Oh dang – I didn’t even totally get this song when it was a top-40 hit in that 1973-74 era (soooo known for great music, click here). I do now. Must be old. :)
I love little baby ducks,
Old pick-up trucks,
Slow movin trains, and rain.
I love little country streams,
Sleep without dreams,
Sunday school in May, and hay.
And I love you too.
I love leaves in the wind,
Pictures of my friends,
Birds of the world, and squirrels.
I love coffee in a cup,
Little fuzzy pups,
Bourbon in a glass, and grass.
And I love you too.
I love honest open smiles,
Kisses from a child,
Tomatoes on a vine, and onions.
I love winners when they cry,
Losers when they try,
Music when it’s good, and life.
And I love you too.
I love…{a list}
I love Baby-Bailey stretching as she wakes up, Dave making my morning coffee, seeing the tomatoes plump up, floating in the pool, people who love you anyway-even if they could decide not to, my granbebes knowing how much I love their hugs and kisses and running to give them to me, how much Sandy-the-Dog believes the best of me, when the trees serenade me, freshly-mowed grass, bees gathering pollen from my flowers, the tiger swallowtail that was dipping and diving and fluttering over my head yesterday, a word in season, a word of encouragement without the slightest eye roll or “you-should-know-this” superiority, that Gavin knows how to buy and sell on Ebay with his hard-earned money, and that his sisters so look up to him, that Hunter believes I am the one person in his life that he can sway at any time in any way and I have no plans to make him think otherwise.
I love pre-school with Averi, chasing Amelie and her big, sweet hugs when I catch her, Malakai for all I am learning about the love of God towards us who have been adopted and grafted, Gemma’s long, red, curly hair, Guini’s sweet freckles, baby dill pickles, purple petunias, Kosher salt, the antique church pew in my kitchen, and harmonizing with my parents.
I love my grown children and the people they have married. I love my husband of almost 32 years. I love Joey, Timmy, Tami & Danny and their families.
I love the grandparents I once had and getting to be one now. I love cinnamon toast and a little ice cream with my caramel sauce. I love a Caramel Frappucino from Starbucks and chicken nuggets from Chick-Fil-A (with Bleu Cheese Dressing and Hot Sauce!) and a large iced tea with lemon, please, and the mountains and a wild-running river stream, and a sandy beach with clear waters and a good conversation without time limits that leaves you wanting more.
And chances are, if you are reading this, I love you, too.
I love a lot more now than I once did. I could have gone on all day. What do YOU love?
Pictured: Gavin behind the Powers house in the open-space. A Friday night sunset in June.
Yes, I was mesmerized by the chg-chg-chg of the sprinkler.
Yes, it got me.
You’re doing fine, green-plump-tomatoes. You are worth the wait. Grow slow, grow well and let me know if there is anything I can do to help you out. Is the temperature ok? It’s very hot this week. Are you getting enough water? I have tried to be sure no interlopers infringe on your gardener-given space. For you, my sweets, you are the real reason I go to the garden at all. Everything else is just to help me pass the time until the day of tomato…
Everything is late this year. That ridiculously crazy, wintry-spring weather (you haven’t forgotten have you?) where it was warm and dry all winter and then as soon as it should have been spring kept being snow blizzards – in MAY??!?! Yes, that weather-has caused so much silliness and delay. It made me fearful, afraid to move forward, afraid to plant at planting time. Because – what if I lost everything? What if I planned and worked and bought and seeded and watered and some blizzard outside my control just took it all away?
These are the risks the seed-sower takes, the heartache a gardener might be forced to bear.
My hibiscus are usually flowering by mid-June and are so far just finally fully green and budding. The Australian Lilies are usually bursting forth the first 2 weeks of June and just one plant has flowered so far. The rest, though, are about to reach their glory. They will be at their prime in July. Late, but beautiful, maybe even more so than expected to make up for the lilacs lost in snow just 6 weeks ago.
I have turned the former pond area, where Snow-in-the-Mountain, Hollyhocks and Russian Sage try every single summer to defy me and run rampant across all borders and any newly-turned soil, into a place for 4 rambling tomatillo plants (left to their own devices, they appreciate 3-4 feet up and all around, as well) and 2 nice, stocky tomato plants. Eventually, we’ll scape the whole area with perennials and evergreens, but for this year, there is a garden path of grandbebe-crafted stepping stones and I walk through in anticipation, and yes – I do talk to the tomatoes.
I see you. I have been waiting, waiting all year. You are proof the Creator of the universe loves me!
The zucchini are fine, thank-you for asking (though a bit battered by the recent hail), however, the spaghetti squash are struggling to make it where last year’s tropical hibiscus flourished, then died over the winter. What is there causing the havoc?
