Our firstborn daughter married the man of her dreams 11 years and two fantastic sons ago. They are still acting like newlyweds and spreading the love around! In fact, in two days, they’ll be putting on a concert, Decades, featuring love songs from the 1940s – right on up through the present. Deets can be found at dtp.eventbrite.com. And there will be food.*
A sample…
Happy Anniversary, Dave and Tara. Thank-you for the 2 outrageously cute grand-boys, the love you are living and all the joy yet to be! So lucky God gave you to us! How can we ever thank Him enough?
Hunter and Malakai after the candy store (taken by Aunt Stormie)
Happy 8th Anniversary, Rocky & Jovan!
Almost exactly one year ago, you lost so much in the floods that ravaged Colorado and you have been hard at work, tearing out, throwing away, cleaning up and re-building. And the number 8 in the Bible signifies new life, the old is passed away, new beginnings {all things are made new} and wow – that is SO right on for you two! God is just doing new-wonderful things in your life!
The 3 little women with their beautiful mama
So glad Jovan started crushing on you when she was only 14, Rocky. So glad you fell for the woman she became. Thank-you for the three extraodinarily stunning little grand-girlies you have shared with us. So much life and love yet to experience and you’re doing it well!
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September is such a lovely month, isn’t it? Lovely and love-filled!
I was having this Technicolor dream the other morning – vivid, rich hues (slightly cross-processed) and warm, strong light. The greens were deep, the reds were pure, the grass was soft. The world was right.
*”There’s a light in the window and the table’s set in splendor, some one’s standing by the open door…” – Dottie Rambo
In the dream, to my left was a big white house with a wraparound porch. The driveway and street were lined with cars, trunks open, families packing up to leave what had been a loving and happy gathering. All around were my kids and their families. There was much hugging and kissing, so much peace and satisfaction and love flowing like wild water down the mountain in spring. It was going to splash you, love was!
I was on the front sidewalk playing with Kai, talking to him, singing him songs. Then I actually heard the sound of Rambo’s music coming from the direction of the house, like I would have heard it from the hi-fi growing up:
*”I can see the family gathered, sweet faces all familiar…”
I asked Malakai, in my dream, “Kai-Kai, wanna dance with me? Let’s dance!” He was wearing a little light-blue suit with a bow tie, barefoot. He wrapped his arms around my neck (he’s only 1 1/2), me on my knees, and I held him tight and we were swaying, laughing.
It was one of those utterly perfect moments.
Inexplicably, in my dream, in this happy, joyous, loving, golden-light space, I looked up while Kai and I were dancing and there was my {Uncle Bill}, smiling at us from across the sidewalk. At the exact moment, I realized my {Aunt Rosie} was on the front porch talking away, hugging people good-bye, passing out travel sandwiches. And then I realized, it wasn’t just Dave and I and our children and theirs, but my parents were there, too and my siblings and nieces and nephews and people I’ve known across the years and loved.
I should mention, specifically, that both my Aunt Rosie (my dad’s older sister) and my Uncle Bill (married to my dad’s younger sister) passed away years ago. So having them so sharply present was this really sweet and surreal moment.
The Rambo’s song was still playing in my ears as I woke up:
*”I can see the crystal river, I must be near forever…”
I must have been near forever, and it was perfect there, in this dream.
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I am not sure what makes us dream the dreams we do,sometimes; not sure what brings a person or place or thing into such expressive clarity as we sleep. Mulling it over later, I realized it may well have been the result of both missing Kai (he has had a busy summer) and my brother Joe mentioning getting us all together for Thanksgiving this year, a feat of gargantuan proportions, if it could ever, even happen.
But I am also working on the chronicles, the photo books and journals of our family’s lives. I have 33 years worth of pictures and keepsakes I am determined to date and organize. I am in a groove, currently. I pull out a photo box with one child’s name on it and sort them into the years of their living. Then I paste them on to pages with notes about the occasion and in an hour or two, I hold the evidence of one child or another of mine from birth to adulthood and it flies by so fast, my head spins. And yes, I cry sometimes, thinking, “Oh I wish I could have known how fast those fleeting days were going and slowed time down and held that little baby a little longer, cuddled that growing child, kissed those feet, tucked my daughters and son in to bed once more…”
I was a church-busy mommy in the 80s and 90s. And I can tell you that almost nothing else I ever did when my children were young has any meaning, comparatively. I hope that serves as caution to some one who is reading, to some one with babies who are wearing you out. They ARE the Important thing right now (I capitalized Important on purpose). Thirty years later, those grown children are all that matters. And you just hope you instilled what you really meant to instill somehow…
Geez, I didn’t know this was going to be so heavy. Sorry.
