On taking the new street

About two months, John and I ventured across the ocean by ourselves; it's the first time since we met 12 year ago on a study abroad trip to Egypt that we've gone abroad alone.

A year ago at this time, I'd expected that our next trip would be centered on the two of us because a year ago at this time, we had finally completed the adoption of our two daughters and been home together as a family of six for an entire year; feeling quite settled and done with adding children to our family, I was anticipating that our next trip alone would be our always-pushed-to-the-future honeymoon.

But the honeymoon remains in the always-pushed-to-the-future status. At the beginning of May, we ventured off alone together to live in the Baltics for three weeks, with the intention of bringing back home to the States with us the newest member of the family, our 16-year-old daughter.

Our newest addition is the oldest biological sister of our two other daughters, both of whom were adopted two years ago.

She's our surprise baby, to put a complex situation simply; she's a gift we hadn't anticipated or planned.

There was a beautifully serene slowness to the trip once we arrived for our three-week stay; we planned the entire trip within three days and we left within five our receiving our referral.

While we were in country on the adoption trip, the three of us lived together. During that time, I sipped actual hot cups of tea, soaked in God's Word, experienced life abroad in a way I haven't since before we had our biological sons and remembered what it's like to just have one baby on which to focus much of my attention, energy and love.

It was restorative in so many ways, and it was life-giving in so many ways, too. Our time spent with our newest daughter was a gift, truly, and it was such a lovely foundation to build upon as we re-entered life as we know it at home with four, now five children.

One evening, while our oldest daughter spent time with her friends, John and I spent time walking down new-to-us streets, exploring the city we've called home for a month at a time the past three summers now.

As we walked, I didn't realize there were so many parts of the city we had yet to discover. It was mind-blowing for me -- this realization that there was still so much to understand, explore and know about this city we've called home for about one month every year during the past two, now three, years.

During that walk, we happened upon my new favorite street on a quest to get to city center after dinner; we took a path that we didn't yet know, one that was very different than the main road we have normally taken.

We didn't exactly know where we were going when we decided to follow the uneven cobblestone street toward where the sun was setting, but we knew the direction we were heading would take us where we wanted to go.

Can I just pause here and say that I never anticipated this?

Any of this.

This life of following hard after Love; my life feels so surreal sometimes that I don't even know how to explain it.

Since I surrendered my life to following Jesus 12 and a half years ago, Jesus has become so much more to me than a far-off historical figure.

After many years of simply accepting Jesus' existence and believing,  now following hard after Him and getting to know Him and His ways step by step certainly reframed my entire understanding of existence as I know it and has blown apart what I thought Christianity looked like.

This adventure of following after His heart of love has brought me down the most unexpected, challenging, beautiful roads ... ones I didn't even know existed.

Ones I'm really glad I didn't miss.

Bigger Picture Moment: In the Tangles of Fear

I didn't want to go to Egypt.

I confided in close friends that I feared something big would happen while I was there -- a bomb exploding nearby or even worse atop of us or a massive uprising of voices in the streets we'd walk. I expected to get caught up in a whirlwind of chaos.

The fear wasn't unfounded. Just weeks before I left for Egypt, I had long weekend of reeling, submerged in a murky mess of emotions before I found myself dried up and laying low on rock bottom.

I didn't have an ounce of anything in me to move, to make anything out of the mess I'd made so I opened my hands and told God if He could do better than I was doing, He was welcome to try.

But He'd have to move me.

I didn't know much about God other than what I'd read in a couple chapters of the Bible ... and other than what I'd experienced during a few chance encounters as a teenager.

And something big did happen; I came home changed.

Instead of being ravaged by terror, I found myself wrapped in unexpected grace and love.

It was nothing short of miraculous for me.

Though God didn't part the water before my eyes when I stood on the shores of the Red Sea, He did flood my heart. He spoke to me through sand and waves, stars and sky and through the words of a gentle force of a man I met on that trip who just months later became my husband.

It was only through untangling myself from all of that which is determined to keep me bound in fear that I was able to move and encounter the God who I believed was and will always be, and also the God who, indeed, is.