Everything is a little late this year. Because you can do what you can do, but there are just some things you cannot control. I can start seedlings indoors, I can prepare soil, I can dig holes and bury young plants. I can water and fertilize and pray and hope, but an early-May snowstorm, or a late-June hailstorm can make mincemeat of my flowers and vegetable plants.
All I can do is go pick up fallen leaves, brush away debris, eradicate the weeds that have been roaming to and fro, watching for an opportune time to take over the garden squares, and wait – wait for the hot sun to heal and soothe and give the garden its’ chance to thrive again.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.” Psalms 91.14-16
You are smack-dab in the middle of the same age-years Jesus was /living/walking/defeating the kingdom of darkness (on His way to a cross) one miracle at a time. He was changing water to wine, chatting it up with children and healing the sick. And that is where you are, too, changing the spiritual landscape, fathering your boys and establishing the Kingdom.
I have called you a spiritual iconoclast, by which I meant
A person who is actively breaking down the religious traditions that suck the life from people and instead, is revealing a whole new landscape of the life and love of the Father towards His people. A Kingdom man. A creative visionary. A history-maker.
I think earlier spiritual iconoclasts were guys like Elijah and Elisha. Especially, though, maybe: Jeremiah. Before the building up, there is the matter of tearing down (see Jeremiah 1, The Message subtitles it: Demolish and Then Start Over).
I see this clearly about you, but am not always able to express it openly or well. So on the occasion of your birthday [note: oops-now a few days past], your very own proverbial mother-in-law (frightening title, to be sure), shall attempt to communicate the true and deep to one son-in-love. Please receive them from my heart
On your birthday, I wanted to say {I want you to always know}…
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him…”
So, it turns out I have known you for like, 33% of your life. And you have known me for almost 19% of mine. For a girl who was raised moving from city to city and church to church and leaving behind everyone I knew and starting over sooooooooooooo many times that even a 2-year friendship felt like a lifetime, that puts you and I in the 98.987-percentile of my longest-ever-running relationships. Kind of kidding. I just made up that last statistic, but it’s pretty true. You probably couldn’t have known that you would hold a place that high in my life, my stats/personal data, or my heart for so long. I didn’t know it. But here it is.
You are sort of stuck with me.
And I know so many times it would be so much easier not to be. But I can say at least for me, God knew what He was doing and He still has a plan and His glory will be seen, right?
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name…”
I think I mention this in every single birthday post I ever write to you (and this is #7, I believe), but I just love to hear you play and sing and worship the Lord. Last month as we were re-painting the living room and had moved most everything out, save a few items in the middle covered with drop cloths, sound, once again had the ability to reverberate off the walls and ceilings and it took me back to when we first knew you, first moved into this house – before it had been “properly” appointed with lots of furniture and accessories. You would come every weekend, guitar in hand and sing in that room and worship would resound and hit the walls and ascend to the ceiling and go on to heaven and come back and change the atmosphere. Your worship in this house set a desired precedent for my heart and this place and when the acoustics are just so, I remember it. And I miss that as life has gotten louder and busier and fuller. I love being in a meeting with hundreds as you lead in worship, hearing your most amazing voice. I enjoy watching the Rez Live-Stream when you and Tara are leading. But you with your guitar and just a few of us right here: overwhelming goodness. Way better! You’re one of my all-time fav singers. And always will be.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will be with him in trouble…”
When you chose my amazing firstborn daughter to be your wife, and then the two of you blessed us with these cherished boys – oh, be still my heart. You are such a wonderful husband to Tara and an incredible daddy to Hunter and Malakai. I also love you for the sacrifices you have made to perpetuate the legacy of adoption in our family. Because dad, who was adopted knew he was born to adopt Tara. And when the two of you opened your heart to do the same with Baby-Kai, well, all of us are beginning to understand in a way we maybe hadn’t before, this whole spirit of adoption, of truly becoming sons of God, crying out to Him, ‘Abba, Father.” The spiritual treasure of this in-the-natural adoption is changing our family. Thank-you for paying the cost and being obedient to welcoming this son into your family, into ours. Our family DNA-chain is being forged unbreakable – what blessing it is going to be for so many through the generations…
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will deliver him and honor him…”
When you share your heart and the secrets of the Lord and reveal vision, it is life-giving. Many times I have stood in the back of a room and as you spoke with such crystal clarity something I had already heard many times before, I would still be left breathless with the strength, the perspicuity of the message. I always wondered, looking around, do the rest of you understand the power of what is happening here? That is a gift of God in your life. You have been given a strong gift of revealing, communicating. Your words, falling like rain, will have the ability to change people and situations and lives and nations.
