The end.  Of the first school semester of my girls’ career and I look at her and marvel.  She walks tall and graceful through the halls.  She has gathered, for herself, a group of friends that want to be her friend as much as she wants to be theirs.  It is her community and I warm happy in my heart when I step into the school cafeteria and see her smile big as her face.  She enjoys her homework so much I miss her company but smile at her as she checks her grades each night online.  She has flowered and been watered in her spirit and I thank Him breathless sometimes.  “I can’t imagine not going to school now, Mama.”  Me either, girlie.

My girl in the west waits eager for her man to get there.  Their first Christmas together as a couple.  He has made her happy and I am so grateful for what they have.  They are best friends who talk and share their ideas and silly secrets freely.  He has made her feel safe and chosen.  He is who I prayed for for her when she lay her silky blonde little head on her pillow each night as a tiny girl.  I’m grateful to tears and hang up the phone from talking to her secure in knowing her heart is cared for.

My grandbaby is safely born and snuggled up in her parents’ arms…..two people in whom I am confidently blessed to see follow Him in how they live and love.  They will make dynamite parents.  I am honored to be able to say they are my “kids”.  They create and take lovely pictures and have made their own way through a fabulously challenging first year of marriage, shaking strong and resolute in Who has carried them.  I love them so.

I sit in my big green chair this first afternoon of Christmas break, my thinking spot inside my house and remember how I felt the first day of work at school, my cheeks blushed hot from happy joy and nervous energy.  Would they like me?  Would I find my place, my path, His path for me?  As it turns out, the answer is yes!  Yes!  Happy, giddy yes!  I’ve felt some pain, to be sure.  Some worry.  Some confusion.  But never doubt that I was put there by His hand.  And with each dagger that I put at His feet, daggers that threatened to stop my breathing, stop my spirit from Life……He has peeled back my protective skin that rushes to keep me bound in my own brand of safety and left me with tender new skin that hurts when it’s cut.  And I have looked upward to Him with question marks running down mixed with the blood from living real.  THIS HURTS.  THIS SCARES ME.  HOW WILL YOU FIX THIS?  I scream the questions quiet in my brain as I pace the gym floor each morning.  “Abide.”  The quiet word repeats itself until I fall down exhausted.  And surrendered.

This year; this impossible year that I named in January has surprised me with its unexpected journey.  And, as I type I sense that I am taking the impossible with me into the new year.  And I will name it “Sequel”.  Because there’s pictures half painted that I’m eager to see His brush pass over.

It’ll be different this year for Naomi and I.  Very different.  No daughters, save my girlie, will be here.  My Montana boy has already made the trek his budget will allow for this holiday time.  My two boys, one so close to leaving for the next year I can feel him starting to slip away already, his plans busily being made. will come by for awhile.  But, as motherhood goes, you work yourself out of a job and things change and there are friends and rounds to be made that year.  Time changes things.  And I’m okay with that.  I am.  I’ve learned to not place so much importance on one day; because it turns out each day is valuable time spent when you can find it.  I’ve grown to let go of expectations.  They tend to make me fretful and discontent.

I have Bea to think about now and this time next year, they will be closer and I can spill out Nana love in delicious children’s books and cuddle time.  I can hardly get my brain around how that will feel.  My other girl gone west will also be home then.  She is moving back; she’s lived the year she said she would and grown so strong in her faith it takes my breath away.  She comes back different, stronger, and in love.

So, my mama heart looks forward to the future; my deepest longing to nurture and bake and find quiet ways to love given a second round.  For this year, though, it will be quiet and I will spend Christmas Eve with havarti cheese and crackers and Polar Express.  Because every other day of the year, I’ve invested and been invested in.  And I can rest easy that I am loved.  And all is well.

Merry Christmas, friends….I love you all year long!

My granddaughter is letting everyone know she’s going to arrive soon.  It could be tonight.  It might be tomorrow.  So we wait.  And I wait far away, several states away.  I have the heart, just not the money to go.  And I was fine with that.  I’ve learned, the years of being divorced and on my own being my teacher, that His grace is truly enough and when I don’t have enough, I still do.  I know that sounds pious and terribly spiritual.  But to look around at what He’s done for me, as I sit in a house that’s way too big for me and have to think ahead of time which outfit to wear to work the next day because I have a closet full of them?  You see, when I kicked myself out of my marriage?  I expected to be kicked out of God’s favor.  I deserved to live in a gutter.  That’s what I believed.  Falling and failing caused me to feel His arms around me for the first time in my life.