When I went to Egypt, I found a present-tense God waiting to encounter my heart, a God who wanted to bind my heart to His and whisper his love for me through the love of the man who would become my husband.

The revelation of present-tense God changed everything for me and set my heart on a journey to know him more. My fears tried to keep my bound in stillness; and I almost let them.

And, honestly, I still do.

Last week, fear crept up my legs like an entangling vine and wrapped itself tight around my heart and mind.

I spent most of our drive to Denver trying to hack away at the vines and free myself so that I could move without feeling like my heart was going to beat out of my chest at every small exertion of movement forward.

It wasn't until I crumpled into a mess of tears as we drove along narrow roads up a winding mountain and cried hard and fast that I realized I couldn't free myself from the entanglement.

And why was I so bound anyway? Why was evil trying so hard to keep me still? The nights before John curled up next to me and petitioned God ... help, speak, unbind me. Anything. We asked for discernment for big questions that have been linger and that have left us restless.

I searched my heart and heard His voice telling me in a dream and then again when I woke that before I could move on, I'd have to let go of the old.

I'd have to trade my old friend fear.

Fear.

I've long confused the voice of fear for precaution -- given it credit for keeping me safe, my boys of out danger, my decisions grounded in the stability of safety.

In disguise, fear has convinced me that it's kept me safely where I belong --

out of airplanes

and countries

and off of windy mountain roads 

out of the wrong place

at the wrong time

and out of danger

It's such a tricky lover, fear, because in reality it's actually kept me where I don't belong

deep in the throes of worry

stuck in the pits of anguish

entangled in every what if

stuck in the lowest of valleys. 

Bound.

Fear is the very thing that stills my movement. That confines my mind. That silences my true heart cries

and binds me in the vines of valleys so that I'm banished from that mountain top where I have a bird's eye view of what's really been my safety net -- the steady streams of Grace and Love from Him who loved me first that circle the roads on which we travel.

I heard the words clear in my mind that morning before we'd left for the mountains, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." {1 John 4:18}

When we reached the top of that mountain, I breathed. And while I was there I remembered the God who showed me His face in Egypt the first time I dared to let Him really move me out of the tangles of fear.

And realized that same God was speaking to me from a mountain top in Colorado.

With His words, I see how He is diligently cutting away the vines of fear that threaten to keep me
bound in this narrow valley

so that I see can clearly the lay of the land from the top of the mountain

time and again.  

Bigger Picture Moments: On Asking God Hard Questions

Three miscarriages in a row.

The last one thisclose to the second trimester.

There's been so much heartache in the losses of these babies,  these dreams and these hopes that it's left me questioning God:

Where are you, God, while I'm grieving our sweet baby?
Where were you when my baby stopped growing inside me at nearly eleven weeks? 
Why didn't you stop the baby from dying?
Or, God, why let me be pregnant for so long with so many good signs of healthy pregnancy only to birth my baby at 12 weeks and some days?
Why even let me get pregnant at all? Why not just keep us from getting pregnant if our baby was going to die?
Why give me a desire for more children if we can't have more children?

I've asked all of these questions, sobbing in the arms of my husband, or while sitting with friends over coffee or scribbling notes into my journal.

Why?

But I was scared to ask them to God. I didn't want to give these questions voice in prayer; I'd chided myself over my lack of faith until a colleague pointed out during a staff meeting right after this last miscarriage that Jesus welcomed questions.

It doesn't scare God or make Him angry when I ask questions, really tough and messy questions that showcase my messy, heavy heart

My colleague even went so far as to say that God cares less about the questions I'm asking and more about the fact that I'm simply coming to Him, seeking Him.

So I began asking. And He began answering, that following Sunday, in fact, during a sermon our pastor was sharing from Isaiah 51: 12-13:

"I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass, that you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and who lays the foundations of the earth ..."

But in God saying that, He doesn't point His finger at me, shaming me, saying: "Who are you to question me?!"

Rather, He says to me, Who am I that you can trust me? If I stretched out the heavens and lay the foundation of the Earth, how much more am I able to care for you?

The same God who put those stars in the sky is the same God who knows what never has happened but what could have happened and what won't ever happen as well as what has happened and what is happening now and what will happen -- that God.