So I pray that all the God-given dreams of your heart will come to pass and that the Lord will send you mighty warriors to run with you, those who are strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. And I pray that hopeless people will hear the vision and be energized to pick it up and take it to new levels you never dreamed possible (beyond all you could ask or imagine) and finally understand why they were born. And I pray He sends you the weakest ones, too, for they are indispensable to the Body of Christ. So may you be surrounded by those who will bring you all the help you need {to be all He has called you to be, and to do all He has called you to do} from the sanctuary. There is great help available from the sanctuary.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “With long life I will satisfy him…”
I deeply respect the strong call and anointing of God on your life. That God is opening doors to big rooms and your gift is bringing you before great men, that you have been set forth to shake nations and declare the Kingdom of God over regions is not in question. But I maintain that you are never stronger in your anointing than the times you are releasing the light of the joy of the Lord over people. For seriousness and heaviness need not be cultivated, as a rule. Jesus didn’t say, “I have come that your worry, care, concern and apprehension would be appropriately full,” but rather that our JOY would be full. And you have made me laugh so many times. Your humor and ability to see the silly side of life have been a perfect foil to my desolation, as the enemy himself wishes to keep us from our very strength (the joy of the Lord) by causing us consternation, super-responsible trepidation, woe and worry. So let the TV preachers work on bringing everybody down about the terrible times in which we live (as if the Word didn’t promise greater grace in these troubling times, and greater is He that is in us, for crying out loud) and you keep dispensing garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness and releasing the light and life of the love of the Father and be full of joy through the Holy Spirit (like Jesus was) and dispense it, too. You are hilarious. That is an anointing.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will…show him my salvation.”
I love you most, maybe, because you love the LORD. That fact alone brings me peace no matter what happens – for His promises towards you will be true, and somehow we’ll all figure everything out and get lined back up.
We have been to heaven and back a few times in 10 years. Being your m-i-l, believe it or not, has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. Seasons come and go. The way we interact or the actual time we’ll spend together has and will probably continue to change between us, but I will always thank God for you. I will always believe the best of you. I will never write you off or write you out of my story. I will always be proud to say you are my son-in-love and the father of my grandsons and the beautiful man of my daughter’s dreams.
And with the exception of a few horrendous meetings and the bloody attack of the enemy against our unity last year, I would do it all again, with gratefulness for your love and openness for what I had to bring {and I was honored to give anything/everything I could} – in spite of me being your “m-i-l.” *faint smile
Have another wonderful, blessed year of favor. So many more to come, I just know it. Don’t be afraid – because you love Him (you are covered)… {me}
But p.s…I am voting against a duck-dynasty beard, puleeeeeeezzzzzze…
Which came first? The perfect day? Or the perfect baby being born to make a regular, old day so perfect?
Q: What do exotic eyes and head-full of thick, dark hair, a yellow-embroidered sun-suit with a yellow bonnet, ginger-molasses cookies from the grocery store bakery, my first “private room” at the hospital, water breaking at a church softball game while dad was in the outfield, being 11 days past my due date, a Scrabble game (which I still contend I was winning) and Howard Community Hospital in Kokomo, IN all have in common?
These are the bits and pieces of your arrival, your story, your birth, your place in the family history. Tredessa Christine Rhoades Faaland: You made us mommy and daddy and 3 adorable girlies, the Rhoades Family, 1983.
Monday’s child is fair of face…
I have been re-living your beginnings so much this spring because of Bailey Sophia. So many thing about her remind me of you, her hair, her kissable cheeks, her content and laid-back disposition. June of 1983 was one of the most notable months of my life, the summer that followed memorable and lovely: your father was ordained, there were long afternoons in the backyard with your two sisters splashing in a pool, great music on the radio, and my little baby girl in a yellow carrier, right by my side in the green grass on sun-shiney days.
Dessa at 2 weeks
Dessa at 6 weeks
And now here we are, 30 years down the road – celebrating your extraordinary life, unable to fathom what we’d ever have done without the most-middle-child of them all. You are a center-point, a bridge, an equidistant intermediary. You are observant and intuitive; careful, but powerful. You’re a challenging, but honoring daughter and your trust in God is an inspiration.
Dessa at 5
I am so pleased to see the life you are leading. I am so happy God sent you love in a very good-looking, strong, humble package. I am so thrilled that you have gotten to go to the nations in Jesus’ Name and serve selflessly in high-places for the glory of God.
