The title, of course, is from The Partridge Family theme song, “Come On, Get Happy,”* a true classic if ever there was one!
I’ve decided to introduce my granddaughters to the old TV show and Gemma just got to see the first three episodes last night. Tonight is Guini’s turn.
Sometimes you hop on Pinterest and find a theme. Pinterest has provided all of today’s great graphics! Music, songs – ahhhhhh, yes!
A chart explaining it all is so helpful.
It’s true.
Plus
Hey – in other music news, Spectacle: Elvis Costello with… {season one}is available on Netflix. Love Elvis, love executive producer, Elton John (who is guest on the first show). It’s a talk show with some of the best musical artists in the universe. “Talk and roll, rhythm and muse,” one promo tags it.
I just watched the episode where Elton John interviewed Elvis’s wife, the AMAZING Diana Krall (her vocal styling and interpretation is perfection and her piano playing – I nearly faint). The three of them on one show? It’s like a rich dessert! My moonlight indulgence while Dave is protecting the State of Colorado – extremely good music with a myriad of fantastically creative artists and the spontaneous performances that happen when they’re onstage telling their stories. So good. SO good!
Lastly, I just became the proud owner of a stash of Andy Williams (6), Perry Como (1) and George Maharis (1) albums for my collection. So retro, modern and beautiful. I also scored a couple of jazz albums I want to listen to soon.
The slight crackle of the needle on the vinyl, the spinning record and smooth love songs – instant transportation waaaaaaaay back in time!
Just some of life’s goodness, odds and ends and blessings. A list.
1.
Ruby red grapefruit, all tart and tangy thrown into a bowl of brilliant, sweet, red watermelon for breakfast. Juicy, cold and delish! They make good bowl-fellows.
2.
Grand-girlies and bubbles. Or hopping into the pool and out again. Jump-jump-jumping on the trampoline. Swinging up in the air so high. Music and singing and more bubbles and chasing. Hair trains. Hair trains are wonderful.
hair-train (noun) // lining up like train cars to fix each others hair, first one direction, then the next; best when Nonna gets in on the action
3.
Frozen with the grand-girls, too. Because they sing every song, with heart and soul. And if you haven’t seen Frozen yet, don’t watch it with Amelie. She likes to tell what’s about to happen before it happens. She does it to be nice, so you’re not surprised. :)
4.
After dark trampoline jumping and singing theFrozen songs {again and again} at the top of your lungs. I hope the neighbors thought this was as great as I did.
5.
10 o’clock pm water-bottle bowling.
Here is how:
Get 10 water bottles and remove the labels.
Use food coloring to create various colors.
Throw a glow stick into the bottle and screw the lid back on very tightly. We used the glow-bracelets, which weren’t very bright. But I think glow sticks would probably be better.
Arrange bottles in a “pyramid” shape. 1 bottle, then, 2, then 3, then 4. You know how bowling pins are arranged, right?
Get a ball (we used a wooden croquet ball) for rolling.
Each player gets three rolls to knock them all down and keeps a tally of their own points (10 points per bottle down, a little math thrown in for good measure) and must show a little grace to a certain impetuous 4-year old {Amelie Belle} who may or may not choose to overhand throw the wooden balls with gusto, thereby winning every game with colorful, glowing water bottles scattered in her wake.
My camera couldn’t capture the prismatic fun after dark, but it was. Later the remnants, multi-hued water bottles, sparkled a reminder on a rainy afternoon:
6.
And tomatoes from the garden. It may be mid-August, but I am still utterly undone each time I cut in to one and taste this magnificent tang and sweet and depth and power of all of the summer rains and warm sunshine right there on my tongue. These garden tomatoes don’t even remotely seem related to the red things you buy in grocery stores or the anemic, transparent slices on a fast food sandwich. Not remotely the same.
These? These are all of heaven laser-beamed into a small fruit, the reward of a little sweat and patience, some love and desire culminating in the blood-red taste of life. The tomato.