I don't know any of that, and I'm not sure I want to know. I don't know God's reasons, and I'm not sure I want to know them.

But I know who God is.

He's the God who loves us so much He sent a piece of Himself wrapped in flesh to an imperfect world.
He's the God who doesn't give his children snakes when they ask for bread.
He's the God who sends His Word to speak into my hurting heart.
He's the God who sends His Church to love and comfort and walk with the hurting.
He's the God who hears even the deepest groans of our hearts and sends us a counsellor who intercedes for us.
He's the God who made a way for selfish me to be with perfect Him forever.

And knowing who He is has answered the questions raging in my mind  -- just not in the ways I expected. 

But in ways that give me rest and peace and hope. 

Share your Bigger Picture Moment HERE!

Five-Minute Friday: Opportunity

Yesterday I sat atop a long table in my midwife's bright office, bared my arm and gave a vial of blood for testing -- our meek human attempt at measuring the progress of the miracle of life freshly sown into my body.

{I'd give much more than a vial for you, little love, just so we're clear.}

There are options if my body is having a hard time supporting the huge need for progesterone -- something I struggled with when I was sick and lost two babies a year ago and a little more.

But I am healed {in more than one way}. And as I give blood I remember I have been bought with His.

So we're thankful, oh love, are we thankful.

And believing, love, oh, are we believing that we are just crossing Ts and dotting Is and that the Gardener has already taken care to sew this seed and He will sustain it -- that God has healed my body and given it the ability to conceive and nourish and grow through His power.

But, nonetheless, we are parents, and so we go and test and wait because we'd never want to neglect a little life, no matter how small, how tiny.

Today we have the opportunity

to wait well

and rejoice

or sit in fear and what if.

And today I choose

to wait well on test results

because I know what I'm really waiting on.

And He is mighty, able and good.

Thinking, That's All: Battle

They are snuggled up together on the couch watching tv when I leave the room to make breakfast.

By the time I crack egg number two and hear it sizzle in the pan, they are limbs tangled together in a mess of argument and movement.

It drives me crazy. But in all honesty, I'm not so different.

My boys tumble in and out of brotherhood all day long like I wrestle between faith and flesh from the moment I rise until I fall asleep.

I rejoice one moment in who God is and give thanks that He never changes.

And in the next breathe I succumb to fearful thoughts that drive me back to my knees, reminding myself again that the God in whom I have peace and faith and trust is more than worthy of each.

He is faithful and good and just. No matter what.

He will be good and faithful and just in 2013 just as He was good and faithful and just in 2012.

All day, lately especially, I wrestle back and forth reminding myself not to just read my life verse but live it.

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:4-9 

I live in the tangles of flesh and faith and watch it unfold visibly in front of me and even through the craziness so I'm filled with love for these boys.

And I'm reminded that the Father, who is worthy of my rejoicing always, can handle me in my messiness.

I'm reminded that He loves me more than I love the boys who turbulently bounce back and forth between brotherly love and strife all day long.

And that my life is blessed simply because He loves me.

Everyday Life: Rest

It came in the midst of living. 

In the aftermath of crying out to God and feeling held in His peace. 

In the determination to live life in the now instead of living life in waiting. 

Standing on the deck of a friend who is a soft landing 

in the bright sunshine

of a late Friday afternoon

nearing the after-business hours of the weekend

the phone finally rang. 

Before the doctor's receptionist could share the MRI test results, 

I reminded myself of the song that clicked onto Pandora

as I was begging God for calmness of heart earlier that afternoon.

"Only one thing doesn't change.
Only one thing stays the same.
All I know at the end of the day is
Your love remains." {Paul Coleman Trio}

Because no matter what she said

no matter the results of this particular test

or any tests to come

none of it would change the most important Truth in my life:

He doesn't change. 

That He is always and forever good. 

And, as my mom reminded me while I all but hyperventilated in my living room the day of the MRI, sometimes He calms the raging seas.

And sometimes He calms the passengers in the boat. 

But no matter which He chooses, He is still the Giver of Good Gifts. 

Always.  

