Lucy

"Do you know what is my favorite part?" Lucy scritch-scratches colors on a sheet of paper. She peels the cerulean blue a bit more.

"What?" I say.

"The part that is burning that God made for the Devil," she says. Sprawled tummy-down on the rug, a shoebox of crayons sidled up next to her, Lu rubs blues and reds into the lumpy soft paper, a smudge of yellow, a swipe of orange.

"Hell?" I frown. Settled into the old black couch, Joe under an arm, feet propped on the coffee table, I watch Lucy.

"Yeah." She scruffs out more flaxen yellow, scarlet, tangerine. They warble and twist, a collision of hues. I wonder about her bad dreams, the scary people that say they will cut off her toes, the ones that chase her until she wakes up and comes to me in the middle of the night -- to pray.

"I hope Great-Grampa turns to Jesus before we all go dead," she blurts. "Because when we die, Jesus will check our hearts to see if we love God, and if we don't, we are on the Devil's team."

I watch her stroke more blue onto that paper. "Yep." I wonder if she's remembering how I had said Hell is made for the Devil and his angels.

She pauses, glances at me from the corner of her eye. "Can you not be loud for a minute?"

Lost in my thoughts, I draw Joe a little closer, gaze at Lu. She tucks her chin, squeezes shut her eyes. Seconds unroll.

"Ok. You can be loud now. I was praying for someone to turn to God." She smooths on more cerulean. "For Great-Grampa." She bobbles her head, raises her brows, "Maybe God is talking to Great-Grampa. Right. Now."

I nod, picture Grampa back in Montana, middle of the morning, that big library of a house.

The soft rustle of crayons on paper on carpet lulls with each stroke. Shush-shush. Lucy holds the crayon all wrong, brushes on more apricot and golden sand yellow.  Shush-shush-shush. She cocks her head, chews her lip.

"Do you think I should cut out this part that is God and hug him?" She jab a corner of the paper.

Hug him. "Sure."

"Or the Bible?" she says and pokes another corner. She looks up, contemplates out the picture window, the miles of green, staccatos of orange zinnia, an old gray fence.

"You might hug the Bible," I say.

"Yeah." She nods, brushes her finger over the crayon wax. "Buh-Buh-Bible," she says and fiddles on more cerise.

Bible, God, Hell, it all weaves together. And so we talk theology and try to figure out how to hug God.

Gratitude:

3586. "Is there anything else I can do to please you now that I cleared the table?" Jane rings in the new week.

3587. "When you're done do you want to study the grasshopper?" Jack asks at breakfast.

3588. "My next grasshopper I want to call Grass Gordon," Jack chatters. "They're real eaters. They're mostly eating all the time. Lucy, what's 1 + 2? I need you to know 'cause that's how many grasshoppers we have."

3589. "I just like to feed them and hold them and take care of them," he says.

3590. "I have slepten with one of the grasshoppers," he confesses. "I just put him under the covers. That's how much I like them."

3591. Craig takes an afternoon golfing with my dad.

3592. A grasshopper escapes in the house. "I was just trying to hold him," Lucy explains.

3593. "Mom, are you an optimist or a pessimist?" Jack asks.

3594. "Wobber, wobber, I see the wobber," Myra shouts at a cat in the garden,"by the 'matoes."

3595. Tuesday at Mom's. The weekly rhythm. Taco soup and cheddar cheese, prayer. A fermata. We miss the girls that can't come.

3596. "Mommy, wanna know what we do?" Lucy asks. "We tell the truth, that's what we do."

3597. Lucy watches me put on mascara, "What does that do? Make your eyes smell good?"

3598. "Ugh. Myra spilled my coffee," I grouse. "Well, that will take the pee smell out of the house," Jane consoles.

3599. We gather in prayer for a dear friend in unending pain, a medical mystery. Craig prays. The children watch and copy, make paper airplane notes, and carry in their hearts the image of their father on bended knee.

3600. We enjoy the treat of family pictures. Up in the woods amongst vintage furniture, antique trunks, couches, an old pick-up truck, quilts, glassy pond, love unfurls, the life of our party. Rose captures the love.