You knew I had to mention the tomato, right? Because they are lovely!
7.
Finally? You know what is really lovely? {{*** Y O U ***}}! Thank-you, my children, my friends, my familia – anyone who happens by, for reading through my silly lists and observations and indulging my zeal for my grandchildren and tomatoes. These are such small, inconsequential things to discuss in light of the horrendous crimes being committed against children around the world, the wars and rumors of wars, the complete dishonor/disdain against life and the Creator of life. But these simple things remind me of Him, anyway.
God, help us. Make us grateful and make us see the injustices and take action against them, for the love of the simple and abundant life You have allowed us. God, show us how...
Guinivere Eden arrived in the wee morning hours, the ones that still feel like night.
I was in some luxurious mountain hotel on a staff retreat and had barely gone to sleep in the room-sized bed when the call came: our first granddaughter would be arriving soon. Breathlessly I re-packed all the things I’d just unpacked. How exciting!
Zooming down the mountain and across the continental divide under a sky-full of stars we went. Down, down, down and straight to the hospital where, in the first light of a sunny, stunningly beautiful day we held her, her blond hair glistening as it caught the morning rays, grandbebe #3. Third time was most definitely a charm!
I tell Guini now, nine years later, I’d zoom down the mountain and cross great divides for her again. Anytime.
Her Indiana grandparents were on hand to help her celebrate turning 9 last week. Here she is with her older brother and younger sister, enjoying Starbucks.**
Guini is my “flower girl.” She doesn’t like tomatoes. Can you imagine that? MY granddaughter, flesh of my flesh and she doesn’t like tomatoes! But early on, she zeroed in on flowers. Barely able to talk, we’d roam the yard and she’d stop at each variety and ask, “What’s this?” And I’d tell her and she’d try to repeat it – cutest thing ever.
So when she came for a visit and found some small flowers from the garden center I hadn’t planted yet and grabbed a small table to set up her very own flower shop, well, I knew then, like the Cowsills sang,
I saw her sitting in the rain
Raindrops falling on her
She didn’t seem to care
She sat there and smiled at me
And I knew (I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew)
She could make me happy (happy, happy)
Flowers in her hair, flowers everywhere
I love the flower girl
Oh, I don’t know just why
She simply caught my eye
I love the flower girl she seemed so sweet and kind.
She crept into my mind.
How fitting for a girl whose middle name is “Eden,” a garden God Himself planted. I once made a video for Guini using that song (when she turned 5). See it {HERE}.
She recently worked on this art project in my living room. Guini meticulously watercolored each carefully chosen hue…Every coffee table should be used for something this wonderful.**
She is content in spirit. Her soft smile is authentic – not one given to outrageous enthusiasm nor dramatic meltdowns, she is as sweet as she looks. She’s a little quieter than many of my adorable grands, but oh the rich tales she has to tell.
Her wry sense of humor is so keenly developed, her ornery way of seeing things sharper than the average 9-year-old. She aces her school work without breaking a sweat and is such an incredible big sister to Gemma and a girl who admires and finds her older brother, Gavin, to be the most hilarious friend ever.
She came over in June to help me do a ballerina cake for her little sister. I thought her little arms would tire, but she was all to happy to pipe some shell trim and makes stars. She did the whole thing!
Just recently I’ve become aware that I’m seeing glimpses of a young woman emerge. Giggling with cousins one minute, then having thoughtful conversations with me about what she wants to do with her life next, and a slight turn of her head and did I just see the grown up Guini? Time doesn’t just pass, time flies with the speed of light.
I sure do love you, Guinivere!
So of course I need to pray some blessings on you! These are things I pray for you and words I speak as gifts for you straight from heaven. Long after I am gone, you’ll always have them to come back to. If ever you need to know what your life is about and what is being put together in heaven for your benefit on earth, you can come back to this little altar of remembrance, by faith, and know that these things are yours, in Jesus’s Name! :) Amen? Amen!
