Moments in Grace

Our neighbors are moving.   And yesterday we said goodbye to the first friends we had made when we moved here.   They are not moving far but it will be harder to have play dates and for the kids to see each other.   We are sad to see them go.   We said goodbye with some tears.   Later in the day, the doorbell rings.   It is the neighbor girl bringing us a card.   Joy.   Just joy.   I think of all the neighborhood kids we have brought to church.   I think of all the kids we have prayed for and had over for Backyard Bible Clubs and the endless hours of our yard filled to overflowing with kids by the dozen.   And I am undone by grace. Because this was not my plan. Oh, I have spent years trying to protect my kids from the “world”, to keep them “safe”, to make sure they were doing the “right” things.   I endlessly questioned if they should even play with kids in the neighborhood and what about the b...

The sky filtering from brilliant blue to softest pink as we make the two hour drive home from Grandma’s house, just me and the kids.   My thirteen year old is sitting up front and we are telling God stories, and he asks me to tell my best God story again, the one about how I got adopted into the family of the Great King.   It is a great story. And I can’t resist telling it.   I love to tell it.   It was the best day of my whole life.   The day Jesus rescued me, it was dramatic, and I tell again how my two friends Deb and Rach had been reaching out to me in all my darkness, loving me when I was so unlovable.   How they loved me when no one else did and I knew there are was something different in their lives, some kind of love that I desperately needed.   Love that I didn’t get from partying, relationships, or New Age spirituality.   Love that only Jesus could give. I tell how that Friday morning, on the way to class at co...

Standing there, under the moonlight, I call to the girls, clad in dance uniforms, to come to the van so we can leave dance. My friend turns to me and says, "How are you?" "I'm...o.k." Liar. "Tired.  Me, I'm tired." He looked tired.  As tired as I felt. "Just twenty or so more years of tired. That's what we have isn't it?  It'll be that long before we get some peace, get some quiet, right?" Him, parked, with his big twelve passenger van next to my twelve passenger van packed full of eight kids, my six plus two carpoolers, in the frantic rush of dance practice and dinner and doing. "Don't tell me that.  There's got to be hope.  Hope?  That's all I've got right now." And all this week, all I've heard running in my head are just these words: Overwhelmed.  Crushed by life.  Unable. And I can't seem to get it together. I've felt it long and deep, this crushing, this breaking...