3601. We carpool on the mini-roadtrip to our photo shoot. Chit-chat, pizza, Pepsi, and every seat of the suburban filled.

3602. Buckets in hand we plod home from the plum orchard, laden.

3603. Dinner on the farm topped off with swatsbin pie all anise sweet.

3604. I practice more lessons on patience -- poorly. I compare notes with Mom. We zero in on the antidote: prayer. Pray for more patience. So simple. And since love is patient, it's really like praying for love.

3605. "Laugh," Myra commands. "Mom, laugh. Ha-ha-ha," she demonstrates, "Mom laugh. Watch me." Joe stops nursing to watch the spectacle.

3606. Craig's brother brings over fresh deer sausage to share with us.

3607. "Since my grasshopper wasn't even moving at nap time today, that probably means he was napping," Lucy fills me in. "My little child, my grasshopper child," she says.

3608. My little child. I pray to nourish my little children this week. And I pray to bless and serve my husband.

Moses

"If you mess up everything in your life," I say, "but you say, 'Yes,' to Jesus, it's like you did everything right in my book." Jane hugs my shoulder. We snuggle down in pink fleece, fringe knotted at the edges. "But if you do everything perfect and still say, 'No,' to him, it's like you failed everything."

She rubs her cheek against my arm. "Oh." I smell her hair, kiss the crown of her head. "Can you tell me another story?" she says. "Just do the first one that comes to your head, ok?"

"Hmm, ok." Moses. The ten commandments, a golden calf, thunder, lightening, and glory. Glory. Moses hides his face. All that glory shining out of his face and the people are terrified -- a veil for all the glory. Just a glimpse of God, he's changed unmistakable. Just a glimpse.

Somewhere between the golden calf ground to powder, poured in the drinking water and Moses' face aglow, I hear it. There on bottom bunk, snuggled under denim quilt, Jack. Whispered like wind, "Yes. Yes, Jesus," he says. Yes.

Just a glimpse.

Gratitude:

635. Twenty and Ten, twenty French children who hide ten Jewish ones, parents dead by the Nazis.

636. Jane's command, "Read, Momma, READ."

637. Crisp red seedless grapes.

638. A Springbok of parrots, all 500 pieces puzzled together with little kid hands.

639. Salted caramel ice cream sauce and husband by the fire.

640. A book light.

641. Selling clothes and bedding we don't need.

642. How Jack covers me in kisses before and after I tell Daniel in the Lion's Den.

643. How husband refuses to be offended by me. Or anyone.

644. How he secretly tries to make Saturday a sabbath for me and does practically everything for me, except breathe.

645. That salted caramel sauce on cereal.

646. Sourdough cheese crisps.

647. Lulie's remark, "The paper towel sucked up the owie-ness on my finger," when she cuts herself.

648. Mighty Mike.

649. Cutting coupons while the kids cut flowers out of old magazines.

650. February birthday party for Craig and Rose Emily.

651. Gravelly croup cough almost gone.

652. Bed and warm covers calling my name.

Headache

"I wasn't licking her."

I peer over my book at Lulie. She leans on an elbow next to Rose.

"What?" I raise my eyebrows.

"I wasn't lickin' her." She blinks.

"What were you doing?"

"I wasn't lickin' anybody," she says and stands up.

"Oh."

She swings her arms, "Yeah."

"Ok."

Later I sprawl in bed, headache-engulfed. I squeeze eyes shut, just breathe. I hold still, perfectly still. Children cavort down the hall.

"Shhhh. Momma has a headache, come on." Jane encircles me with her words. "Come on, you guys, lets go downstairs." Their voices grow faint. I breathe.

Time tumbles, jumbles. I wake up. Squint, the door open a crack.

"What do ya need?" I whisper.

Her hand soft on my tummy, "I made a birdie for you, Momma." Jane nestles soft on me.

"Thanks."

She slips out, pads down the hall.

Dusk cradles me.