“The LORD God planted a garden, eastward, in Eden…” Genesis 2
I just know Isaiah 58:11 in a scripture for you, “The LORD will guide you always, He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your bones, and you’ll be like a well-watered garden. And like a spring of waters, whose waters just keep flowing” (paraphrased). Absolutely!
I pray your thoughtfulness and gentle spirit will be welcomed and received by good people who see you, really see you (and I hope I will always be one of those).
I pray that the fruitful garden of your life and love and joy will be shared by many and will feed and bless lots of people in this journey called life. Just like so many of us right now even are!
I bless you with increased creativity and ability to see beauty in the simple and the simple in the complex and I really pray you will have great prosperity (enough for yourself and much to share) in doing something you completely love in life! I hope you do get to have that cupcake business, or raise horses, or have a flower shop. Whatever you want to do, Guini-Poo, I know God can bless it and make it go well for you!
AND I pray that your 4th grade year will be the most fantastic and fun school year of your life. I pray that the classroom you’ll spend so much time in will feel good and that the teacher will be fair; that you’ll have at least 5 favorite friends, people who are nice and encouraging and that you can be the same back. I pray that this school year will open your eyes to fascinating things and that there’ll be plenty of celebrations and festivities along the way.
I bless you, my sweet. I bless your heart and smile and your love and your kindness. I bless your awesome sense of humor and every single one of your freckles. I bless you when you come to see your Nonna and when you go home again. I bless you as a granddaughter and a girl who cares about other people. I bless your taste and I bless your style and I don’t ever want you to forget how much you are LOVED! I love you, girlie. And may this Happy-Birthday-blessing go on and on…
A long time ago in a far-away land, let’s just leave the specifics hanging, I led a worship team that was pretty “good.” We had some true musical talent on the team and since I am not referencing myself, I think it is OK to say so. We had a variety of instruments and some decent voices and we actually did this olden-days things called “harmonizing.” Now I am just being sarcastic. ;)
Anyway, we had a friend “in the pews” who couldn’t carry a tune to save her life, but oh my goodness, she was a worshipper, not just in church, but with her life. But during the musical worship on Sunday mornings, she unabashedly enjoyed herself – singing away like nobody’s business, smiling, clapping her hands, raising them – however her heart could find to show God the joy she felt because of how He rescued her.
Everyone loved her. Her enthusiasm and joy were contagious.
One Sunday evening I asked her if she would read a scripture passage as a call to worship and then she could just move to the side and back of the stage for the abbreviated worship time (before super-powers-evangelist would come and speak). She was thrilled to help.
I’m getting there, hold on…
The next day, we got “called in” about having an older, single woman, a heavy-set older, single woman on stage as part of the team. The visiting speaker felt she didn’t belong in front of people, and was sure we were going to deal a death blow to the church growth program if we weren’t more careful about who got on stage. He said I looked good. Gee, thanks. He said Dave looked good. He critiqued a few of our other people (our bass player needed to trim his beard closer), but said that whether we liked it or not, it would hinder the church and the growth if the people up front didn’t look a certain way – that we needed to be polished.
Flabbergasted, I said something about her heart – that as far as I could see, she’d done nothing unseemly, but probably actually contained some of her usual vibrancy as she stood waaaaaaaay off to the side and waaaaaaay back of the stage. I said we’d invited her because she drew people in to celebration.
He said he was sure she had a good heart, but that in the future I should only invite people who “looked successful,” who “looked right” to be up there with us.
He also said that we were sure lucky to be part of the staff and that if we ever left that church (could he see behind my eyes in that moment, could he see the wheels spinning?), God would be finished with us and would never use us again. Coupled with a sermon he’d preached about a church member who kept “coming against” him and who subsequently died in a car accident (the implication being that if you “come against the man of God,” and I think I may actually be quoting him here, there’ll be death to pay), we weren’t long for that place.
True story. Not sardonic, though or the least bit amusing. But hold on- I have a FUN video coming!!!
