It's not QUITE summer yet, but...

...the end of May is nice. Another school year is behind us...another capped-and-gowned graduate stands beside his four older sisters having survived the crazy experience of home schooling at the Warrens...before us is a summer that, though full and busy, is full and busy with different activities and challenges than we experience from September through May. For me, summers are just long enough to make me long for routine again, and that's a good thing.

So, some of us will be traveling this summer, a couple of us (not me) will be involved in a sports camp, a couple will be working, we'll use the down time to catch up on projects that get stuck under the bed for months on end, and we'll take advantage of the long days to work in the yard and hike in the state park behind our house. And when it ends, we'll wonder where in the world it went...

God Knows What He's About

When God wants to drill a man
And thrill a man
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses
And with every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendour out—
God knows what He’s about!

~~author unknown

where sailors cling...

O risen Christ, shine forth and be
A blazing warning by the sea -
A signal where the sailors cling
To life through reefs of suffering,
And need the blast of light and bell:
Beware, what here beneath may dwell.
Beware of subtle, shrewd assaults,
A half-truth can be wholly false.
Beware of wisdom made in schools
And proverbs in the mouth of fools.
Beware of claims that rise too tall:
"The upright stand and wicked fall."
Beware the thought that all is vain;
In time God's wisdom will be plain.

~~John Piper

to wait for dawn...

Sometimes the spark of faith is slight
And does not make the darkness bright
But keep it lit and you will find
Far better this than being blind
One little flame when all is night
Proves there is such a thing as Light
Remember now the place and price
Where Jesus promised paradise
One answered prayer when all is gone
Will give you hope to wait for dawn

~~John Piper

I've just returned...

...from a wonderful week with daughters Kristen and Annie and their families in Virginia. Now I'm tired, hurting from the day of travel, but with a big smile on my face from a week of making sweet memories. We played, cooked, shopped, decorated, gabbed, ate a lovely brunch al fresco, and just generally enjoyed each other's company. Oh, and read with the little ones....

Park Place

I did it.

I hung it on the rear view mirror, pulled into the parking space closest to the door, and then sat frozen in disbelief.

You have a "picture" of them, don't you? The people who park in the "blue" spaces at the grocery store, the mall, the restaurant? They drive the big vans and get out in wheelchairs...they use canes or walkers or lean on someone else almost as frail as they...some, like my late father, are missing a leg and struggle to remove a motorized scooter from the back and seem to use as much energy getting situated as they'll use in their entire shopping trip.

And now, it's me.

I will thank you kindly if you tell me that I'm not the one you picture when you see the blue placard. Tell me I'm much too young, much too energetic, much too "capable" to be......handicapped. Yeah, just as I was much too young for crippling arthritis, too young for hip replacements, too young to be wheeled around in a wheelchair or to live half my days in a recliner. Much.

A few days before, I had waited in a long line down at the tax office, presented my notarized doctor's "note," paid my ten dollars, and stared at the hand of the man who wrote what felt like a death sentence but was really just the expiration date for the two placards he handed me: 04/01/2010. Oh, I suppose it will be nice not to have to repeat the exercise for four more years, but...2010? You mean there's a doctor that was so convinced that I'll still be in pain in 2010 that he'd put his signature on it? Hard to describe what that did to me.

Just in case you're wondering, yes, I'm thankful to have it. I joke about going over to Wilford Hall and having to park in Guatemala, but it's no joke (and rather ironic!) having a twelve-minute walk from my car to the desk of the orthopedic surgeon. And having to be dropped off at the door of Target or the grocery store has robbed me of some of my independence: I can't always go alone, because if I have to park forty spaces down, I'm already "done" by the time I get to the door. So I'm grateful for this bit of help and I'll be whispering a prayer of thanks many times, I'm sure.

Still, it's been humbling. Maybe that's a good thing. And maybe it will help me adjust my "picture" of the millions of people who pull into the blue spaces. Some of them look just like me.