"I love you." Jack. He pokes a head in, "I love you, Momma." He whispers.

"I love you too."

He softens the door shut, calls to Jane and Lulie, "Guys! I just gave Momma some love and she gave me some back."

I stretch, wiggle toes. Breathe.

"Momma," Jane whispers, "It's 6:10. Can you get up and get me something to eat? We're really hungry." She pauses, slips out.

I press my spine back, curl my shoulders, sit up. Tender as a newborn, I move. Down the hall, I walk as if the whole word were made of water. Sleep falls away in layers. The tide of pain washed out, I crack eggs for dinner.

Children trundle up the stairs.

"Oh, thank you, Momma!" Jack eddies at my elbow.

"We made sure to pray that your headache got better and then came up here to say, THANK-YOU!" Jane chatters.

The evening snaps to motion, but everything is pleasant and soft. I'm baptized with gratitude.

Gratitude:

559. Headache gone.

560. Children making play while I rested.

561. The color-checkered bag Jane sewed for Jack's matchbox cars -- green ribboned drawstring and white label and all.

562. Lulie's prayer, "Please die for my sins so I don't have to go to Hell," and her follow-up comment to her prayer partner, "Here, smell my feet."

563. I blow up over coffee splashed on the carpet and sewing projects, I mean really freak out. A round of forgiveness and I tell the kids I'd go to Hell for that sort of display if it weren't for Jesus. Then Lulie wants to know all about Heaven and Hell. Grace.

564. Laying in bed with Luli, she whispers in my ear, "I like bunk beds," and tells me all about the warm side and the cold side of her blankie.

565. Learning coupons.

566. Peach pie.

567. Boxes of pizza. Garlic breadsticks. Gifts.

God

"This is something that a lot of people question among themselves," Janie says one day at lunch, "how is God made?" She leans on an elbow, bites into her sandwich.

"That's a good question." I slide onto the table bench. "What do you think?"

"I. don't. know." She chomps each word and then whispers, "How did God get made?"

I scoop salsa onto a chip, "No one made Him."

"How did He get there?"

"He's always been there."

"Interesting," she furrows her brow. I watch her look out the window into the yard.

"That's why he's worth worshiping," I say. If you knew how He got there He wouldn't really be worth worshiping."

"Why?"

I look at her sideways, "He wouldn't really be much bigger than you."

"Oh." She takes another bite of sandwich, looks back at me, "Do you think when we get to heaven we'll know how God got made?"

"I don't know."

Jack turns to us, "God might tell us," he says.

When You Get Big

"And when Lulie gets bigger, she'll get to decide too."

Jane turns to Lulie, "When you get older," she says, "I want you to say, 'Jesus, please come into my heart. Amen.'" Lulie takes another bite of sandwich. Jelly blobs out the side onto her plate. "And he will take ALL the bad guys," Jane tilts her head, "to a naughty place, and he'll take you to a good place."






Lulie swallows, "The donut store."

"No."

"Grammie's house."

"No, HEAVEN."

"Oh."

Jane scoops up her sandwich and bites the corner. They eat down to crumbs and lick their fingers, wipe their faces and tumble out into the afternoon with brother.






I rearrange the dishwasher. Heaven. Wish I could wrap my mind around that.







Gratitude:

105. The old hymns.

106. Fresh strawberries, sliced and frozen.

107. Baby fallen asleep in my arms.

108. Husband's big brown chair. And how he sat on the floor when I fell asleep too.

109. Summer birthday parties, family and the chorus of encouragement as we take turns to say what we've noticed about each other this past year.

110. My momma moved to tears at almost every one.

110. How Dad shakes his head at the end, amazed at the God-work in each of us. Us too. Like my brother says, "Makes getting a year older worth it." Such riches.