I will say this about that ridiculous and not uncommon-enough situation: God looks at the heart and our friend’s contribution to that service was received and God was welcomed and she didn’t have to weigh 110 and have glitter in her hair and be wearing a worship-team-color-coordinated outfit, which was all-too common back in the days of which I write.
Sad, though, how the more things change, the more they stay the same. We just traded church-lady-clothed teams too heavy on the vocals for Cool. Capital intended.
Now for some lighthearted fun: the video…
We laugh because it’s funny. We squirm because it’s a little bit true. We thought we were different, but it turns out we’re just contemporvant.
But all in good fun. Hey, if we can’t laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?
And note to the super-powers-evangelist who spoke the curse over me:if you think that stupid toupee is fooling anyone…
A really beautiful, fruitful garden takes time. It can’t happen overnight. It takes planning and planting and sunshine and rain. A fruitful garden must be tended…
33 Years in the Making
A marriage, a life, an enduring friendship, a love that lasts, a love that creates, a love that makes a place, a love that can still be silly, but wildly, seriously passionate, too. It takes 33 years to fall so hard, to break-up and make-up because there simply is no other there there. In good times, in bad…
It takes 33 years to have 5 kids and see them grow into human beings you find to be more fascinating than you can believe and to let them become, watching as bits and pieces of yourselves walk around the planet doing well – doing good, bringing glory to God by being who He made them to be. Thirty-three years.
It’s like a blip on the radar screen of time, but this time, our time, this love, our love, these days, our days – they have taken us 33 years to navigate, to tame, to experience, to taste, to cry over, to hold close, to run from, to do badly and to do well. In times of joy, and in times of sorrow…
It has taken us 33 years to get here. I…take you…to be my…
And oh yes, there have been bouquets of flowers and you’ve heard more of my laughter than anyone on earth ever will. And there have been love songs and passionate kisses and just plain times of sweet satisfaction with the life we have lived as honorably as we could and with the children we have raised and their children, now, too. For better…
But there have been agony and night seasons that sent friends fleeing for the hills and you have caught my tears and moved closer to bear my pain. And we have failed miserably sometimes as lovers, sometimes as parents, and as a family, and we’ve had to labor with intensity through great pain, harder than can be imagined, to repair the breeches, restore the losses. For worse…
It takes 33 years for this to be: for us to be us, for the children we raised to be the people they are, for 9 beautiful grandbebes to reward our fruitfulness with so much joy and delight. To have and to hold…
This blessed life was not built in a day, nor in the heated passion of our fall into deep love. It has taken 33 years of rights and wrongs, and good and not-so-good, but overwhelmingly lovely, oh-so-very lovely, love-filled days to get here, with you. For in the times there was nothing else to do, we have lived on love.
It’s taken 33 years for me to have more than I ever hoped or dreamed and more than I deserved. You are my home. Please keep me. :)For as long as we both shall live…
We are not of the “selfie” generation and it takes us 30 or so tries to get us both in the picture, centered and looking roughly the same direction. This was at Peaceful Valley in the Rocky Mountains last week.
Happy Anniversary to the father of my children, to my life, my love, my home, the man of my dreams, and my most trusted friend {a spot well-earned}. Thank-you for your faithfulness, your steadiness, your commitment to love even when it has been challenged, and for knowing who you are in Christ. You’re the strongest man I know.
“You are so handsome, my love,
pleasing beyond words!
The soft grass is our bed;
fragrant cedar branches are the beams of our house,
and pleasant smelling firs are the rafters.” Ecclesiastes 1.16-17 NLT
It took 33 years to create a home and garden so fine.
July 23, 1981 was a wonderful day to begin the work of love.
PS // Oh, and – I know this is a long, serious blog post. I could just as easily have said:Dear Dave, I love your brown skin and strong arms. Plus your gorgeous hair and incredible lips. I love having your body in the bed next to me night after night and that you and me got to make this sweet family and still get to make out anytime we want. Happy Anniversary, lover. Signed, Me ;)
Cold showers just before jumping into bed on hot summer nights (with wet hair, of course).