More than anything this year, I am so excited with you and for you that you are with child, that you carry a dream within – as you have so longed to have children. I am rejoicing with you and counting down the days. Your child will be loved and adored and watched over with great zeal – because you have sown that into the lives of so many other children while you were waiting. It will all come back to you.
For your 30th birthday, I pray and wish and bless you with this (my version of a birthday card):
So HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY, Dessy-Poo. Your momma loves you, girl. You bless my heart and set me straight. LOVE YOU BUNCHES!!! xxoo
Thanks, Maurice Chevalier, for this happy 1930 tune, “Sweepin’ the Clouds Away!” It seemed a nice accompaniment to the day I recently had with the girlies.
Don’t go ’round moping, hoping happiness will come,
That’s not the way; it doesn’t pay!
If you want happiness, just help yourself to some,
Why don’t you try to take life the way I do:
Guinivere (7 1/2), and her little sister Gemma (6) and their cousins, Averi (5) and little Amelie Belle (3) came over on a sunny morning and we did each other’s hair and put on make-up and everyone got to dress up in Nonna’s old clothes and shoes if they wanted to. Or not.
Then we made paper chains and stars for decoration and set the patio up for some fun-fun-fun!
Let the whole world sigh or cry,
I’ll be high in the sky,
Up on top of a rainbow,
Sweeping the clouds away!
I don’t care what’s down below,
Let it rain, let it snow,
I’ll be up on a rainbow,
Sweeping the clouds away!
Averi and her little sister, Amelie – above.
Gemma just eats the camera up (above).
Averi got her momma’s pretty eyes (above)
Guini is growing up so fast (above). She’ll be 8 in July.
And this little silly (Amelie, 3, below) keeps us laughing.
I am wishing her Happy Birthday in every possible online way today! I am shouting it from the mountaintops of Colorado: I love you, mom. Happy Birthday!
First thing this morning, just after breakfast, my yard was noisy with the sounds of summer. The sun was shining bright, the grandbebes were jumping on the squeaky trampoline, the sky was a brilliant blue, the flowers were blooming and the weed whacker was buzzing loudly while the dog tried to entice me into a game of throw and fetch and then I have to chase her to get it back (Sandy has never understood the rules of this game). And the day is perfect. Almost. Wish you were here.
Gemma is here (with her big sister) because Gavin had an overnight gaming party with his friends last night and they didn’t want to be “boy-trapped” at their house.
She was just explaining to me, while making a pink and yellow paper chain, that Pinky Pot (from My Little Pony) always parties, “She just always parties.”
“I love to party, too,” Gemma told me.
I asked her what that meant, “What makes a good party for you, Gemma?”
“Hm,” she thought. “Having fun and laughing.”
Then she jumps up, in her white lace nightgown, and begins dancing and romping and running through the house with her 8-foot long paper chain swirling in and out, up and down, her red locks lifting in the breeze she creates. Having fun. Laughing.
Barely past breakfast, there is a party at my house.
Gavin is the first grandchild I ever got and what a gift! He changed my whole life forever – ten whole years ago this week. I had no idea I’d be one of “those” grandmothers, thrilled with these darlings, my children’s-children, my very own, once-removed flesh and blood.
I looked down at Gavin in my arms, the first day of his life. I had no idea who he was or how this would go.
But wow-o-wow. I love my Little Man. Red hair, freckles, bright eyes, always looking for something new, something wonderful. He works hard (seriously loves hard work!), he protects his little sisters, he is sweet to animals, kind in general and a respectful, honoring grandson. I am so blessed to be his Nonna!
So, my sweet, Gavin – allow me to tell you TEN THINGS I LOVE ABOUT YOU on the occasion of the continued celebration of your birth~
1. I love that you started gardening alongside me when you were just a toddler.
2. I love that even this year, you asked for tomato plants for your birthday (they are on your list every year) and that just yesterday at the Garden Center, you told me that even though you wanted to try growing all sorts of different things in your gardens each year of your life, you would always and forever have tomato plants, no matter what. Are you my boy, or what?!?
And you have to know you melted my heart when you told me, after we had wandered through one garden place and then another, “I really like visiting garden centers and seeing all the plants they have. I like doing this every year.” It is our annual date and joy of my June-heart! I love you for loving it because I love it, too.
3. You are so focused and goal-oriented. I love that you saved up and worked to earn money to buy your own iPod and that you will now sell it and work some more to upgrade with your eye on an iPad. Your parents are teaching you well. You have business savvy, Little Man!
4. You are such a good brother to your sisters. I know they can get on your nerves at times, little girls that they are, but last week your mom shot of pic of you, school out, sitting with Gemma, teaching her to read and write. What a wonderful big brother you are.