111. Husband's mother who finds blueberry plants on sale and shares the secret.

112. Husband's father who always says, "Come down anytime." And how it feels like home.

113. Little boy who begs to pull weeds in my garden.

114. Drippy ice cream cones.

115. Summer hours that linger with my children on the swings out back.

116. Husband who laughs at the beans I cook down to smoke and have to throw out.

117. The pickled asparagus and olives we served instead.

118. Muffin tins shaped like bugs.

119. More puzzles.

120. A date card to a restaurant!

121. A canvas photo of our kids.

122. How my children always forgive me when I ask.

123. That my parents always seemed more afraid of offending God than me.

124. The rich, rich love of parents on both sides of our family. Riches untold.

Great-Grammie

95. She turned 95 this May.

We named our boy after her husband. Gordon. Such a man. Such a husband. Wish he were here. Even so, a daughter unfurls the yellow table cloth and we celebrate. Grammie wears a blue sweater made years ago; all that blue coaxed in to stripes and a curving collar to encircle her shoulders.







Over rosemary roasted chicken, we open cards. The great-grandchildren cipher out scrawlings. Grandsons give hosta and a daisy. Her children surround her. Grammie blesses each like the strains in an old hymn. Each verse rings sweeter than the last.

Every day Grammie prays for us. Every day like Daniel of old, she marks time by her prayers. There on old blue carpet, brilliant blue in the living room, she speaks our very names to the Lord in heaven. Her knees grow tired, but her voice is strong. Each day she comes again, bows in prayer. Each day she calls out blessing and healing as she waits for heaven. Such riches I've married into.

Jack

"Hey Daddy," Jack looks up from his paper, marker still bleeding into the masterpiece, "when I go up to heaven, I will show my picture to Jesus and explain it to him." Jack furrows his brow and continues coloring. It's a picture of the cross. "This will be my card for God," his voice quiet, it sounds like he's forgotten Daddy and me. "This will be my card for the one who died for me."

The one who died for me. Sort of makes everything else seem peripheral.

Breakfast

We eat oats for breakfast. On bright mornings when the table shines with sun I see a hundred hand-prints scattered around bowls and crumbles. Janie still chews on after I clear dishes and spoons, sippers of milk and coffee cups.

Between bites she drawls on, "Momma, how about we call Fridays, Gray Friday, I mean Black Friday," she swallows, "because that was when the sky turned black."

"The sky turned black?"

"Yeah, like when Jesus died." It's her favorite story. She flutters on. Ravens feed Elijah, and Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery, Esther, David, adventures of playing spiders with Jack, games of Billy Goats Gruff. Her words, a river of days, rush past me.

The bowl half empty, the table cleared and wiped, Janie leans on one elbow. "Hey Momma, in heaven will there be something greater than talking do you think?"

Talking. She blinks. For a moment we both wait. "Probably."

She grins, "What could it be?! Oh, I wonder what it could be." And a small pool of quiet is washed away with the wonder.

What could be better than talking?

Angel Armies

"If you choose the Lord your God, Lucy, you'll SEE God and the angel armies in heaven," Jane whispers to Lulie.






Later Jane and Jack ask to try out a homemade sling with REAL rocks. Jack waves his arms and spreads all his fingers to demonstrate. The belt and rubber band contraption looks like it really could kill someone, but I let them give it a try.






Everyday we memorize a little more of the epic exchange between David and Goliath. All audacity and courage, David runs to Goliath in the name of the LORD of hosts. The LORD of armies. Hosts.

All through the house and yard, my children slay Goliath again and again; angel armies poise for victory. Heavenly ranks descend from the skies invisible except in the audacity and courage of my little ones. Goliath shrinks, a giant smudge of a man now snuffed out by all the glory. LORD of hosts, the armies await!






Later I hear from the playroom, "Ok, now I am going to have to behead you." Serious business. Yeah, David actually cuts off Goliath's head. Anyone else forget that part?

Honey-Dog

"And everything that is precious to us I would lock in there." Jane nuzzles a little closer to our English Setter. Sprawled out in front of the fire place, I'm not sure who is queen of the dog bed.





"Like our Bibles,"' Janie says, "I would lock our Bibles in the gated off spot." She rubs the soft curls on Honey's head, "At least I would try to get the Bibles and lock 'em in there." She's imagining a room just for Honey, the kind you can hide in if bad guys break into your house.





