When You Need Him More Than Just In Case

Early morning sunrise streams in from behind cracked curtains and I see him.

I see him walk out in the snow to the shed, his jacket too thin for the bitter cold, his worn boots unlaced where underneath his heels broke free, and his socks were worn holey.

He hadn't eaten breakfast. 

He didn't make his lunch. 

I knew better than to ask if he had brushed his teeth because I already knew the answer. After ten years you know the answer.

He returned from the shed carrying a red, gasoline can and a set expression on his tired face. 

His footsteps leave deep trails in the white snow. Trails of his strength to make it through something so simple, so easy to have render fixed but to him a mountain that he couldn't see.

He heads over to the rusted, old, snow covered car and opens the gas door and he pours and he gives the faithful ole steed a turn and she purrs.

I watch. He was out of gas two days ago. He had been driving it daily. I knew it. He knew it. What should have been a simple remedy was left to last minute juggling because his mind doesn't cross the t's and dot the i's as normalcy should.

The many times and moments that have escaped barely to make it are too many for this wife too count.

I knew he was different before I married him.

He was enlightening, a brilliant mind, a soulful light, a well of laughter, a strong hand, a breath of freshness to this young, tried woman seeking the love of life. 

A brilliant mind never formalized. A mind never stamped and approved and sealed.

It wasn't until after I married that I found out or was told that he was diagnosed with add/adhd when he was younger. It doesn't matter for if someone would have told me back then what I know now it wouldn't have changed my "yes" to a "no" so in love were we.

It was only "ADD." It's nothing I've been told and I have read, nothing. It's easily over diagnosed.

 If I had a pen for every moment, every word, every outing, every circumstance, every tear, it's never nothing and always something.  Especially when he is the head, the provider, the one whom I want to lean on, it's never just nothing.

I remember sitting underneath the bright lights in a conference room, chairs arranged in a big circle, all the women wore big, beautiful smiles as they shared their husbands heart to provide. It was their passion, their life's work, to behold something beautiful to their wives financially. 

I sat, stiff and silent my hands clamped in my lap. My heart sunk. I was the only one whose husband didn't have a desire, a drive to financially provide.

Even from early on, I had to remind him to get paid but back then it didn't really matter for we were both with jobs, childless, and I was the floater. Over and over those words and he would forget and if it wasn't for me he would have worked without pay. 

We would sit and go over numbers and his brain doesn't follow numbers and how this wife wished that it had or could to this day.

So everyday I pray, pray for a miracle, an open door, a peace that transcends figures. 

He may never see the financial need or remember it for longer than a day.

But give him a piece of a wood and he could make just about anything. It was a boat this year that sailed him and our boys through the rivers to catch fish for the first time.

Give him that tarnished, well strung guitar and he could play you a song to get your feet moving, your heart singing, and your hands raising.

Give him that Bible and he could talk your ear off with praises and affections and admiration's and show you God's unconditional love to make your soul alive.

Give him a watered pool and he could swim like an olympian. 

Give  him that trivia game and he can answer just about every question.

Give him some string, a box, and he can trap you that bird, tell you the type, and its call.

Give him a saw and some tools and he could create just about anything.

Give him some chemicals, some tubes, plastic bottles, and wires and he's a wide-eyed, seven year olds favorite genius.

Give him a few paints and he could draw you a picture and make it look easy and flawless.

And that list goes on and now should come the "but then" list.

Ah  yes, that list is lengthy but we all have them this "but then" lists.

All days are merciful grace, all days are for clinging to the One who holds us in his palm, and who gently whispers "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

I sit in the truck, turn the key, and nothing but silence could be heard. The silence was quickly overshadowed by my disbelieving groans of not today. My sweet boy sits and waits at the academy, forty five minutes past pick up time.

From behind the curtains I see them pull into the driveway. Moments later the carpenter pokes his head through the door, all grins, "It started for me. Me and Josiah were praying the whole way home, it would start."

So yeah a weak smile panes my face and I nod and speak through gritted teeth "that I was glad."

Driving the truck to the dealer, I knew it was okay, my husband was behind me, following right behind, just in case.  

I needed him, just in case. 

I glance away and quickly look back in the mirror and he was gone. The phone beeps and his words flash across the top. "Had to pull over, forgot to shut the hood." 

A silent eye roll but after ten years you know all the answers. 

But I needed him, just in case. 

It melts the heart when there is no "just in case" someone or spouse.

No one was behind me to help except swarms of cars and passerby's in rush hour traffic.

I can panic or I can remember the One who is always here, unseen, quietly unseen, yet still powerfully, miraculously here, who is waiting, watching, and listening.

He is more than our "just in case," He is our sufficiency, our comforter, our defender, our provider and He sits and waits for us to speak to His heart and to show Him ours no matter how tattered or fearful or torn it is. He is the mender. 

I don't need a "just in case," I just need Him.

So Valentines Day weeks and marriage week and it's my hope to post more of the same sorts and I hope your here to join in!

Tomorrow is Another Go At It and We Get To

"Early in the morning my song shall rise to thee, Holy,Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty, blessed trinity."

Early in the morning, sometimes before the morning breaks light and the doors creak open to reveal the sounds of shifting feet, faces appear inches from mine and I breathe. 

Eyes are tired and bones are still tightened yet to have been unfolded and stretched. I sigh. Another day, another round, another "go at it" as my oldest would say.  

The worn hand becomes grasped, tugged, and pulled and ideals of early mornings before wakings never happen and sometimes the heart can sink because there seems to be never any me.

Early year resolutions flutter away as days are scratched off calenders and it always seems to be everybody has something or wants something and you nod the head, willing to be their need. 

It reminds me of how God gives days so that we could see our need for Him and His need for us.

Resolutions to write everyday have fallen by the wayside instead I find myself exhausted, sitting at the computer in the black of night wishing to have the strength to do what thousands of women do multiple times a day. How do they find time and I can't?

Maybe instead of resolution there's refinement? Small steps towards something that I can't really see, more of becoming, more of molding, more of His image, and less of resolution?

Today's keys didn't get pecked hundreds of times but there was laughter, soft silly giggles, bills paid, lunches made, the floor swept, potty training, dancing, lessons taught, laughter with a sister, and the list goes on. 

People, faces, little ones, those who need helpful, guiding hands, the hurted, the pained, the hopeless, the forgiven, the joyful, the blessed, this is what life and heaven and eternity will be, a family. 

So, yes, if all there is in a day is a whisper of "holy, holy, holy" then the day has been done and I have been refined in small steps and tomorrow is another "go at it" and I get to, whatever it may be, whatever it may hold, I get to.

I get to have another "go at it" whatever it is "I get to do it." Yes, God gracefully, mercifully, wonderfully, gives days and while they are here my song shall rise to thee as I am now.

~Worship of The King~

He counts down the days.

Every day until the long awaited, chosen, much anticipated day arrives he awakes early and heads his way to the calender.

Sometimes I catch him there in the morning sunrise, a hand on a light, a hand on a word, my hand on my heart.

"December 15th, it's the 15th day of Christmas!"

There's no stopping a celebration of Christmas, no waiting, no unraveling, no prolonging, no halting, no waiting for that one final day, at least not to him.

There's no advent stories from Adam to Noah to Moses to Jonah until the finale that crescendos His saving "coming." 

At least not in our house this year.

It's a story that grows and grows in a heart of a child and those stories are read throughout the year.

It's remembrance, a sacred time, because He already came and everyday is His coming and we just can't get enough from the first to the 25th.

To linger on the Birth of a King at Christmas, a "Christ Mass" a mass of Him and the wonderful, powerful, God ordained scripture of a Saviors coming that never really gets heard year round. 

It's hard to keep a lid on this child.

This child who lives in the moment.

Christmas it's a moment.

Every year it fades further from me and no matter how far ahead I plan, I never feel full of the good news.

I haven't done everything I had wanted to do this Christmas. 

I never made it to the Christmas recital, never saw a choir performance, didn't get a chance to see a live nativity, didn't see a lights display, no wonder why I didn't feel full and now time was running out.

I drive on a Sunday morning, pull up to a parking lot filled with cars, take a seat among the throngs, knowing what I won't hear, the Birth of  a King.

The Birth of a King.

A King's Birth that somehow in some places, somewhere never really gets told and retold and inhaled and consumed and praised and worshiped and adored by His Kingdom.

A tiny infant never helpless for His Father never takes His eyes away from Him.

God never takes His eyes away from us, His heirs, His children, His kingdom.

And it's a Kingdom that will never end. 

This is what grows from a root, the tree of life, a Kingdom that will surpass all others, the kingdom of a King who saved His people.

Jesus, He was planted by love.

A tiny babe to grow rooted to the Word as flesh.

Jesus came to dwell, to tabernacle with us as one, His finest creation.

Before He even took His first, wobbly steps men followed Him, the newborn King, the Holiest of Holies, the Wonderful Counselor, the Almighty God.

Even hundreds of years ago, they knew what drew their hearts together with the Savior, they clung to Him, looked for him, to worship.

Worship it's what were called to do, what were made for.

The shepherds tending their flock though frightened, the wise men who sought and traveled though weakened, did not run from Him because of fear or tiredness yet they arrived to behold the most beautiful sight ever seen, that has been written as such through generations upon generations, the Birth of a King, The Prince of  Peace, and.... they worshipped Him. 

That was their calling to worship, to praise, to bow down and worship this Son that saves us from our own destruction.

Worship its what were called to do, a commandment worship and it doesn't take the latest and greatest method to worship the newborn King, to feel completed, it only requires a hearts devotion.

If hands aren't lifted to the Son, if mouths aren't opened to speak His name, if praise is never given to the One who came as an infant took on the world to die as a Savior, then a lid has been placed over us, a heavy yoke, a covering, a concealment, a hushing.

A burden is felt on the heart and soul.

A lid is placed that wants to suffocate praise.

A lid that quenches and drains the true purpose of a souls existence, Worship.

And with the lid, come the feelings of incompleteness, disappointments, the lack of accomplishments. 

Heads are lowered and walks trudge, and there's a strive to find something that's missing anything to make life good, full of purpose but its fleeting and the path starts all over again. 

And yes, that serpent that slithers and hisses everyday in ears squeezes the lid tighter and takes joy.


Worship the Baby born, the Promised one, the Sacrificial Lamb, the Emmanuel, the Savior, it's what we are made for and in worship is our completion, our purpose, our true birth.

Toss the lid aside.

Freedom,  yes freedom is felt when worship escapes the mouth and is lived by the soul.

And worship doesn't take money or physically going anywhere and there doesn't have to be an attendance of multiple Christmas performances to be full of the good news. 

All that's needed to be done is Worship, it's never too late.

He was birthed in a stable, laid to rest in a trough, His presence was marked by a star and we follow Him and yes, Worship.

I can't put a lid on it, on him, my spirited boy, so we celebrate everyday as His, the Birth of a King, this advent. 

It's a coming that's treasured everyday, the Birth of a King, a Mass of Christ during Christmas.

God, the Father, has a plan for His kingdom saved and it all began in the beginning with love.... and a Son.

{"Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken,  be thankful, and so worship God acceptably in reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire."}

Hebrews 12:28-29

By the Work of the Hands

The hands are already dry.

Dry, wrinkled, cracked,  and in some areas, there within where the skin meets the nail or on top of the knuckles, cracks are deep enough to bleed 

It happens every year, when winter knocks on the door and gloves are lost and the time to buy new ones never arrives.

I bandage them up tight. Those cumbersome burning pains that bring gasps from the mouth, lasts for a few days and they heal and it starts all over again. 

Gone are the youthful hands.

I hear the words "you need to put lotion on those hand," more often than enough and I do but when there's trash to be picked up, toilet seats to wipe down, raw meat to cook, floors to be mopped, crafts to be done (which dry fingers stick to and tear more) to go along with the outdoor howlings of harsh winds and stinging low temperatures, these hands take it pretty rough. 

And lets face it there not at the top of my "things to take care of "seasonal list even though the cart gets pushed down the aisle and the eye sees the lotion along with the price tag and I push on by to rummage through items to stuff in little red, sequined, homemade stockings that reach the smiles to the ears of young ones.

Hands sense. 

What would it be like for the hands not to feel? Not to be worn dry? To never be able to feel? To fathom the emptiness of fingers on top of keys, of hands soaked in the warmth of waters, to not feel the cheek of your child, or a husbands hand, or feel the petals of a bouquet, or the coldness of snow, or the pulse of a beating heart, or the touch of a tear, or pen, or paper?

Hands feel and tell a tale of years gone, its kind of how were known. 

We've held and touched and healed and played and crafted and drawn and worked and splintered and cooked and cleaned and inked and turned pages and held hands and babies and loved ones and they become worn and wrinkled and pained and they hold memories of past regrets but more than anything, they are a miracle of our work.

By the works of our hands we are known.

I watch as the carpenter lowers his saw blade through a thick cut of wood as splinters and small specks of wood flood around his uncovered eyes. 

He cuts and saws and sculpts sometimes into the early morning hours of the day for I can hear the sound of the saw blade as it slices through each wooden piece as I lay in bed.

Come Christmas morning, he's hoping to have wrapped something his sons will love and laugh over under the pine tree.

Sometimes it something grand he constructs, yet sometimes its something so small yet precious that rests in his massive hands but usually its something that's never seen except by four pairs of eager eyes.

And that's okay if the work of our hands is only seen by the one who uses His hands to count hairs, weigh oceans, stop storms, heal sufferings, breath resurrection, to Save the World. 

For its His hands in the end we will hold and only His.

And hands are folded and raised all worn and cracked and splintered and tired towards His presence in worship and thanks, for by the works of our hands we are known. 

So, raise worn hands that are tired from the everyday demands of existence and Sense the feeling they bring of life's miraculous maker in you.

And give thanks even though sometimes we rather not and its hard but because He is worthy of it all and the hands tell the tale.


{" May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us, establish the work of our hands for us-yes, establish the work of our hands."} Psalm 90:17     

Knowing in Whom You Have Believed

November flings its door open in a show of cold and color and speaks the creators amazing beauty.

There's a chill in the air, a hop in the tired step, and a hope in the heart that longs to draw near to a certain, calling peace. 

A peace that the season slowly but hurriedly inches closer to that rings joy and good tidings, but for now pumpkin seeds and spiced coffee and bags of candy that spark buds and leaves that crackle and logs that burn from a nearby pit, it all blows homeward.

It's here again and yes, it fills just like it came and went only days ago. 

Each year after year, each windy, blustery, leaf fallen season that passes and reappears my mouth slowly closes more and more in its rushness to complain and as I said before I can out wail a dog~head bowed down shamefully~ but to soak quietly in what is before me, simple goodness.

It was the day of should we or shouldn't we and deeper hidden meanings and what ifs and not rights but I've always believed this verse of truth in my mind after years of hearing the carpenter speak it, "to the pure all things are pure." 

Its a drop in a bucket of something tiny and sweet and it brings wide eyes and big grins and its blessed for the church opens its doors for a night where games and worship fill buckets full of treats and happy hearts. 

And yes it can lurk there in the dark, its dweller, and its real and we watch and shield but we sigh and breath for "to the pure all things are pure" and He holds these tiny hands for they are His.  

It passes by and November stands wide open another month but this one of thanks.

It doesn't come easy to all, especially myself, for it depends on the place of the thanks, and how much the eyes choose to really see.

Its hard to give thanks when you feel life is empty and barren and when you look around at all to be seen and it never seems to filter through your door.  

Wait and wonder because theres never certainty with emptiness for full lurks near but empty creeps closer to swallow. 

Its hard to give thanks when you see an empty plate but an empty plate means a full soul for the plate can't be taken up nor can emptiness devour the spirit that connects with His. 

You have to speak it or the empty wins, speak thanksgiving because it brings gratefulness to the soul and hope to the heart. 

Without hope there's no salvation song at the end of the day and if hope can't be seen or felt or believed the heart can't thank. 

Giving thanks brings the spirit of gratefulness and its not your plate or mine I see in the end but His. 

When the mind wanders from the self to the creator we praise thanks, we praise hearts that beat, and little hands to hold, and wrinkled faces to gaze, and we remember that better His courts of thanksgiving than an earthly door that never seems to open. 

For only one door really matters, one gate. 

First, foremost, at the top of the to do list, before the feet touch the ground in the early morning hours~ to give thanks is to know in whom I have believed in. 

Before thanks can be given, genuine, adored thanks that cries to heaven and bends the legs to the bed, and clasps the hands in tearful joy, "to know in whom I have believed in."  

It comes from a reverent place where the heart meets His. Its a connection of souls and hearts and hopes for He willingly hopes for us and longs for us to be as He is and we can pick up the cross and follow and for this there is thanks~ know in whom you have believed.

How? Make Him the first yes, the first, trying this and sticking to it the first of everything, the first fruits of my harvest, of time and self offered to Him, to know in whom I give thanks and follow.

Yes, 1883 David Whittle, a man whom He believed.

~But I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
to keep that which I've committed
Unto Him against that day.

I know now what of good or ill
May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days,
Before His face I see.

I know not when my Lord may come, 
At night or noonday fair,
Nor if I walk the vale with Him,
Or meet Him in the air.

But I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I've committed
Unto Him against that day.

To Say it is Good at the End of the Day

Sometimes there is nothing like silence.

Good, peaceful, absolute, still silence.

The kind of silence where you sit and drown in the quiet, resting the weary body and mind, and for once you can actually think and reveal in undisturbed thoughts.

I love these moments though there few.

In our home silence is unseen for when there's a little boy or a carpenter under its roof the mouth does not sleep, the noise knows no quiet, and the brain desires no boredom or stillness. 

Living adhd is being constantly surrounded by thoughts, emotions, actions, and ramblings and its sporadic and genuine and enlightening and exhausting and its none of your own and all of theirs. It always runs, their mind and brain, it never quiets until there's the silence of night.

And moments of quiet are soaked in these dry, thirsty bones.

God knew they were needed these adored, sincere instances of silence. Its a cup of cool on a parched tongue, a shaded tree from the heat of the day, a hallelujah, amen in its own way.

Silence blankets the house, rooms are dimly lite, darkness shows under the closed doors of the children's rooms and for once they stayed in their beds, their little voices full of song finally drifting off in quiet.

The crickets chirp and their sounds wander in through open windows happy to play a song for falls warm night.

Dim the light. A days work has been done and to say it was good? 

If the mind were to rethink the days events it would turn up empty in many places, too fast it sped, too many things would have to be redone, too few moments of what I wouldn't give up or trade.

Too many repeats. Day can seem like repeats if there's no celebration in life, if there's no shouts of praise, no spoken words of Spirit, no faith in in the race.

The wrist flung faster and faster as potatoes were peeled for dinner. Skins flew across the counter as I quickened the pace of the wrist. How much easier it would have been to tear open a pouch, pour, and mix? How much time it would have saved? How much peace would have been gained? But yet, how real?

Real takes time and sometimes I would just rather give it up and opt for the easy, semi real, good enough to get by blend.

But real, it makes the mind think how real this all is the still, peaceful, here and now. The crazy, glorified, chaos of real. I would rather have real, then the semi-real life.

It drew me to question how real was He the maker of the still quiet?  How real was God to me? Just a name that I knew and prayed and thanked but yet how real? For something to be real it must be uncovered, it must be felt, it must be tasted, it must be learned, it must be seen, it must be lived, it must Be Spoken, it must be Known.

How real is God in my life? As real as the rare peaceful moments so sought for? But for Him to call me by name? God must be real and I must be real wholly, flung open, humbled, fully surrendered, willingly laid bare, to see His face. 

To seek God is to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to live God is to Speak His Spirit, to praise God is to glorify and give thanks, to fully see God is to Know God. 

