Sugar and spice are nice, but so is brave and outspoken and loyal and...

My wonderful daughter is 29 years old today.  From the moment she made herself known in the summer of 1991 (I have never been so miserable for the entire 7.5 months she was in utero and I still have to fight the urge to feel sorry when I hear someone is pregnant and just congratulate them instead of giving them my sympathy, although the outcome is worth it!) until this day, she has brought the same character traits to her life journey that made her the survivor she is.

I hadn't planned on a second child.  Oh, I wanted one, wished for one, tried for one.  But after a series of miscarriages, I had given up and was grateful for the one child I did have.  I knew I was missing out, but you can't really miss what you have never had, so I didn't understand what I was missing, and I was okay with it all.

Then she showed up.  And I realized that my daughter was going to have to be strong and brave and bold and fierce, from the moment of her premature birth.  And I also realized pretty quickly that she was totally up to the job, and a spunky survivor, just like another woman I know and admire so much, my mother.

Listening...

On this day 48 years ago, we buried my father.  It was a bitterly cold, windy day, I recall, and I know there were many people present.  I know there was a processional, there was music and a sermon, my dad was in a casket at the front of the church, and there was lunch after.  But I don't really remember any of that. 

I have one overriding memory of that day, having nothing to do with my dad or the reason we were there - I had a hole in a my nylons, and I could not stop messing with it.  What started as a tiny finger sized hole, stopped from running with clear fingernail polish, by the end of the day was a run from the waist to my toe.  I picked and pulled and prodded and messed with that hole through the early visitation, the service and the lunch after.  The only time I wasn't messing with the hole in my nylons was at the graveside, where it was simply too cold to do anything but stand and shiver as we quickly did what had to be done so we could get back inside.

Giving Thanks...

This Thanksgiving weekend has been like no other holiday weekend I've ever had.  Because of covid, and more specifically, a covid exposure, I spent the weekend in "covid jail" by myself in my house - four days to think and decorate and cook and think and read and think and... think some more.

Now, those who know me well know how important my "me" time is to me.  I need that alone time to recharge and renew and refresh myself.  I am always thinking to myself, I WISH I had a few days to just be, and not have to do.  At long last, in my busy life, I have had it.  And honestly?  It was everything I hoped for.  It isn't how I want to spend every holiday, but for this one time in my life?  I can honestly say it was good.

New age...

Today I am 60.  It is an odd feeling.  It is kind of like the difference between nine and ten.  It is only a day, but somehow, you jump over a line when you turn 10, and I feel the same way today.  Saying I am 60 sounds, somehow, much older than saying I am 59.

Which is all very strange, because, in truth, I still feel the same as I did at 40.  (I am not so naive as to say 25, because I am much wiser now and that is gained through life experience and not a certain number of years on the calendar.  And I have definitely had plenty of opportunity to get wiser, so I know I must be at least 40!)  But I certainly don't feel like I've had six decades of life, and my wisdom quotient sadly does not match what I would have expected of a 60 year old, but thankfully exceeds my 25 year old self, at least.

Justice

 Justice must storm down like a waterfall, not trickle like a leaky faucet.

Sometimes you read a perfect line and just let it lay there and rest in it.  This is one of those times.

From Might from the Margins: The Gospel's Power to Turn the Tables on Injustice by Dennis R. Edwards, © September 8, 2020 APG Sales and Distribution