Having my hair brushed.
A kiss on the cheek. Why are there not more cheek kisses? Must I go to Europe?
A real, honest-to-goodness, arms wrapped-tightly hug from some one who really loves me. And I, them. A good hug says, I surround you with my love, my devotion, my protection and all my resources. I embrace who you are. You are not alone…
The rich smell of my Rocky Mountain Thunder coffee brewing in the morning. The short wait is agonizing and tantalizingly aromatic.
The sound of real Rocky Mountain thunder just before a late afternoon storm. Heard several times this week.
Splashing in rain puddles with a grandbebe following one of those short, but powerful downpours.
Playing in the summer rain with my mutt because I don’t have anywhere to be and I don’t mind getting wet. In fact, I find it liberating – recalling the joys of childhood – back before hair styles and hair products had to be worried about.
A really good watermelon, so sweet and a little tangy, with a pleasant scent. After months of storing up the power of the spring and summer rains and bright, hot sunshine, cut open to be enjoyed, ice cold deliciousness. We ingest a hundred days of life-growing goodness {rivers of juice and mountains of red flesh} in the eating.
Soul…
Laughing so hard you cry real tears. Then you get to laugh again at the remembrance.
A movie theater with no one else there – and a movie you can just get. in. to. Perfection!
Watching a Youtube video so touching, you get goosebumps.
When an important person you admire and respect stops everything and gives you the simple gift of time, just time.
Getting to sing songs with some one who loves the music you love.
When you fall head-over-heels in love with the song because the melody is amazing and the words – the words(!) could have been something you could have written. The songwriters who tell our stories are insightful and extraordinary human beings, even if the artist who communicates them so well do get most of the glory.
Being understood. Being forgiven. Being liked. Being needed. Being valued.
When you haven’t blogged for a month and some one checks to make sure you’re ok.
Being a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a mom, a nonna – knowing you’re a woman with a million things to be grateful for and a good-enough sized group of people to love and share life with. As Amy Grant sang, “Baby, baby, I’m the lucky one.”
When some one just goes the extra mile for me in some way. Why is that so surprising these days? It opens my heart and soul right up – makes me feel so generous and apt to do the same thing back. So if we all just started going the extra mile…imagine it!
Averi (6) and Amelie Belle (4). No shopping trip would be complete without some team-work balancing feats.
The immensity and grandeur of life continually absorb and eradicate death’s power and presence.
-Wm. Paul Young in his novel, Cross Roads
Life is the quicker-picker-upper. ;) What keeps you fully alive and living and feeling good?
…what a great title, huh? Or should it be TheAccidental Sabbatical?
Though quite unplanned, it seems I just took a seventh-month blog Sabbath. July just…nothing. It is just not nearly as exotic or intriguing as I think my fabulous title, An Accidental Sabbath, is. :)
I did not plan it. But the summer has been different than I thought it would be. And my garden needs love and I am limping from an Achilles tendon injury and I ran away to the mountains and I have read more than usual and I’ve done many art projects and slumber parties with the grandbebes. And even though I didn’t plan to not be blogging and have been dying to write, I just could not get here.
And this silly post is merely to say, I’m home. And I feel like writing. But while I’ll probably post maniacally for a bit, the actual writing part may take me some time. I’ll have to find my groove.
Meanwhile…
Thanks to Cheri from Fort Wayne, IN who checked to see (via my daughter, Stephanie) if I was ok because I hadn’t been posting (I got a phone call in the mountains and it made me cry). And to Donna, from Cookeville, TN who gently, but consistently checks for and encourages me to post. If I ever disappear mysteriously, it’s nice to know that they will notice. :)
Now the question:
As Jane Austen wrote, “Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?”
Aphids. Hundreds, thousands…maybe millions (naturally I would not exaggerate about something as important as this).
So aggravating.
I went out to harvest a large bunch of the greenest kale leaves for stir-frying with garlic. Sounded like a great breakfast. But, what is this? Some powdery weirdness that…what? Is it moving?
