Skip to main content

Fun To Be Alive

Today is June 12, 2009. Nathan and Megan's wedding is two weeks from Saturday. Ami and Brad will celebrate their 15th anniversary on that same day (by 15th, I mean 15 weeks, not years). Nathan will have been a college graduate for all of 7 weeks on the day of his wedding; and he will have lived on this earth (independent of my womb) for 23 years and 1 day.

To say this has been and continues to be an emotional season for me would be akin to stating that Barack Obama is president of the United States - it's just a fact. I find myself often on the verge of tears and easily tipped over the edge. I watch the little boy who lives behind us with longing for the days that were, the days that trickled through my fingers, averse to my attempts to hold them tight. Jonah has brown hair and a little body just like Nathan's at the age of 3. He rides his jeep down their steps over and over and over - giggling each time he hits bottom with a thud. He throws rocks - at their house (Mom obviously hasn't seen him do this). He runs and climbs and laughs. Everything about him shouts to the world, "It's SO much fun to be alive!"

When I look at the people I love most in this life - my husband, our children and their spouses - my heart is gripped with a love the depth of which I never dreamed myself capable. This is when my heart cries out with Jonah's "It's SO much fun to be alive!"

Thank you, my family, my precious, wonderful, incredible, lovely family for all the richness each of you has added to my life and continues to add each and every day.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Resting...Resting?

A few weeks ago, my husband and I had dinner with our daughter-in-law and two of our grand children. My daughter-in-law lost her job a couple of months ago. I wanted an update on current job prospects or plans, so I asked, "What are you doing these days?" Her answer was simple and yet incredibly profound.              Resting. (Is that even a word in the American lexicon?) I'm proud of her, and of them, for making the decision that it's time for her to rest. She's been in hyper-drive for all the years I've known her (over 16).  That word has haunted me since she spoke it. Resting. What would happen if I...if you...gave it a try?  In Psalm 23: 6a, David says Surely goodness and mercy will follow me. In K.J. Ramsey's The Lord is My   Courage (page 240), she tells us that our English word, "follow," doesn't convey the power behind the original Hebrew word that David used (radaph). She tells us that radaph means "to pursue, chase, and pers

It's Time to Take off the Sunglasses

 Americans have a favorite pastime, and no, I'm not referring to baseball or football. This pastime doesn't cost any money. You don't need tickets, and there's no set game time. It happens every day. You don't need to be physically fit. You don't need special training. We do it at book club, at work, on the road, in meetings, having lunch with friends, etc. You get the idea. What is it? Complaining. We love to complain, and I'm right there in the fray, tearing everything and everyone apart. Sometimes it wears me out. My mom passed away many years ago, and one of my all-time favorite memories of life with her goes back to my summer between high school and college. We worked together that summer. Drove together every morning, bright and early, right into the rising sun. One morning, my mom reached into her purse and grabbed her sunglasses, putting them on just as we rounded the bend on the St. Louis-rush-hour-busy road that put us directly in the sun's pat

1%

Gideon: By his own admission, his family was the weakest of his tribe, and he was the weakest in his family (Judges 6: 15-16). Midianites: Big bullies who oppressed the Israelites back in the day. As the story goes, this little-nobody-Gideon is doing manual labor for his dad (I'm thinking that this might be akin to working at Walmart - not exactly a career - or even a job - that causes anyone to preen), when an angel calls him, "a mighty man of valor" (Judges 6: 12). Huh? Oh, you mean this other guy, right? Nope, I'm talkin' to you. Fast forward and we find this little-nobody-Gideon camping near Israel's oppressors with a team of 32,000. This seems like a lot until Gideon checks out the enemy and finds that there are so many Midianites and their pals, the Amalekites, that no one can count them. They seemed "like locust in abundance and their camels were without number as the sand that is on the seashore." (Judges 7: 12) Gulp. What does God