A Spring of Joy

Glimpses of our world…

  • Pinky Swears

    He reached his hand out towards me, “I’ll pinky swear you, Mom.” I could see his green eyes dancing even in the dim light of his room.

    “Pinky swear what?” I asked him, and he just gently smiled…

    “I’ll pinky swear that for every day that I’m nine I’ll giggle at least once a day just for you.”

    How many times can a heart melt in one lifetime?

    This boy.

    This gift.

    I’ve seen less of his dimples, heard less of his giggles these last few months. He just gently smiles. He is struggling in school and in life, and it is wearing on him. Always wearing his emotions on his sleeve, his is quick to break down, yet tries so hard to be strong, and I just long to pull him close and tell him it will be okay and that these life lessons he is learning will be worth it one day. But one day feels so very far away to a child.

    We snuggled in bed last night, and as we talked I thought about how it was my last night with him as an eight-year-old. He asked me to tell him again about the night he was born, and he interrupted me to finish my sentences because he’s heard the story so many times. He came into this world so easily, so quietly, and that’s how life has been with him… quiet and easy. He is eager to please and a peace-maker to a fault with a heart of gold and a hand ready to pitch in and help whenever there is a need.

    We prayed together before I tucked him in, and as I thanked God for our Bear’s life, I heard my Ash-man whisper in the bunk above, “Yes, God.”

    I watch him these days, caught in between that age where Bella’s toys and playthings are too small for him and Ash-man’s are too big. His imagination still runs wild, and our dress up box is emptied at least once a week as Bear and Bella go on adventures in far away lands, but there are days, too, where he would rather just sit quietly and read or draw or create with Legos on his own.

    I love this part of parenting… this watching them and learning who they are.

    I slipped into his room in the wee morning hours just about the time I gave birth those years ago, and I stroked a sleeping boy’s hair and prayed over him yet again asking God to make him wise and strong and brave and true.

    This dear boy.

    I watched him in wonder today, as I do so many days, and he reveled in the love we poured out on him.

    And all I could think was, “Yes, God.”

    We are all so thankful for this boy’s life.

    Happy Birthday, my Beary Dear (I know there aren’t many years left that I can even call you that). You have made my world an amazing place, and what a year we have lived together.

    I’ll pinky swear you… that I’ll never tire of telling you just how very much “I love you.”







  • Believing: Darkness Has Been Overcome

    She skipped down the stairs, and I watched her as she sang to herself the whole way to our van. Her red curls blew in the wind, mingling with the same colored fur of her Beary Bear clutched in her embrace. She looked up and grinned and kept singing, and my eyes filled.

    She is six. The age of many of the children lost last week in a rampage that has left me speechless.

    Her beauty is breathtaking, and I imagine my life without her, and my soul feels as if it cannot breathe.

    We have been bombarded since Friday with information and ideas and suggestions and opinions and reasons why. I have read laments and I have read rants and I have read lies and I have read truth. I have seen fingers pointed at God and fingers pointed at not enough God. I have hidden from social media because it all became too much, and I just want to ask everyone “Who has known the mind of God?” that they speak with such authority on why He allowed this happen.

    I have wrapped presents and thought about those parents who will leave gifts on shelves, and I’ve wondered how… when… would… you ever take them off the shelf? Or would you just leave them as a memorial to a beautiful life ripped heartlessly away from you?

    I have wept. I have feared. I have raged. I have struggled. I have shaken my head at the careless words of others. I have applauded those who are brave enough to speak into the darkness with light.

    I, like many, have tried to make sense of tragedy, and I have found that it comes down to this… there is no making sense of sin.

    Sin is selfishness, through and through… whether it’s Lucifer saying Heaven wasn’t good enough and wanting to overthrow God or Adam and Eve biting into that fruit…whether it’s the sin of a man who steals life in the confusion of his own, or whether it’s the sin of my words slicing the air and crushing the spirit of my child. Sin makes it all about me.

    All through the blogosphere I read how we need to grab our kids and hug them and tell them we love them every day, and I agree. But not out of fear… not out of “what if…?”… not out of “it may be the last time I see them…” No. Let me love and hug my children because they need it, because it will grow them, because the heaviness in their step might lift if they know someone believes in them. So, yes, let me devour them with love, but for their good and not to soothe my own fears or relieve some false guilt in my own heart.

    It is so easy to make safety an idol. My safety… their safety… Yet this frenetic “grab every moment of life” will only wear me out if I don’t look at life realistically. It is hard and it is painful. I cannot protect our children from everything and let them live at the same time. The cry of Advent is strong in our world. Children die every day across the globe. I see the headlines. I have heard the stories from the lips of Iraqi refugees of the bombings and the gunfire that were part of their daily life.