Yes. the underside of the kale – the whole big plant, covered in aphids and their eggy-spawn.
This is a stock image. My infestation was worse, of course! ;)
I had to destroy that plant and some of the spinach, too.
But not worry.
Little does the poor, unsuspecting state legislator sitting near Dave at the downtown government building cafeteria know that just inches away, in a little brown bag, are 1000 Ninja-Ladybugs. They are on their way to my garden to feast on aphids. From Paulino’s.
To celebrate the anniversary of your birth, I have words…
Of course, I do. Many words. Still, some 12 years since we met, I am so grateful you married our daughter and became a son to us. She wasn’t the only deliriously happy person about that, you know. You were an answer to prayers and a fulfillment of hope and Tara’s dream come true. :)
If for no other reason than that you chose my firstborn and love her so deeply (and have blessed us with two spectacular grandsons), I’d think you were extraordinarily smart and wonderful.
But there are many reasons I love and admire you and my heart is tender towards you.
There have been incredible times since you became one of us, since the early days when we could suddenly be in the room with you: you, so well-liked, so sought after and admired and we could know, beaming with pride, he’s one of ours. You married the beautiful Tara and got the bunch of us, foibles and frailties and all. As mother-in-laws go, too many times, I haven’t been the one I had planned I’d be and for that, I apologize. I hope for all the times I have failed to encourage and bless you and for all the times I may still let you down in this winding path called life, you can find it possible to forgive me.
But I hope you do realize that I love and admire you and my heart is tender towards you.
Thinking about you turning 33 has had me reminiscing {of course}.
Three sweet memories on your 33rd birthday
1// I remember years ago, when your hair was longer, some person(s) started referring to you as a surfer-dude, which was a totally erroneous label just because you have the ability to adapt immediately to culturally distinct people groups, one after the other, rather effortlessly. But was a silly summation.
Because, like Paul the Apostle, you can be Greek to the Greeks and a Roman to the Romans, skater to the skaters, or mighty man of prayer among the intercessors. You are fluent in joy-speak and compassion-mixed-with-mercy is a native tongue for you. Because you’re able to adapt and flow as easily among Christian-magazine-produced minister’s meetings as you are with well-known rockers-saved-by-grace backstage at festivals, an old-timer mistakes you for merely a surfer-dude, with no offense to surfer-dudes.
It may have never bothered you a bit, but it irked me that you might be boxed in.
Because the point was and is – the apostolic anointing, the call. You fit. You have what it takes to be part of many groups and streams and situations. I so very much admire your courage and ability in this.
2// I was also remembering a late summer night in 2006 in a barn east of Brighton. It was a night of ordination, really, doors open wide and the warmth of God’s smile permeating the atmosphere. The sun dropped slowly giving way to twinkling stars signifying God’s good pleasure as rich worship rose heavenward. I watched as you and Tara, in almost a second wedding ceremony of sorts, the sacredness so palpable, became wholly united (one voice, one heart, one mission), stepping out from the safe into the holy wild. Worship and the Word Movement revealed.
And those of us in that barn that night, the small group of us privileged to stand on that holy straw-strewn ground, were witnesses to divine oil poured out from heaven. We were the yes and amen as we watched this man and this woman courageously say YES with everything they had and we stood in agreement and echoed from our hearts, yes, so be it, Lord.
You had already gathered the familia around your table a month earlier and we’d spoken blessing and prayed over you, then, for this movement-to-be. But the barn night, it was a night of nights, as we all watched you emerge, your voices blended, such power pulled from deep places of humility. You could practically hear a thunderous “This is my beloved Dave and Tara, in whom I am well-pleased.”
It was one of the most amazing and powerful nights I’ll live, I guess. I was so honored to get to be there, watching, pondering, treasuring the beauty of God’s call on you both, as one. So grateful I got to witness the birth of something of this magnitude, so full of favor.
Philippians 1:3-6 – “I thank God every time I remember you. In all my prayers…I always pray with joy…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
3// Then there was this festival we did together.