5. And you’re a great example as the oldest of the cousins, too. You love the babies, watch over the tiny ones and generally are considered the coolest guy to follow!
6. Sandy-the-dog loves you so much. Because no matter how busy you are, you always take time to pet her and give her the attention she needs. I love you for loving the old family dog!
7. I so love how you apply yourself to learning. You are a skateboarder and gamer and a gardener and a musician and you make time to practice and perfect those things and find out more about everything. You’re such a savvy, intuitive smartie-pants, which I mean in the sweetest way!
8. Which speaks to another thing I love about you: you have been full of wonder since you were a baby. When you were even just a few months old, I noticed you were interested in everything around you. And I love that you carry that trait on. You are never bored, never expecting anyone to entertain you or cure monotony. You look around and find fascination in everything life has to offer, in each circumstance and all situations. What a wonderful attribute. It will will make living amazing for you!
9. You’re still so considerate about giving your Nonna big hugs and kisses when we meet up and when we part. They are worth millions of dollars to me – more, really. I’m so lucky, so blessed to be your Nonna.
10. And I love what an honoring son you are to your parents. Do you know why I love that? Because the Bible promises this:
“’Honor your father and mother’ is the first commandment that has a promise attached to it, namely, ‘so you will live well and have a long life.’” Ephesians 6, The Message
And because I LOVE YOU sooooooo much and want {life} to go really well for you {really well}, and I want you to have a particularly spectacular life doing legendary, world-changing things for many, many {joyous and healthy} years ~ well, then, for this reason, I love that you honor your parents, who, by the way, are raising an extraordinary son. Keep it up, kiddo!
You, my dear boy {the original grandbebe}, made me a “Nonna,” the greatest honor of my life.
I love you, Gav. You know I do, right? Please never forget. xxxooo {Nonni}
Amelie and her baby “Emily” in Estes Park, Memorial Day Weekend
True story: So, two little girls run in to see their Nonni~
A beautiful morning in May, two little darlings come bounding through the house and into the kitchen, breathless with excitement.
“I have something for you, Nonna. I have money for you,” the big sister tells me.
“What? You have money for me? What’s this?” I ask them with complete surprise and total awe at their cuteness.
“I have money for you, too,” the little one exclaims.
The first 5 grandbebes on the patio at a family celebration, mid-May
They both open their bags and pull out tiny coin purses, whereupon the older sister beamingly presents me with 10 pennies, lined up one by one, and tiny girl carefully adds her 4 pennies, as well.
“This money is for you, Nonna!”
They repack their bags and set off on their merry way. They are so generous, so loving, so sweet. And I am rich! The interest is compounding daily. I am loaded with benefits and treasure. I have 8 grandbebes and I am made of this stuff. :)
I love May.
Every May without fail, Tara has a birthday, Stephanie has a birthday and Gemma May does, too. The grandbebes have lots of cute school programs, there is Mother’s Day and usually some one is pregnant (this year that is Tredessa). The final frost date finally arrives in May and you can go into a gardening frenzy. The skies seem unusually blue this fifth month of each year and of course the green is that intoxicating shade of “spring” as new leaves unfurl and floofy, wildly-hued prom dresses get packed away while flowers in every dazzling color from here to heaven and back take their places and begin to bud and blossom with abandon.
May is sunny. May is new leaves fluttering in gentle breezes, really enthusiastic rains washing away the meandering Colorado winters, rainbows, crazy-gorgeous clouds quickly moving by, colorful sunsets that rival Maui and the beginning of lemonade season.
Cornhole! Happy Birthday, Tara! Amelie loves it!
May is a soft shade of yellow and a bright-sky blue. It is lush, sky-watered grass and all the windows and doors flung wide. It is kids counting the days until school is out and then wanting to go back to play in the school yard when it is out. No rules! It’s hearing the neighbors you didn’t hear all winter and graduations and weddings and baseball in full swing.
May is for expressing possibilities {I just may do that} and relishing long days that you thought had actually been swallowed up by long nights. But here they are again, May days.
I was strolling through the park one day
In the merry-merry month of May
I was taken by surpise by a pair of roguish eyes
In that moment my heart was stolen away
Warning {roguish eye picture ahead}
The black eye is pretty much gone now. I have lots more wrinkles there from all the swelling. I hope they will go away. Seriously. But I shall always remember I had my first (hopefully last) real shiner in May 2013.
Cousins.
Oh, May, how I hate to see you go. Thank-you for the the green, the new life, the sunshine, the rain, the hope, the promise and the lovely month, year after year. Good-bye, merry-merry month of May.