Today my parents are celebrating 57 years of marriage. They married at the age of 18 in 1957 and they have made it 57 years. And I can tell you that nothing is as important to them as family, either. They have invested so much of themselves in to churches and people and yet, I know I have a place reserved for me in their hearts. I know my well-being and life take precedence over the busyness of years gone by, God now restoring the years we may have lost along the way.
I am so blessed that I still have both of parents here. I mean, I am going to be 55 soon – and I still have mom and dad. How fortunate is that???
So, this song, The Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics, is the one I wanted to share on this beautiful Sunday. Because life gets busy. Life goes fast. I know when you’re young, you think there is so much more left ahead, and there is, but time doesn’t just fly these days. Time careens at breakneck speed, faster and faster and out of sight before you can get your bearings.
So, I look around and these are my living years. And they’re yours. And I have things to share and tell the people I love. I have conversations I don’t want to let slip by. I want my people to know I love them, even if and especially when we are not seeing eye to eye.
I want to spend my vitality on my children and theirs (thanks to Staci Eldredge for that terminology) and the people God has placed in my path ~ friends who have become family. I want to love and honor my parents for all I am worth because my perspective has been enlarged and as time slips away, so, too, do the demands I once wanted to impose relationally in my more self-absorbed youth.
The Living Years
Say it loud, say it clear You can listen as well as you hear It’s too late when we die To admit we don’t see eye to eye
When else can we do these things? We can only do them now, in the days we have.
“How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” James 4.14 nlt
“…people are like the grass. Their beauty fades as quickly as the flowers in a field. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40.6-8 nlt
*Dottie Rambo song lyrics, I’ve Never Been this Homesick Before
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 ;)
One son, urged to marry carefully ~ he got the sweetest one ever!
A black-sky, vicious storm-brewing day was overtaken by the burst of bright-light sun-shining, as you spoke your vows in that window-walled cafe. The light (and the love) were nearly blinding!
Seven years, 3 baby girls, a mean, bow-tie wearing dog named Steve (Steve-Holt), some guinea pigs, a new house, a lot of video-game playing, music and worship and little-girl hair-brushing + one major flood later…
Moats and boats and waterfalls,
Alleyways and payphone calls
I been everywhere with you (that’s true)
And here we are. Oh goodness, the years have been blessed. Of all the girls who ever tried to turn my little boy’s head, you were the best choice for him, Jovanie. Congratulations, to you both on such a great decision then and now.
I am so sorry for the week you have had, for the loss you have experienced – not so much about the “things,” the washer and dryer and hot water heater and furnace and carpet. Not even about the physical “things” that included Rocky’s studio and all his guitars and sound systems and computers and recording equipment. Even that, we know – the guitars represent so many precious times in the Presence, the memory of songs sung to the heavens, we feel that loss. We know The LORD will provide and He is your Provider! But it is what those material possessions have represented – a really good life.
You’re safe, your family is good. But it’s hard. Scary to awake in the night to see the waters rising from the lower level and have to be “rescued” in the dark, by flashlight grabbing everything 3 little girls will need until…who knows when?
I love that you have chosen the song for this day of celebration to be, “Home is Wherever I’m with You,” Jovan. Because that is the secret you know.
Laugh until we think we’ll die,
Barefoot on a summer night
Never could be sweeter than with you
So while you’re displaced, not even knowing how long until you can return to “the house,” I am so glad you have found refuge in each other, not just for these days but for life and that even today, in such an unsettled moment – you are home.
Stephanie and Tristan celebrated their 7th anniversary a couple of days after Christmas.
Happy Anniversary, kiddos. You were a beautiful couple on the night you wed and you have grown into a gorgeous and God-blessed family. I am so glad you chose each other and that you keep choosing the covenant. This is why it working for you! The wedding was magic – full of promise and vows, dancing and love in winter white and candlelight. The marriage is a tribute to the joy you have found in loving and living and having babies and doing ministry and life together.
Love you, admire you…Mom
Ephesians 5:24-28 (The Message)
Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church-a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor-since they’re already “one” in marriage.