As she apologized about the late call and the doctor being away from the office

I knew well that 

everything could change

and still nothing could change

and He would still remain. 

When she calmly and joyfully shared that everything looked perfectly NORMAL (!)

praise spilled from my lips

in a choir of gratitude and awe and reverence.

Not just for the rest, the relief of knowing that everything appeared normal

but also because in that moment and in that day

He calmed the storm

and He calmed the child.

I cannot thank you enough, my friends, for praying for me. For thinking of me. For loving on me during this growing time. Some have inquired about my symptoms -- dizziness, off-balance feeling, head pressure are a few. We're looking into hypoglycemia as a possible cause stemming from my super-low sugar, anti-candida diet and eating practices. 

I'm taking the rest of the weekend to practice Sabbath -- the act remembering His goodness and His faithfulness while resting deeply in both. 

Bigger Picture Moment: On Being Ready

I fully expected the test to display one line.

Negative.

No Baby.

Just a late period.

Fully expected.

But I had to confirm, what with not having taken a vow of abstinence while simultaneously taking herbal supplements that could be dangerous during pregnancy, when the days easily slipped past 30, 31, 32.

I'm not ready, I've shared with my husband at least a dozen times per month since we last sent a baby from the the womb and into heaven.

I'm not ready, I've declared and ensured we'd taken precautions so as to not find ourselves as surprised and with-child.

I'm not ready, I cried out to God as I looked at the end results of a positive pregnancy test.

I stared at the double lines before calling John into the bathroom to examine the test for himself.

He confirmed the reading, and we stared at each other incredulously.

No hugging.

No tears of joy.

No wide grins.

We just sat there staring at each other like two high school kids, air thick with shock and disbelief.

Quick to read my face, John gathered his mind and quickly shuffled the boys outside, left me and my positive pregnancy test in the bathroom alone to wrestle with each other ...

alone to wrestle with God.

I fully expected for my chest to tighten and my heart to thump wildly beneath my breastbone in a state of panic, my breathing to morph from deep breathes to short whisps of air sucked in through a straw, my mind to race in panic.

But I stood there

test in hand

Word in heart:

"Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you."
Psalm 9:10

Nothing takes the Designer by surprise, and with plans to retest with first morning urine, I fell soundly into hard, deep, fast sleep later that evening knowing that if He wanted this baby to be here, even if I weren't ready, I would be ready when he or she arrived.

****

Again, in the morning two blue lines displayed across the test, this time smudged and faded and running from a line into a u-shape, alerting my mind to the possibility of faulty tests.

I cursed the invention of the early-detection pregnancy test as I fed the boys breakfast, preparing to make our way through the Target aisles for another box of tests. 

Irritated, I thought to God

What are you trying to do to me?


Haven't we had enough of the ping-pong emotions?


Could something just be or not be?


You know I've ached to stretch and swell again ...


my arms have longing to be heavy with drunken-nursing child dozing against my skin. 


You know, I whispered in my mind.

And then ... the question turned

on my own heart,

but did I know?


Am I really ready?

Had I really realized the depth of that ache, the lingering longing as I prayed and wondered what He'd have for our family


if we should grow in number or remain four.


Am I?


Ready?

****

The early summer fields spread out before us, I watched two birds flutter and twist in the sky side by side while driving home from the store.

Gracefully, in confidence, they swooped and fluttered and dove and lifted higher and higher, like mirrors of each other.

My heart beat in time with their early-morning dance, knowing too well the fell swoops of low and the ecstasy of high-bright sky horizons.

****

Three more tests, all negative.

Relief and calm whitewash my mind,

only to be tinged with the color of disappointment.

My mind races to the birds and their early morning dance.

No turns have taken you by surprise, Oh Lord.

Not one.

You've been following along with each turn of my heart's wing.

You've been listening to my cries for guidance.

Am I ready?

I find answered prayers in the aftermath of two faulty pregnancy tests coupled with three negative ones.

And I know He's answered.

Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week.. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week HERE! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Bigger Picture Moments: Remember

In the midst of living, I forget.

I chase a toddler running wild and free, newly escaped from the house, down the sidewalk and because I've been tired, chasing him is the last thing I think I want to do.

