
and always knowing that choices have cost.
Both sides.  Of every choice.

Over the years of not-celebrating-Halloween,
avoiding all the yucky of it...
I came to realize that I still feared it:
Evil.
And that as a proclaimed Christ-follower I was missing the entire point:
Of not celebrating Halloween.
This year God is growing me.

What man intends for evil, God uses for good.
We nailed him to a tree.
Evil.
He turned right around
and CONQUERED DEATH in our name.
He rose again, redeemed us.  While we still hated Him and His love.
We screamed we hated Him...and He screams back, "I love you."
It's great to have a holiday to remind every one of us,
that we all share one universal finale: death.
And what we choose to do with that reality
makes all the difference.
In wether a skeleton scares us,
or reminds us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
By an intentional Creator...

My family has a line in the sand.
We stand on the side of the line that says,
"Fearless."
And we celebrate death daily...

    "But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.   And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.   Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.  For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ""Abba," Father."  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.  Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory."
Romans 8:10-17


"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"
1 Corinthians 15:55


I know there are those that avoid pumpkin carving,
the historical paganism of it.
I get that.
If it blurrs the line for you, makes things grey...
dispense of it.
The line?  It's a glorious dance between you and God.
I decided that I'm just not going to let Halloween claim pumpkins.
We gathered this year with family and we picked out perfect
round, little pumpkins.
And all the little ones decided upon how to decorate them ~
with glitter glue, stickers, markers....

I faced my fears head-on this year,
handing the knife to my seven year old.
Despite eyes wide all around...fearing....
my own heart racing.
But it was time.
Time to hand him something dangerous,
and see what he would do with it.
To let him know, in a little tiny way...
that his mother?
She trusts him.
She is aware that he is growing into a young man.
Only a parent knows when this time arrives.
When the first autumn will be...
when we bravely hand over the carving tools.
Ready for the outcome...
wether it be artful and beautiful,
or a trip to the emergency room.

And then there's Quinn,
who does all things whole-heart.
Who was the last one decorating his pumpkin at that table.
Covered that thing in pure black permanent marker.
Didn't stop 'til it was covered.
And his hands showed it, covered too.
Little tongue out,
in his 'concentration' mode.
I love the way his tongue does that...
Thank you, God, for carving Quinn the way that you did.
For the tongue-thing.
Icing on the cake.

 





















 


Sunday, October 21, 2012

Family Gathering.








 
The older we get, the harder it is to get us all in one place.
I said to my husband once, long ago:
"There will be a time.
A time when my sisters will be older,
And they will have lives that are bigger than now...
And I won't have as much time with them.
So right now?
Right now I am just going to be with them.  As much as I can.
Whenever I can."
 
I had them visit me wherever I went,
college dorms, first apartments, my first "home" as a new wife.
I often picked them up halfway between my life and theirs.
One hour, one way, to tuck precious bags in my car and steal them for a weekend.
Four hours roundtrip driving for a weekend of sisterhood.
The distance, I swore, would never weaken us.
 
My sisters all now have lives bigger.
Bigger than before.
We are all out there, playing house realtime.
And days like today....
when we all are gathered in one place?
These are the days when time stops.
It just stands still, for a bit.
 
I watch my oldest baby playing with my sister's oldest baby.
Running around, tossing leaves.  Like we used to.
I watch my dad ~ the world's best grandfather.
Running and chasing and making fun.
I cherish how my sisters have chosen the most wonderful men to add to this family.
The loves, it just multiplies here.
Family just gets richer with time.
 
My babiest sister ~ is expecting her first baby.
When she told me,
I screamed right into the phone.
I am sorry, niece or nephew, for the fact that your momma will be deaf on one side.
But I couldn't help myself.
 
The hardest part of loving all these,
is saying goodbye,
until we meet again.
It's funny how souls who lived within the same walls for years,
suddenly find themselves saying,
"See you in four or five weeks!"
And it becomes normal.
 
Yes, the drive away from the day, from the leaf tossing and the giggles
and the delight....
that is always hardest.