The Most Interesting Thing of All

Nanci Griffith & James Hooker - Gulf Coast Highway - Live

Beloved:

          As I write I’m also texting with some of my kids about vacation details ~ a week at the beach in October.  Sunshine and sleep.  Books and good food.  Watching the water wash in and out for hours, never getting bored of it.  This morning I’m trying to get them to book their flights, but no luck so far.  They are probably working - go figure.
          It’s the best part about booking a vacation months ahead, how it sits quietly on my calendar beyond the summer until suddenly it’s September and time to plan.  Vacation anticipation all the way up to two days before departure when I don’t want to go.  I get anxious about nothing in particular, just anxious.  Halfway to the airport it’s all good again and I am excited and so very grateful.
          I’ve now lived several months longer than my mother did.  Every moment I spend with my children and grandchildren is a gift I try to enjoy for both of us.  Nothing in this life matters more than time with them when we can enjoy each other and make memories for another day.  Vacation is a privilege not lost on me, but the same goes for everyday life too.  Playing with these babies while they are little, knowing they are growing up so, so fast.  Yesterday we were playing and the almost-4-year-old said to me:

“Can I swing this at you just one time to see if it hurts?”
“Uhm . . . No.”
“Okay.”
          I laughed hard at the moment and typing it again now.  I can’t think of one more interesting thing to do than that.  Which is what makes the sorrows of this world so sorrowful ~ all the wars and famines and hateful policies which starve and steal the precious, God-given time together from so many people in this world.  Or illness, like my mother’s.  Sorrowful is too small a word - and yet - sorrow is not all this life contains.  Grief comes and goes, as does lightheartedness.  Each in their own season.  Making whatever time we have together a treasure never to be taken for granted.  The day outside is beautiful.  I pray you don’t miss it.  ~peace & prayers,
pastor annette

Images:  The Gulf Coast where we’ll be.  Link is to a song I’ve loved for a long time - about the Gulf Coast highway, only in Texas.

Monarch update - the chrysalids from last week have not emerged and I haven’t found any others.  Yesterday my granddaughter and I counted 9 fatso caterpillars on the milkweed, so we figure they are hidden in the trees or shrubs nearby.  We are seeing monarchs so they must be close by.