Happy Anniversary Chris! Twenty-four years!
The kids are taking me to dinner, we'll take in some jazz too and we're going to S.A.M. for the Picasso exhibit. I'll miss you terribly, as I always do but I do so rejoice with you. You remind me daily of the Promise that is each of ours.
Loving you always!
Your sister in our very present Christ,
Leigh
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Big Band Dance
Monday, December 13, 2010
Staying Open
It was nine months last Saturday. I meant to post a blog but life and busy-ness and Eric's homework were all vying for my attention too. We're three quarters of the way through the first year. In some ways it's still very surreal at moments. In some ways I can't believe how far we have come. We've grown a lot, we're closer to one another, we've each changed. Those awkward, awful weekends of early on have been replaced with a growing normalcy. Fourteen will never be what it might have been for Eric but I also appreciate greatly the maturity and deepening of his spirit. And college stuff is in perspective for Emily in ways I don't remember at her age. So we've grown.
I think I have fallen deeper in love with God than I ever knew I could fall. It's almost as if God simply stretched open my heart and whispered into it, "you have no idea how I can fill this space if you only stay open to Me." And that's my biggest take-away in life thus far...stay open. Stay open even when you think you already have a pretty good idea about things, stay open when it looks scary or filled with hurt, stay open at all costs because Grace enters the open doors in life far faster than closed ones, into which Grace must push and knock repeatedly.
A week from today would have been our twenty-fourth wedding anniversary, five days later is Christmas and it is into that reality that I find myself yearning to stay open. Leaning in to Grace, realizing that God is so much bigger than I can imagine, that God has my children in His care far more tangibly than I can myself and surrendering them in their tender years and their grief to Him. Parenting is far more about praying than anything, not for God to DO something as much as for God to remind me they are His more than they are mine, something mothers work a little harder to accept at times, I think. Still, there is a freedom in that acceptance.
And so we stay open, as individuals, as a family...and God just floods the space.
Grace for your journey,
Leigh
I think I have fallen deeper in love with God than I ever knew I could fall. It's almost as if God simply stretched open my heart and whispered into it, "you have no idea how I can fill this space if you only stay open to Me." And that's my biggest take-away in life thus far...stay open. Stay open even when you think you already have a pretty good idea about things, stay open when it looks scary or filled with hurt, stay open at all costs because Grace enters the open doors in life far faster than closed ones, into which Grace must push and knock repeatedly.
A week from today would have been our twenty-fourth wedding anniversary, five days later is Christmas and it is into that reality that I find myself yearning to stay open. Leaning in to Grace, realizing that God is so much bigger than I can imagine, that God has my children in His care far more tangibly than I can myself and surrendering them in their tender years and their grief to Him. Parenting is far more about praying than anything, not for God to DO something as much as for God to remind me they are His more than they are mine, something mothers work a little harder to accept at times, I think. Still, there is a freedom in that acceptance.
And so we stay open, as individuals, as a family...and God just floods the space.
Grace for your journey,
Leigh
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Puzzles
Last year it was the Seattle skyline and he didn't feel much up to helping. Between the months of chemo and then radiation afterwards, Chris was simply too tired to help with the jigsaw puzzle. We've had one every year. During that time when the academic quarter ends and as we head into Christmas we just seem to gravitate to the slowed down pace of a jigsaw puzzle amidst all the other things of life.
Chris had Job's patience for them, I had enthusiasm but I was pretty terrible at organizing them. I always got the border done and then he would find his way over to the table and begin this process of fitting pieces that I plain couldn't see or didn't work hard enough to see. Like in so much of our life Chris brought patience and a methodical determination. Last year he offered encouragement from the recliner but I was still pretty much on my own with it and that felt a bit weird. It also took longer that way. Still, Chris had imparted a desire to learn patience in me and I managed to get it finished before the new year.
Little did I know the ways in which God would be preparing me to face the coming year and everything it held. Like always, however, God is at work keeping a covenant with me, writing a story and remaining totally faithful. And so I poured the pieces of this year's puzzle out on the table, it's a map of the ancient world. Somehow I think Chris would approve of the choice, it's got both kids engaged in the history of it.
Like my life, the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together in places, offering glimpses of something greater. Chris witnessed to me the value of patience and God has lovingly and consistently taught the lesson to me for years, especially during this last one.
December offers so many opportunities for "grief moments," a phrase the kids and I use for the official calling of a time out in our house. Our anniversary is on the twentieth, there's obviously Christmas and more poignantly Christmas Eve, which will mark a year to the day since Chris was last in church. He had been unable to get there after then, exhausted from radiation. He sang every word of the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of the service, you would have never known how sick he was then because he sang with an enthusiasm and love of God that was palpable.
And so the dining room table is adorned with a jigsaw puzzle, pieces waiting for a patient hand, something I learned from Chris and God. I am grateful that God is patient with me as well.
Grace for your journey,
Leigh
Chris had Job's patience for them, I had enthusiasm but I was pretty terrible at organizing them. I always got the border done and then he would find his way over to the table and begin this process of fitting pieces that I plain couldn't see or didn't work hard enough to see. Like in so much of our life Chris brought patience and a methodical determination. Last year he offered encouragement from the recliner but I was still pretty much on my own with it and that felt a bit weird. It also took longer that way. Still, Chris had imparted a desire to learn patience in me and I managed to get it finished before the new year.
Little did I know the ways in which God would be preparing me to face the coming year and everything it held. Like always, however, God is at work keeping a covenant with me, writing a story and remaining totally faithful. And so I poured the pieces of this year's puzzle out on the table, it's a map of the ancient world. Somehow I think Chris would approve of the choice, it's got both kids engaged in the history of it.
Like my life, the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together in places, offering glimpses of something greater. Chris witnessed to me the value of patience and God has lovingly and consistently taught the lesson to me for years, especially during this last one.
December offers so many opportunities for "grief moments," a phrase the kids and I use for the official calling of a time out in our house. Our anniversary is on the twentieth, there's obviously Christmas and more poignantly Christmas Eve, which will mark a year to the day since Chris was last in church. He had been unable to get there after then, exhausted from radiation. He sang every word of the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of the service, you would have never known how sick he was then because he sang with an enthusiasm and love of God that was palpable.
And so the dining room table is adorned with a jigsaw puzzle, pieces waiting for a patient hand, something I learned from Chris and God. I am grateful that God is patient with me as well.
Grace for your journey,
Leigh
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