I lose sight of the exploring 2-year-old mind that's developing as fast as his running legs until I capture his giggling body in my arms and kiss his smooth skin.

As my brain spins with its own questions and pondering in silent prayer and reverie, my ears filter a million and one questions, it seems, from a curious preschooler :

"Why can't I drink juice for breakfast?" {Water, child!}

"Mom, why does zero make a ten and mean nothing?" {Well ... ?}

"Why does Ms. Denise think my shrinker tool is a gun?" {Umm?}

"Mom, can you snuggle me?" {YES!}

I forget the wonder of four years old until he presses his forehead to my eyes, his freckles almost kissing my cheeks and exclaims, "You always answer yes when I ask for snuggles!"

I wander through the seeming desert of cleansing and pray for the rebuilding periods to come and give my body, my mind rest so I can pour into the man I love at night instead of cascading into sleep all while asking Him if He's listening ...

I forget the faithfulness of His hand.

I meet with a man wiser than myself every Wednesday to walk together through the grief, the anxiety, the loneliness of healing and he often holds the light for me.

And finally, after a day of questions I cannot answer -- from my own mind and from my own preschooler and even my own husband -- he asks one I can:

When was a time God showed Himself faithful?

My mind flutters and immediately I'm whisked back to time spent in the catacombs on Alexandra, holding the hand of my future husband.

I tell the story of how Love carried me to Egypt to weave together love that binds two into one.

And there it is.

Sitting mostly unnoticed on my left ring finger ... still sparkling, still shining even almost seven years later; it melts the worry and fear, reminds me of the gifts, the faithfulness that He's since sprung forth



the laughing body of a two year old

the four year old freckles kissing my cheeks

the strong arms of a loving husband wrapped around my body every night

My rock of remembrance for His love, His faithfulness.

 

Each Thursday, we come together to share the harvest of intentional living by capturing a glimmer of the bigger picture through a simple moment.  And to spice it up a little, during the month of FEBRUARY, we'll be reflecting upon the simple yet lovely gifts that are sprinkled throughout our lives. 


Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with LOVE in your heart. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Alita's. Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Bigger Picture Moments: Thanksgiving in Weakness

I have danced in the darkness of my heart with worry and fear and selfishness.

And in the shadowy recesses of my heart those weaknesses have grown.

While thankfulness has doused the flames of fear and love has weakened my selfishness and joy has robbed worry of its power, there still comes a time, when in the solitude and silence of life, that we must look our weaknesses in the eye, call them by name ...

and hand them over to the perfecter

not simply to be perfected

but more, so that, through our weaknesses, we can see His perfection, know His strength.

And be glad in it.

In my fear of not being in control {and I never really am}

I find rest in Him piloting the course of my feet

and the course of the world

like He's always done and always will.

In my worry about the ifs and the possibility of pain

I see His providence He seeks to care for me

and show His glory.

In my selfishness,

I recognize His abundant love and sacrifice.

My weakness realized is abundant Strength revealed.

And I am so thankful to have even just a glimpse of it.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. May we count all our blessings, large and small, today and all year long.

During the month of November, we are gathering our harvest of blessings and naming them one by one, sharing the gratitude in our hearts. Won't you join us? Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with thanksgiving in your heart. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your moment here this week. Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

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Five-Minute Friday: Beyond

What happens, then, if we are upstairs and a tornado rips through the walls of our house, he asks, four years old and curious with mountains of questions. 

We trust that God will protect us or take us to be with him forever, I say, resigning in my own mind that that's what we do while planning for a proverbial tragedy, while standing face to face with a giant. 

We are talking disaster on a sun-drenched, October-blue sky day for reasons about which I'm unsure. 

He sniffles from the backseat, light streaming in through the windshield, and I think he's going to cry about the prospect of dying.

But instead:

"I want to be with God now! I want to be in Heaven with Jesus now!"

My spirit soars at his devotion, his huge faith as my heart thumps and leaps into my throat at the thought of G going to his forever home, away from the space between my chest and my arm to space in between His at the age of four. 