Man, those years meant so very much to me. In case I ever forgot to tell you or if time and circumstance has obscured the telling, thank-you for letting me be a part. I mean – God gave me something to share there, but how many men would be brave enough to let their mother-in-law be that close, anyway?
I love how God prepared me ahead of time {I still love the memory of the surprise of it} and you had the discernment to recognize and receive that and welcome me there. I will ever be grateful for that. It was the time of my life.
A blessing for you as we celebrate your life and look ahead this year…
And now, let me bless you and pray over you a little and impart some things I want you to remember. Is that ok? Let me assure you: I have asked God to edit me and I promise to do my best on letting Him! ;)
“Dave, may the Lord bless and KEEP you. May He make His face SHINE upon you and BE GRACIOUS to you; may the Lord turn His face toward you and give you PEACE.” (Numbers 6:24-26).
I bless your life, David Michael Powers. I bless the days He has planned for you and I thank God we get to be included in your fascinating so-many-cool-things-to-come story. How very wonderful for us! I bless the days we have known you so far {of course I do!} and all the ones we have left! You were uniquely crafted and specifically designed for God’s great purposes in these particular days on the earth. And to be in our familia. Now that is the coolest part!
I know God rejoiced when He was fashioning you in the secret place, and could not wait to celebrate and boast when you were born. Your parents both beam with delight when they are around you. I know they are soaking in the love of God in you, on you and through you! So I bless you to know {really know} the height, depth and breadth of His intense love for you – not for what you do or have done {as fantastic as it all is and will be}, but for who you are, as a man in his image and after His heart.
I bless your marriage to my lovely Tara-girl. She is the best thing I could ever give you. And we did so gladly present her to you at the front of that church as the setting sunbeams blazed through stained-glass windows but couldn’t hope to match the bright light of love passing between the two of you! There was not hesitation on our part in seeing her be joined to you, become one with you.
We raised Tara to be your wife, to love you, to walk in covenant with you. And we stood as witnesses that day to your marriage union and so we continue now to bless and pray protection over your marriage. We recognize what God has joined together and we pray that you are ever increased in love and oneness and laughter and mystery and discovery and romance and passion and friendship and rest. I pray that the wife of your youth will bring you joy and delight all the days of your life.
I bless you as a dad to the two magnificent grandsons you brought into my life {and God bless Hunter and Malakai!}. I pray that if there is any special grace or anointing or gift or heavenly blessing on my family of origin or me, that it be poured out on you and Tara and that through you it would be generationally passed on to Hunter-Magoo and Kai-Kai. Just the good stuff, though! :)
May each of your beautiful boys provide the opportunity for you to impart and teach and discipline and love and advise and find understanding about God’s heart towards you. And I pray you’ll have the wisdom to know how to bring them up, individually, to become the men God created them to be and that your ministry in your household will remain foremost in your heart.
And is it ok to say I am praying for increase and another blessed bundle of sweetness for you, too? Well, I am. Please do not refuse the gift of God in this area, and in fact: work for it! ;)
Worship. I bless your song, your music, your worship. I bless the psalmist in you that brings pleasure to the Father and Peace into the room. Your song opens many doors to many rooms and the song of the Lord, well, it is enemy-defeating, battle-winning treasure.
Word. I bless your leadership and pray you’ll be bold and humble and settled. I pray you’ll complete the things God started in you and through you. You have influence through your words of understanding. I remember seeing a glimpse in February 2003 and saying, “One day I’ll say ‘I knew him when..'” These are those days and I bless the work of your hands, the words of your mouth, and I pray that all the things you do and say in His name will bring God all the glory.
Movement. I bless you as a man of God, a man’s man, strong enough to be gentle. You have everything you need for the next step, the next rooms, everything. Hebrews 13:20-21 – “May the God of peace…equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Finally ~ May you live securely and have full supply (full!). And may you be filled with the measure of all the fullness of God (can you even fathom what that will look like?). I pray your joy is full as you walk the steps God has ordered for you, that you are satisfied and content. But also challenged and surprised!
