Moments in Grace

We were hunting. Hunting for the perfect Christmas tree. Out on the tree farm, looking for Christmasy goodness in piny green. We rode the wagon filled with straw, far out into the back acreage, this Christmas tradition. When we come around the bend of trees, into the open field, we see. This year's pickings are slim. The field looks empty, hollow, and how are we going to find a tree here? We drove, with the six kids, 30 minutes out to the farm to go to our usual place, rode the wagon way out to the back forty only to find....pitiful, piny trees. We look and look and look. More people come up in wagon loads and we realize that if we don't make a choice quickly, there's going to be nothing left worth getting and it's either pick the least pitiful one or try to go somewhere else. We make our choice. "Do you think that if we turn it, the holes will be toward the wall, and you won't notice?" I ask hopefully. "Maybe....

All this fall beauty becoming woolly winter-white, streaming in the last rays of sunlight as fall turns winter. In the waning of light and fall, we see more of Him, His grace pouring fullness into our lives. This, the season of thanksgiving and fullness, of harvest and blessing, we remember all His grace.  That grace that makes us all His and all full of His light. And even though the light of this world is waning, still in this season, we remember that this too is the season of waiting, of anticipation, of the Light to come into the world. It's so easy to make this season of anticipation, a season of stuff, a season, of stuffing ourselves with food and possessions and we find ourselves full of all the wrong things, and empty in all the wrong ways. We were meant to be emptied of us, so we could be made full of Him. And all these dark days were meant to make us hungry for the Light. So that when it breaks, we are ready to embrace it. The Light of the W...

It was Thanksgiving Eve and I was making dinner.  Putting a roast chicken in the oven, scrubbing potatoes, when the frantic knock came at the door.  Through the glass I could see my neighbor, motioning frantically for me to hurry, hurry. I open the door. She grabs it open and points at the sky.  She says the ghetto bird is circling and I need to pull the kids off the street, you just don't know who might be prowling.  I look and see the police helicopter circling in the clear blue sky.  She's talking fast and frantic.  She says she followed it all the way from the main road into our little suburb and why is it here?  Why?  And she says she left her ghetto neighborhood these months ago to get away from that bird, and why is it circling again?  It's not supposed to be like this here. She left that house and all the dark memories for a better life.  That house where her firstborn died, where she almost did too, and it's not s...

The man walked by us as we were standing in line to order our lunch, the post-church Sunday ritual. He stopped when he saw us, all eight of us standing there, little boys wiggling and squirming restlessly, older kids discussing the earth shattering decision of chicken sandwich versus chicken nuggets. He stopped and counted them. "Eeny, meeny, miny, and that one's Moe." He laughs and pats my husband on the back.  He leans in, friendly and whispers, "Are all these yours?  My, my, children are a blessing now aren't they." "Yes, they are," We grin and nod. He visits a while with Jon as they wait for their orders.   This older man, crown of white, so fatherly and wise, telling stories of grace and God. He talks of Jesus and kids and blessings.  Food comes, they part ways.  We eat our fast food in frenzy of kids and noise and chicken. I walk over to toss trash in a metal can and run into this tall grandfather again. "Thank you, have ...

This.   The everyday mayhem of six kids and homeschooling and messes and just life. This is what it is.  And it is so easy to just fall off the map.  Just feet moving forward but blindly. Days of difficulty and before you know it you're lost...in life. Lost in the day and consumed with the stuff of it,  and it is so very easy to just miss God. When you are busy, so very busy with the details and the dailies, you can just plain fall off this map and fall apart, and how did I get here? And where was I going? And life can just suck the life out of you. And these hands want to give, live open, live full but there are days when you just feel like you've got nothing to give. My girl she says this.  In the middle of the spelling lesson, the daily meltdown, this dyslexic child screams it, "I just can't do this!  I'm just a failure and I fail every single day and what is the point of doing this if I'm just going to fail again?" I know....

Standing in the line at the voting precinct, I'm smiling to myself.  There's just something about election day that awakens hope.  But there in front of me I met a man who has lived cynical. Cynical is easy to live. He was standing in front of me and said that in his 57 years, this was the first time he had ever come to vote.  He told me that he watches eight hours of news a day, and well, maybe all that overwhelming flood of cynicism had done something to him. But here he was, standing in front of me, about to sign his name on the register of people who had come to be heard, to be a voice that had too long been silent. He said that he had complained about the president and the government but he never did anything about it, and so here, today, he was finally going to be heard. And what I saw in those eyes was a light, like a candle in a storm, it was, I think, hope. We talked about our party and the candidates and the issues and all this hope of chang...

The sounds of laughing boys and running feet on crunching leaves meet my ears as we stand under gray November sky. The park is empty this day except for my boys and two little girls about 8 or 9 swinging. The girls eyes keep finding their way over to us and they are watching the running of these four, all fire and pulsing. The toddling one year old plunges over to them in curious wonder, running and then stopping short a few feet away, innocence pondering at these friends. And the girl full of her own curiosity, she calls, "Can I see your baby?" "Sure," I say. Her brown fingers gently stroke his corn silk tufts.  He looks up at her, his pieces of sky reflecting her chocolate-almond eyes. "I like his hair, it's so nice," she says with so much sugar. "Thank you, but I like yours." And I do.  Under this November sky I watch how it blows wild, like ten thousand sprigs of softest warm wool, dancing. Held back only by a head band, t...

"Mom, he did it again!" "That boy down the street, he hit me again!" My son comes running in from the street, feet pounding and heart wrenching again. Conflict. It's been my constant companion. I'm not sure how we got here, to this place of conflict on every side, but I do know that I hate it. Loathe it. Pray for release from it. And yet for these many months conflict continues.  Conflict with neighborhood kids, with friends, with family, with myself over just how to handle all this mess. And I wonder, is this also grace?  Where is God in this? And how could this be His will, how could it? These are the days that I long for the quiet country lane, for the desert island, even for the cave in mountainside.  Anywhere, to be free from this constant scraping away at my heart.  But I remember another beloved of God who knew years of conflict, who spent days and nights in caves, hiding from those who would harm him.  David, thi...