    I find myself at times like these wondering if God has forgotten this world… if He’s just given up on us.

    But then the truth strikes… it is I who have forgotten.

    I have tasted the howl of Advent, the longing, the waiting, and I stay in the howling stage, and I have forgotten.

    Emmanuel.

    God with us.

    Advent.

    He has come.

    Darkness has been overcome.

    The God Who sent His Son… glory in a virgin’s womb… royalty submitting to earthly parents… perfection tasting the sadness of earth… eminence dying naked on a cross beaten and bloodied… majesty buried in a tomb but raising again to life…God… GOD sacrificing His life for mine…

    How could I think He’s forgotten when the Cross screams so loudly of His remembrance?

    I have today and I have eternity, too.

    God and sinners reconciled.

    So tomorrow when we sleep in and start the first of many days of vacation together, I will watch my children with the same breathtaking awe that I do on many occasions–humbled that these gifts have been given to me today, this day… and while I am looking at this day, He is seeing eons.

    And we will live.

    After all, isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

  • Believing: Day 10

    It has been just over a month since I said good-bye to Kim, and there is not a day that goes by that my heart doesn’t ache and the tears don’t flow. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to text her or write her or call her, and then I remember… she is not here.

    It has been just over a month since she grabbed my arm and pulled me down so she could speak softly in my ear the last words she said to me, “I love you, my friend. I’ll see you soon.”

    Yes.

    I wish she were here.

    But there is always hope.

    I know I’ll see her again.

    “I wish you could have been there for the sun and the rain and the long, hard hills. For the sound of a thousand conversations scattered along the road. For the people laughing and crying and remembering at the end. But, mainly, I wish you could have been there.” (~Brian Andreas, Story People)

  • Believing: Day 9

    That a word of encouragement is always worth sharing…

    “…celebrating the smallness of a mother’s day in and day out is more than just making it through – friends, it’s a wild dance of recognition, of celebration, of courage. It has to be more than finding meaning in the laundry. It has to be a wild Hallelujah that laundry is just the tipping point for all that you invest, that you pour, that you knead and knead and pull and knead into your kids. These are the front lines. These are the glory days. This is the stuff of heroes – not the laundry, but the conversations that take place in between the loads. (Lisa Jo Baker)”

    Read the full blog post here.

  • Believing: Day 8

    That if you look beyond the ordinariness of the day… it is breathtaking.

    Twelve paper snowflakes,
    Eleven bags of groceries,
    Ten minutes napping,
    Nine rooms for cleaning,
    Eight loads of laundry,
    Seven wreaths for hanging,
    Six yummy donuts,
    Five busy Davi,
    Four strands of lights,
    Three homemade pizzas,
    Two visiting friends,
    And one fun Christmas movie to watch!

    “To my brother, George–the richest man in town.” (~It’s A Wonderful Life)

    We are so rich, y’all, so very, very rich.

  • Believing: Day 7

    In Valor.

    “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan…As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense…With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounded determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.”
    President F.D. Roosevelt – 8th December 1941

    To those who offered their lives for my freedom, thank you.

  • Believing: Day 6

    In HIS star…

    Silently the night comes.
    The cool of evening chills my frame
    As I gaze at the stars;
    Each appearing, effervescing,
    Shining–at first dimly
    Now dazzling brightly in its brilliance.
    My mind and heart are full
    Memories invade my reverie…

    I remember those chords
    Sung as fairy’s melody–
    Wishing upon a star
    Grants you anything you dream.
    Find that first evening star,
    Search as the twilight deepens
    For that glimmer of light–
    One hope in a universe of stars.

    But for what can I wish
    That I do not already have?
    Life for all eternity,
    Peace and joy for all my days,
    The love of a Savior.
    This God has given in mercy
    To a sinner such as I am–
    So undeserving, now so thankful.

    Long ago a multitude shone.
    Stars filled the heavens; yet one was brighter…
    A burning light in eastern skies
    Announcing for the world, “A Savior!
    The Christ! The King is born!”
    Wise men followed, as I today follow.
    All I need is Christ. Christ I have.
    The hope in a universe of stars.
    (~AMD)

  • Believing: Day 5

    In one day…

    “I have something!” he blurted excitedly, arm thrown in the air. We were reading our Advent book and talking through things that we hope for and long for. “What do you have, Bear?”

    “No sin.”

    Oh, my dear, sweet Bear. One day there will be no more sin.

    I can’t wait.

    One day.

  • Believing: Day 4

    “I will be still whate’er He does…
    He holds me that I shall not fall,
    Wherefore to Him I leave it all.”
    (~Samuel Rodigast)

  • Believing: Day 3

    In family…

    Even if it’s not blood.


    (With friends at our favorite Christmas Tree Farm)