Borrowed letter from a mom past her season...

Here is a letter sent to Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience that really encourages me in my mothering:

All of my chicks have left the nest. They are rearing and nurturing their own.

It’s funny that all of the messy piles of unfolded laundry and the mail and important papers that lined the counter, the things I longed to have put in order when they were here --- are still here.

But, they and their sounds and their smells, the fragrance of their presence has gone. Drifted into the memories I hold and cherish.

I do not live in the past but I would love to have one more day when I hear their laughter and their conversation drift down the stairs and the aroma of their shampoo from their bath and the clamour of books and items being prepared for school.

Just the joy of their daily lives intertwined with mine and their activities shared with me hourly. It all escaped too suddenly.

There were many days I wished for just a little quiet. Now the quiet is sometimes way too loud.

So, a little revelation from one who has been where you are, in the middle of domestic chaos:

Enjoy every inch of the mess and those responsible for it, appreciate the unfolded laundry and the scattered papers, books, and shoes, smile at the dirty dishes and tracked floors.


They are all a real sign of real life going on around you. Life to be loved and lived and devoured one minute at a time.

If only there were a way to lasso the days and slow them down and hold on to each moment and each child. If only!


Your friend in Christ,

Anna Margaret in Louisiana

Dancing in the Minefield

...fantastic song about persevering in loving your husband/wife and the joy found there... has played on repeat in our home many mornings after a night of difficult "discussions"...

Allium christophii and A. 'Purple Sensation'

 

...on our Front Walk

2 Corinthians 3

 ^1-3Does it sound like we're patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we're not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you. You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it.  
^4-6We couldn't be more sure of ourselves in this—that you, written by Christ himself for God, are our letter of recommendation. We wouldn't think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter. His letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn't written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It's written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives!