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23 February 2023

musings


I started this blog for dad...as soon as we left his house in Ohio in 2004 and headed to Canada for immersion training before heading to Haiti. It was hard to call every day, and a few other close friends were asking how we were doing, so I started writing for every-other-day short updates. Dad would know we were good, and see a few pictures. 

It turned into a place to WRITE...a place to process, a place to heal and hurt and work it all through.  A place to search for what the Lord was teaching me.

Dad read every post for 18 years...and every time we spoke he would ask more about what I'd written.  If I knew he'd want to know about it, I'd write about it...and it's caught me off guard to realize that here I still am, all these years later, still writing with him in mind. What he'd want to know. What pictures he'd want to see.

He's had 20 novels from me. I wish I had one from him...but it's just all in my heart and mind, and in the long sought after "perfect" birthday, anniversary and Mother's Day cards he always signed simply, "Love, Dad", but labored over finding just the right message. 

I. just. miss. him.

So.

A dear couple brought us dinner last night...special dinner. Above and beyond, thoughtful and sweet, with two blueberry bushes to plant for us and the kids as reminders of Dad....reminders he's not finished. Reminders that he grows on and sweet in each of us. Reminders that God's not finished, either, doing the work of blooming and growing that only He can do.

I'm having a hard time getting on top of all the laundry and school work and housework and pick-ups and getting back in a rhythm, and my brain is frustrating me in such a fog, unable to get up to speed and my normal capacity.. It blessed me so much to be gifted and loved and remembered.  I have been also so grateful for cards from several of you...thank you.

Our church has been having revival/worship nights since Sunday and Matt and the four older girls have been going. The littles and sick baby and I have been home, searching the Lord with them...and He's been showing up as the hunger for Him grows....I am grateful, for what God's doing at Asbury....at Foundry....at so many places...and just here.

If you've lost your parents and have a three step plan for making this all easier...please send it to me.  Your words of encouragement and sharing of similar circumstances have been precious water.  

One of our girlies turns 13 this weekend...with court rescheduled from December for this Thursday, a week from today. I would be so grateful for your prayers. Trusting the Lord with the dear hearts and very lives of children is no small trust...I'd be coming undone if He could not be trusted, if they were not His girls first and foremost and always. 

He is no small God.




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