I pray these things with abandon, I bless you with all I have which is so limited, but also by all He is and all His promises, which are so limitless.
2 Timothy 2:1 – “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
And the birthday guy sings…
He’s one of my all-time favorites. Ever!
I started cautiously liking you from the time we met (May 2002, Could he be for real, I wondered?). Then, very quickly, my admiration grew and I loved you deeply. I still do and my heart is very tender towards you. Always will be. On the occasion of the celebration of your birth {Happy Birthday!}, just wanted to say so. {mom}
Tying tiny bits of acrylic twine on posts, these insignificant sinews which will give strength to young tomato plants…
Pulling purslane seedlings which seem to be reproducing at a Trouble-with-Tribbles* rate in the rich soil of my square foot garden (they are edible, should you find yourself lost in Colorado in the future)…
Tending and coaxing grass to grow where I want it to be {in this semi-arid region}, then pulling and prying the obstinate stuff from where it most certainly does not belong…
But I push through the mundane. I keep going anyway, because I get fresh air and physically taxed and those things are good for me. But the real reason, the raison d’être is that there is a hope and a future and tomatoes, for crying out loud. People-you KNOW I love tomatoes – it’s going to happen! I’m working it now, doing menial tasks regularly because I know something wonderful is out there ahead of me!
The radishes are plentiful right now, 3 varieties
*The Trouble with Tribbles was an episode of Star Trek back in the 1960s. I am not, nor have I ever been a Trekker or Trekkie or a closet Gene Roddenberry fan. But I may or may not be married to one and I may or may not have seen this episode a few times. I really did like how Uhura rocked those futuristic mini-skirts, though and I am wondering, now that we are actually here, in the future, where is my Star Trek dress?
I am reading poetry. To myself. Aloud.
Is that the weirdest thing you have ever heard? It is pretty weird. But it makes me think. I have to decipher and climb into the words and wrap myself in phrases to try to really understand. Poets astonish me, really.
So, I am reading Wendell Berry and I feel like, concerning writing about growing things and the garden and nature, I should probably just shut up. He. is. amazing. I just shake my head and go speechless.
Of poets…
Amy Jo, one of my besties, is doing a Haiku series lately with photos of her daughters and they make me laugh. She is a creative, through and through. What treasure these girls will have for their whole lives: everyday life and walks and playtime recorded with warmth and humor by their mommy.
My mom and my firstborn
Two beauty queens
Three of my grand-girlies
I mean – I know I am their Nonna and all that, but how cute and super-sweet are these little women? Taking after their mommas. :)
The Belle
Shivering and wrapped tightly in a blanket following an evening swim in the pool, to her Auntie Steph’s inquiry of how-are-you-doing-Amelie? “Not – great,” came the sage, life-worn 4-year-year-old reply. She woos us with her perspective and wry delivery. And her neon. :)
#tbt #Throwback Thursday
The hallway of black and whites, the people and faces from which Dave and I came.
I love good memories. I lost a lot of my memories once, important ones. And with them some perspective. But maybe I lost some that were too weighty, anyway. And I may be better for it. Not sure. I don’t remember. ;)
But I was thinking of starting #tff, or #Think-Forward Friday. Because we shouldn’t wait until New Years to be thinking about what we want to change or do better or accomplish or be. Making a really wonderful memory, one that will be worth using in a #tbt post might take some forethought. Maybe it’s a good idea to actively make memories you’ll eventually want to keep, but to spend more time really making them than just keeping them?
“I’ve been thinking I’ll follow love’s lead and find some capers worth doing, ones so saturated with whimsy they have to be wrung out like a wet towel to be understood fully. I think I’ll also have a dinghy that I tie to the back of my imaginary boat. I was toying with naming it The End. But I think I’ll name it Get In instead, because I used to think I needed to record stories, but now I think I just need to engage them.” ~Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