You will get to spend forever with Jesus after you finish living your life here, I reassure him, 

as my thoughts wildly bounce from flesh to faith and faith to flesh

 -- hoping selfishly that I won't see the day 

where he goes ahead of me into the author's arms

and out of mine 

--- hoping that I, too, would one day have faith

the size of a mustard seed

the faith of my child

who is so very four 

and 

so very beyond the very few years he's lived.

Marriage: There is Harvest

I know it wasn't always easy for my grandparents -- walking down the church aisle to exchange life-long vows before most teenagers walk down the aisle to gather a high-school diploma.

I know there was struggle.

Struggle to make ends meet.

Struggle to keep loving when loving was tough.

Struggle to grow children, a business, a livelihood, a love, a life together.

But born out of struggle was determination, was grace. And out of determination, grace was born commitment and success, new life and and New Life, new love and New Love.

And when it's all tallied up -- the years of hardship and those of abundance, the years of loss and those of gain, the years of  less and the years of more --

when the 50 years of marriage and vows have been sown, tilled, watered, sunned, vines tied and soil tended

there is a harvest.



There is a legacy.




















There is celebration.



And there is gratitude from one generation to the oldest generation for showing us the fruits of such labor and helping us set our sights on the harvest.

Happy 50th anniversary, Papa and Grandma!

Everyday Life: Knowing

For two straight weeks, I'd been a mess.

With all of the agonizing and waffling and talktalktalking off of my husband's ear, you'd have thought I were tiebreaker for a hung jury during a monumental trial.

But no -- it was really just me wrestling with G's school options for the fall: every day Kindergarten Enrichment or a few morning hours three days a week.

I just couldn't be sure, I'd told my hubby, if any of us were ready for everyday school, to which he reminded me that this was really more about G than the rest of us.

Yeah, and also, how do you know what's going to be best for him before it even happens?

Simple, he'd said, you take the facts in front of you, pray, make a decision and then you choose to take the steps of faith.

Oh, yes: steps of faith.

But I know the movements of knowing, the Salsa of dancing myself into knowledge -- I work hard to conquer the complicated motions and movement.

Steps of faith.

The phrase hung in the then-thick August air as I thought about my oldest son -- wild and yet cautious, ever-thinking, always-planning, constantly-growing.

His mind is such a sponge. He soaks up knowledge and feelings and body language like a flower in full bloom during drought.

He remembers the smallest, minute details, recalls the least memorable sights and sounds from months, even years past.

I'm always so careful in making decisions for him and in regard to him because he's the kind of kid who always remembers what happened that one time when we ... {fill in the various and myriad blanks}.

I pray and wonder.

I wander, and I go over every detail of the large and small point so as to really know, so as not to miss a dot that could potentially connect them all or covertly distort the larger picture.

I wander until I backwards bump into faith and trust while salsaing passionately with knowing.

It's mid song; I attempt break free and try to find the pace of slower rhythm promised, but it looks so much harder to just let go and follow the Master Dancer's lead.

****

Today's the first day of school, and I'm still trying to dance in two different shows as we walk up to the familiar doors.

I snap his picture by the liberty bell before we walk in, and he bursts into a large grin upon entering.

We hold hands as we find his new cubby space.

I hand him a piece of paper for his teacher, but "Mom, could you hold that until after I was my hands?"

He remembers the routine of school.

"Hello, G!" his teacher, a neighbor of ours, greets him.

Poised to prompt him, I ready myself for saying -- but instead his voice, "Hi."

I look over my shoulder back at the salsa with my old friend knowing as G continues to slip right into his new space in the comfort of the same classroom as last year and the beat seems to get faster and faster and faster until I don't even care to keep up anymore, trying to connect all the footwork to the right places of the song.

G kissed me goodbye, his teacher gives me a reassuring pat on the back and my son heads over to the lounge chairs with a brand-new-to-the-room book.


I don't know if this is going to be good. Or if it's going to be bad. Or if it's going to simply be just normal.

But I do know, whatever happens, it's going to be OK because upon slipping into the steps of faith and trust, though unknown, and finding the beat more manageable, the Lead so smoothly guides me that I can't help but to fall into the music.

I wave goodbye to my oldest boy, slide into the long swoops of trust in Arms that won't let me fall even if lose my step a few times.