Knowing God, really knowing God is an immerse of the whole self into everything that Speaks His name, "Yahweh." Its a fight of the fleshly self to see deeper, much deeper than a worship song sung on Sunday, much deeper than a prayer whispered in need, much deeper than a verse skimmed over for the week. 

God is only as real in your life as you make Him to be. 

To say it is good at the end of the day is to know the Maker who holds this being in His palm, who won't let this shattered and torn soul wander, who gently reminds that "this is the day, that He has made for me and to rejoice."

To say it is good and that end of the day is to know that my redeemer lives and because of Him I live and He is good and He beats this heart and carries this family and while there is breath say that "it is good" even when its hard and life is saddened.

To say it is good at the end of the day is to walk hand clasped to the One who yes adores His children flaws and all.

Making Him real in the day is how it's all good. 

To Fear Death

"What's going to happen to all my stuff, all my things?"

Eyes big and blue look at me searchingly.

His small, sharp, chin is hidden under covers of red fire trucks and blue cars and his fingertips grasp the edge of the sheets as he waits.

Stuffed animals lay close to his sweet, yellow haired head that my hands gently touch and smooth. Pooh, and a bear that still rattles from infancy, an eagle, and an owl named Jamberin snuggle close by. 

On the walls hang his art, pictures of him as a little boy, his small hand prints and fingers prints on a frame. On the shelves his latest creations from legos and there's magnets, and train pieces and gears and books and who knows what under his bed.

"What do you mean what will happen to your things?" My eyes squint, brows crease, a hand lifts to brush his cheek.

"When I die? What will happen to my things? I guess some other children will have them."

Silence. Death it comes up at least once or twice a month. The pages of the Book are covered with stories of life and death and resurrection and miracles that's it only rational for a little, curious boy of seven to want to know more.

More of what I feared the most and what I liked to talk the least.

More of what I knew little of, heaven, and I didn't let him see it, the fear of death.

Pushing it aside, I spoke peace and happiness even though grey clouds the brain and the heart skips a beat for death can mean done if you let it.

"Well, hopefully they will be your children who will have them. But don't worry honey heaven is an amazing place, full of things that your little mind and my big one can't even imagine. But its the perfect place, the most beautiful home, more like a castle with jewels and a big gate and walls, maybe a robot castle and I'm sure there will be plenty of mazes for your feet to travel, plenty of tire swings and sea green pools and you won't have to worry about holding your breath or swallowing water and yes God and Jesus are there and yes, people from the Bible and yes, I will be there waiting for you."

"Can I fly?"

I picture him even as a young boy he always would try, he would flap his skinny little arms and jump and jump always hoping to soar, to fly high.

"I can't fly because of gravity...see." The covers come off and a little, excited boy stands on his bed and flaps his arms only to drop to his feet on the floor.

"Well, I don't know about that. Maybe if you ask God he will let you fly. It does say that we will be like the angels in heaven but we have to believe with all hearts, believe in His truth."

His eyes lock mine and for a moment his ears soak in words and I can see pictures looming in front of his mind.

"Heaven is a place that we don't really know much about except that it must be the best place for God is there. There's no crying, or pain, or anger, or unkindness but only happiness and excitement like Christmas morning over and over again but while we are here on earth we should praise and worship God and thank him for everyday, every night, every laugh and cry, every moment."

I kiss his cheek and he is content, content in believing he can fly in heaven and a Mom touches his cheek hoping to be able to see her little boy grow up to the moment when she know longer does.

{Death can mean done and so can Life. Life can be done without even having to die.}

{For to live life in fear of death is to live a life that is already done, already gone.}

Sometimes this fear can trap the throat, and tremble the heart, and shake the bones, and cry tears and it kills the life of the soul and its real.

But to speak Heaven and life to a boy opens and flings the gate of the spirit into His majesty of peace and rest and joy in the death.

God never meant for there to be death. 

Since creation he adored Adam and Eve and there was no sickness and death but life and freedom and deliverance from but with sin came death with deception and jealously came evil and it flourished and grew.

