A few weeks ago, we went to Oregon, where magic lives. Blue waters, cold winds, green trees, smoky fires, white clouds, adventurous people, happy cows, dogs and chickens all live there too. It had been ten years since we’d been back with our family and it was true refreshment for the soul.
And now we’re back.
I think this is the first time in all my years of parenting in Dallas, TX that I HAVEN’T been ready for summer to end. I wish we could hang on to it for just a bit longer. There were just so many summer dreams left undone and I don’t feel ready for this school year. Not at all. But here it is, ready or not.
I remember when I didn’t feel ready for this one to start kindergarten and here she is, starting her final year of high school. All her hopes and dreams show all over her face and I delight in her. I delight in her sweet spirit, her love of beauty, her devotion to working hard in all things, her precious past that I like to visit from time to time and her future that I look forward to with a somewhat anxious joy.
I remember when this one wouldn’t let go of my neck in the swimming pool. She could cling with the best of them. I didn’t even have to hold on to her because there was no way she was letting go of me. And now I feel like I’m the one desperately holding on while she swims and runs and drives and dances away from me. I love the deep waters that she floats on. I love the beauty that she makes in her music and the silliness that comes out at the strangest of times. She is making a big change in schools for her tenth grade year and I look forward to all the goodness that will come out of it and into her.
And I remember when this one used to ride around Dallas with me while her older sisters went to school. She was mommy’s little helper and what a trooper she was too, never getting the simple routine that her sisters enjoyed in their years of staying at home. We went here, there and everywhere all day while she was happy to be with me and I with her. And now she is starting the seventh grade and is still a trooper. Always up for whatever, always on top of everyone’s schedule, always up for making her sisters laugh at her. She plays hard, tries hard, gives hard and loves soft.
O LORD, Jesus Christ, who dost embrace children with the arms of thy mercy, and dost make them living members of thy Church; Give them grace, we pray thee, to stand fast in thy faith, to obey thy word, and to abide in thy love; that being made strong by thy Holy Spirit they may resist temptation and overcome evil; and may rejoice in the life that now is, and dwell with thee in the life that is to come; through thy merits, O merciful Saviour, who with the Father and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest one God, world without end. Amen.
Fierce Peace 