JB the Sweet

It was inevitable.

The "all or nothing" package deal I suppose.

    Grandparents Day.

 But seriously.  C'mon, weren't these adorable kids just born?

 The relentless march of time rattles me on such occasions.

Do not confuse this disclosure with ingratitude.  No sir-ree.  To my way of thinking, grandchildren are like dessert after a fine meal.  Highly anticipated.  Sweeter than everything else and filling you with a richness almost beyond your capacity to bear.

No.  

I will wear this mantle with all the pizzazz I can muster.

I will BE that older woman crying Carpe Diem to the overwhelmed mother of three in the checkout line.  I will tell her to unclench her teeth, that this stage is worth every hair-pulling minute, that her kids are adorable and I love them all, especially that one there, peeing in the corner.  

( a line borrowed from an article my daughter shared online.  Read it for laugh of the week!)    

And just so you know? They can come over ANYTIME and unload a kleenex box one by one.  

ANYTIME do ya hear?  With my blessing to boot.  In fact, I'll be on the floor with them.

Soon enough they'll be leaving them lying around crumpled on a coffee table somewhere.  Used.  

 Here's our JB leaving the crime scene by a stealth belly crawl.

 Under cover.  But not.  He's a big guy.

Discovered unashamed &
- disarming me with one of those slow blink smiles of his.
How I love my l'il JB.

And now on a different kind of note altogether.
A neighbour down the way sent this over.  I thought it was beautiful in a sad kind of way.
Another reason to Carpe Diem.
(With a Liberation Day anniversary around the corner, feel free to share)

Maternal Musings

Today, in a sunlit spare room upstairs, I spent an extraordinary afternoon with the contents of small ordinary looking box.

In a corner of that room, lie two very large rubbermaid totes filled with memories of my mother.  

Totes filled with precious personal things too sacred to discard -- things that need to find a new home somewhere and which by some nebulous design, became the assignment of this first born daughter. 

Me.  

So ill-suited to the task.

I wondered if today would be the day.  

In one entire afternoon, I managed to rifle through just that one little shoebox sized container, discovering (among other treasures) this well-preserved professional portrait taken in the late 1940's in Rotterdam.  

That's my mother in the middle - parked between her parents and brothers.  

The lighting is perfect and the pixels so crisp I can almost see the colour green of her eyes.  

And then it struck me.  How surreal this moment was! 

....to finally begin the process of picking through my mom's things and 'randomly' start with a box that she had, as first born daughter, kept of her own mother's memories...

The newspaper obituary, the funeral service program, old family photos, hand-written letters & cards of condolence from her church family and abroad...  

All perfectly preserved and protected for the sake of posterity - for such a time as this? 

I am oddly without words sufficient to describe the feeling of this experience. 

At once tingling the spine & nourishing the soul.

What a Morning!

Thank You Lord Jesus.  You Alone are worthy to be praised!

The post concert review...

Unredeemed
Places
where grace is
Soon to be so amazing
They may be unfulfilled, they may be unrestored
But when anything that’s shattered is laid before the Lord
Just watch and see
It will not be
Unredeemed




If you were blessed to find yourself one of the Saturday night crowd at Redeemer, you already know the thrill of watching Alan Hall play that grand piano, evoking the holy fervour and sound of an entire orchestra.  A 'pentecostal Methodist' from Tennessee they said.  :)
Oh yeah, and THEN some!
And you'll know beyond all doubt that as suggested, watching Jacob Moon on his guitar is worth the price of a whole row of tickets.
And those voices!?!  Power of titanic proportion.
The song Unredeemed was my favourite of the evening.  I thought her story behind it and the sharing of it on stage was every bit as powerful as the song itself.
I am so thankful for the ministry of good music and excellent musicians who will 'lay it before the Lord' for the benefit and blessing to a broken world.