Death and evil angered Him. He sought away around it but could find known except His Son whom death could not hold or keep buried and through Him became a passage of deliverance.

The body will crumble and be sickened and shortened and years blow by and whither away and hair turns grey and legs crack, and hips pop, and eyes squint, and skin wrinkles but the soul... the soul and spirit continue to grow and its a growth that will break through the cage of its dwelling and it will one day fly and it will soar into the heavens above because it has been delivered and it is home.

Tend the soul and spirit. Tend the Spirit. Speak the word. I need to. For it erases fear and pushes Life towards deliverance and a life that is never done.

{Speak His words in life for it rids the mind and body of fear and flings open the soul to really live and grow.}

On the Broken Path

So some afternoons are just meant to be spent with a six dollar bag of kettle corn on your lap.

And there's no stopping the shoveling of the sweet, puffed corn into the mouth except to fill the cups of the young ones and send them off with remarks of its "your last cup, no more."

But I'm thinking in the back of my mind yep this is dinner.

Even though in thirty minutes a tired, weak, dirtied hand, saw dust headed husband will walk through the door with a sweet smile and an empty belly...to a wife with her legs up and a bag (now half gone) of corn on her lap.

Until then, this Mom needs her share of quiet and kettle.

Yes the scale will tip higher (work off that tomorrow).

And those surprise moments of biting down on whole kernels too close to cavities that are waiting for root canals are happening too many times but its kettle and corn and a big bag and it took a big, long, broken way to get it.

I was lost and in more ways then one.

The morning dawned early with kids in tow and off we were for a day of apple picking, pumpkin patching, and hay jumping with a local homeschool group.

Don't be late. 10:00am sharp. Tickets were purchased in advance. Apple Picking 10am.

I should have stayed the course straight instead of pulling the wheel right towards the wrong direction. It took 30 minutes to realize that exit 20 was not Weston and so I back tracked heading back towards the straight highway.

Telling the kids we might just miss the apple picking to which my oldest was completely okay with and offered me encouraging words that soften and shock the soul.

But in my mind it was not okay. The kids would have fun. They would miss that ride in the wagon up the green field towards the swaying, apple plucking trees whose branches were now only waving goodbye in my mind.

Call if your running late that's what the memo said. Except in my case the 7 was supposed to be a 1 and so I couldn't dial.

The highway ended and in its place a winding, country two lane road with cow farms and fields of corn and hay appeared. Easy. I knew rolling country hills and farm lands having grown up in an appalachian town.

I drove and drove. It can seem endless on a country road.

I had passed too many signs and I couldn't find "the" street and I had forgotten my roots that not all gravel roads are named and in this case this one wasn't. 

I pulled over to ask an old man in blue overalls and greying hair for directions and of course he smiled and spoke his country twang and told me that I had gone too far.

I had passed "the sign" not the road sign but the sign for the red barn.

By this time my oldest in the back was saddened as I had built these grandiose illusions that were now floating out the window because of time passed, a good two hours.

We finally arrived sweaty, tired, hungry, and ready for fun.

Lets say the boys had a good time but there was no wagon ride up the steep hill towards the apple orchard for it was only a few feet from the barns. There were no fields painted with orange rows of pumpkins, or hay mazes, or corn stalks, or face paint, or tractor pulls, or tractor rides or...I could go on.

But there was kettle corn.

And forgiveness and sweetness in my oldests eyes because children  really don't know what their missing or maybe they do and they don't really mind.

{The only thing that matters to children is the smile on your face and the light in your eyes and the sound of your voice because they can really do without it all but what they can't do without is your love.}

Your heart that pumped and fluttered and raced with the birth of a miracle now grows and tends theirs, so sacred, so sweet.

{Children's hearts bring His presence closer to you.}

Yes, truth here~being lost and broken is the only way to see the Mender who pieces it all back together towards His Spirit.

{If were not broken, we can't be forgiven.

If were not torn, we can't be healed.

If were not lost, we can't be found.

If were not hungry, we will never be fed.

If were never close, He will never be Real.}

{It's the torn spirit along the broken path that brings us back to the One who was broken and torn for us.}