Perspective-Away From or Moving Toward

He's six hours into his longest portion of his connecting flights, with yet another six hours and forty-five minutes left to go. How do I know this? I have been watching on and off for almost eighteen hours now a little green plane follow a little line and make progress to different destinations on my computer screen.

Honestly, I have not decided if "flight-stalking" is good or bad for this Momma. I found this website a while back that would allow the kids and I to "watch" their daddy's virtual plane go from one destination to the next since he travels for work. That's kind of fun for the kids and I.

However, when you are tracking a plane that is taking one of your children to the other side of the world to live for half of a year, it feels a bit different. Not so fun anymore.

I watch that plane that I can't stop move further and further away from home. Away from his brother and sister. Away from his dad and I. Away from everything familiar.

Yesterday's good-bye was hard. Very hard. Different from any other time he has said good-bye. This son of mine has traveled before. This is nothing new to us. He traveled to India for 2 1/2 months his summer fresh out of high school just about a year and a half ago. We have known his wings are too big for our city. The head knowledge of what is happening is there. However, the heart is what you have to argue with. The sheer length of time he will be gone this time is what hurts this Momma.

As I stood there at the airport and watched my boy who is now a man walking away from me through that line, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I tried to take in every little thing. Camera in hand. Being the kind of Momma that was surely embarrassing my man-child. Knowing that he loves me in spite of me. Needing to capture every last moment. Walking away...there he goes. Through that last check-point. Taking everything out of that airport check-point bucket. I wait. I watch.

There it is. That one last turn. That smile that has melted me for almost twenty years. The wave. I snap the picture.

I follow his movement until he is gone. Gone. Six months of not being able to hug my son just because I want to and can. Six months...

I turn willing my feet to leave that spot and actually have to tell my head to make my body leave that airport. Then it starts. The ugly cry. The gasping for breath, realizing that I think I have not been breathing for the last ten minutes. The tears begin. I don't care who is around. I don't even remember if anyone else is around. I start walking then. Quickly. I have to leave, quickly. Or I won't leave.

Leave. Away. These words hurt. They sting.

But words like Forward. Toward. These words grow dreams. Give Hope.

This, I will cling tightly too. For the next 180 days. Counting down toward seeing my son face to face again. Looking forward to hearing the stories and adventures that he had during this time. Letting go a little bit more. Letting him go toward what the plans are for his life. Plans not put into place by me.

Plans that can't be stopped. Shouldn't be stopped.

Just like that little green plane that now has five hours and 59 minutes left on this leg of the trip.

I love you son. See you soon...

Colored Pencils in a Gray World

She colors her graphing blocks on the second half of her math paper.  As she works I simply say, "Hope, isn't it wonderful how God made our world so colorful?" Expecting an answer that only carries the insight of a six year old, I am surprised by her response.

After a pause, she looks up from her coloring and stares deep. "Wouldn't it be sad if I was gray? Just gray. And the ground was gray? And everything else, too?"

She put her coloring pencil down and carefully chooses a different color for the next row.

She continues, "That would be a world without God."

She resumes coloring in the bright blue she has chosen, not realizing the places touched in my heart by her words.

This made me pause. Truly pause. As I looked out the window at the still-green tree in the yard, the crisp blue sky, the little yellow daisies that have recently reappeared in the flower beds, and the browning grass ~ I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I am overcome with gratefulness for a creative and saving God!

How often do I walk through my day muddled by the gray of the world? The shades of dark and drab that are the sin not only in the world, but especially the sin in my own life. My sin that holds me back from experiencing all the vibrant love and joy the Lord offers me.

And even more painful in this moment is the reality of how easy it is for me to ignore the gray that people who don't know my Savior live in? Not only in the moments of each day, but it could be their eternity. The thought of this kind of gray breaks me. The gray my sweet Hope speaks of. The gray of a "world without God." No color. No real hope. The hope of the light that only He can bring into the gray.


Today, I will see the colors, because I will look. I will open my eyes in gratitude for the fact I don't have to live in a gray world, and rejoice in knowing that neither does anyone else. I will choose to do my part today to share this colorful Truth with new urgency!

Thank you Hope, for sweet, much needed reminders.

Thank you Lord for the beautiful tan-skinned, brown haired, pink toenail-painted (with sparkles) little girl sitting next to me who continues to teach me so much.

A pull-apart cookie dough kinda girl

"Mommy, can we please bake cookies?  The kind where you have to mash them down with the rollie thing?"

This is what my six year old daughter asked me last Tuesday morning.

She was referring to homemade cookies rolled out with my wooden rolling pin.  I'm sad to admit I wondered how she even knew what this kind of cookie is, since she has never made them before.  She was referring to a rolling pin we had unfortunately never used together.  You see, I am of the "pull-apart cookie dough" life style.  If I bake cookies they are from store bought dough that comes out of a package.  You pull apart the square dough, plop them onto my cooking stone, and 12 minutes later, voila!  Fresh baked cookies!  Good enough for me.  But, maybe it shouldn't be. 

I stopped when she asked me this, and my first reaction was to say, "Not today honey.  We have so much to do, especially since Mommy just got out of the hospital and 'lost' a few days."  I had just been home a little over 24 hours and felt the burden of making sure the kids completed their schoolwork, I get my work caught up from my work-from-home job, and conquered the list of household chores still waiting.

But that was not my answer.  Since I had just spent three days laying in a hospital bed reflecting on what is truly important, that was not my answer.

"You know what?  Let's finish our math lesson and then we will bake homemade cookies!"  My sweet Hope's eyes lit up.  Such a simple thing.  Such joy as a result.

So, I did what any pull apart cookie kinda girl does...I hit Google!  I googled the highest rated sugar cookie recipe I could find and then thought, "Let's go crazy!  Let's make icing, too!"

We gathered up all of the ingredients and was thrilled that we already had everything we needed.  And we baked cookies.

We worked together, Mother and Daughter, kneading the dough.  We talked and giggled while the dough chilled.  Hope picked out just one cookie cutter she wanted to use.  The Star.  She said we were making Sea Star cookies, in honor of the beautiful ocean she was able to see for the first time this past summer. I listened.  I found out how much she loves the ocean, just like me.  She chose blue food coloring for the icing.  Ocean blue.  We licked our fingers free from wonderful sweetness. She said we needed sprinkles.  Just because everything is better with sprinkles. She asked if we could take pictures of us making cookies. 


 As the last of the cookies were set aside for the icing to set, Hope wrapped her sweet little arms around me and said this was the "best day ever!"  She ran off to play, and as I stood in my kitchen watching her skip off, I began to weep.  Truly weep.

How many of these moments have I missed out on because I was "too busy?"  Because I was preoccupied.  Because my priorities were messed up.

As a Momma that works from home and homeschools my children, I am almost always with my kids.  But, how much of that time am I truly present?  How much of that time am I really there?

You know, there are absolutely times when it is necessary in today's world to be a pull-apart cookie dough kinda girl.  But, I truly desire to be more of a "mash them down with the rollie thing" kind of mom.  One of these are quick, convenient, and less messy.  However, I think there is so much joy missed by that choice.

Thank you Lord, that you prompted me to say Yes.  Thank you for the blessings that came from choosing in that moment the more time consuming, harder to get to the reward, and definitely more messy route. Thank you for my reward of Joy!

And, thank you Lord for little brown-eyed girls and sparkly blue Sea Stars.