And if we had an extra Bible," she raises both eyebrows, "I would maybe give it to the bad guys so they could become Christians like us." She hugs Honey-dog, whispers something in her ear. "Then they could read it and maybe go to heaven like us." Heaven, it's settled.

Now, I Won't Get Dead

"Now, I won't get dead," Jack announces. "Like some people get dead, I won't get dead." Faith and fact the same to him, he raises both eyebrows, "THAT a good point."

My Dad's kitty died. Just sort of disappeared for all Jack knew. No one noticed. And still, I told him. "Honey, the kitty's dead." In a fumbling sort of hopeful way the story of Jesus and dying, sin and salvation tumbled out. A miracle unspooled there on the bed all gossamer and delicate.

"Do you want to pray about it?" He stares at me. I want to repeat it. I wait.

"Well..." he eyes the ceiling, "that mean I will die?" It's as if he's never considered this. "You pray for me."

In a counterpoint of mother and child we weave ideas. Grace and wickedness, fresh as the dawn, brush against each other. In the afternoon sun my man-child becomes a child of God. I want to hold my breath and not rumple those first understandings. I'm swamped in the simplicity: God died. For me.

"God DIED for me!" When in doubt he shouts. And the whole room shatters into a million tiny slips of ideas like chaff blown away.

Up to Heaven

(Click on image for better view.)


"So if Great-Grampa chooses Jesus we could hold his hand on the way up to heaven when we die?" It's the little things that matter when you are four, pouring your own milk on morning cereal, pumping highest on the backyard swing, knowing who will hold your hand on the way to heaven. Janie is helping me pack a card for Great-Grampa. We pray for him a lot, all sorts of wonderful things including heaven. We love Great-Grampa as much as the sky. The influence of a good life reaches right down to the horizon and encircles our whole world. What a gift his disciplined life is to us. Even Jane know it.

Our gift to him is the prayers we offer each night. We submit to Jesus our greatest treasures and pray He will save them, that He walk us on to heaven in the footsteps of our fathers. May he know you, Lord. We bow down to our God who made the sky itself and offer up the ones we love into His care.

We Drove By A Cemetery

She's asking again, "Where is it? Where is it, Momma? I don't want to miss it." Swooshing by the driver side there it goes, Eden-like turf and bright silk flowers, granite stones arranged in rows. The cemetery. We are mapping my jog route. Sometimes I run past a sweeping cemetery acreage, breathe in the tide of fresh cut grass. It's just another bend in the road that Janie imagines is paradise.

On the way to church we see another one. They are everywhere. These strange portals into eternity blend into parks and crosswalks, school zones and small shouldered roads that sail us through a winding city. When is the last time you noticed one? They are invisible, almost.

"Hey Momma, I know that there are a lot of people in heaven," Jane explains, "because I look at the stones of when people have died and I just notice there are a lot." Yes, a lot. She thinks they knew Jesus. And so the way of childhood sees picnics and tumbling somersaults in a cemetery.

A Toe in the Door

For Janie the world is a collection of the obvious.

"I wash my hair most times so my hair doesn't smell like dog hair," she says.

Or, "I would not want to be a slave because I don't like to clean."

A few days ago I asked if she could think of one thing that would make our family better. "To be in heaven," she said, "for our whole family to be in heaven." Sometimes she tells me she just can't wait to go to heaven, and why can't she go there now? I try to tell her we would never see her again until we died, but she's just so glad about all being in heaven together with God that she hardly pauses. Life for her is just a comma or apostrophe in a long and involved story where God is the hero. It's her toe in the door to something big. Maybe all this time I've been trying to make our tiny comma of life significant, when it is really the whole rest of the story that is spell binding.

Simple

"When you sin does your body change a little bit?" she wants to know. Janie likes to hear the forbidden fruit story. Adam, Eve, the serpent, the fruit - over and over and over.

And then, "Mommy, the flood that God sent, did it touch the sky?" Every detail, exact, precise, weighed and measured and touching the sky. There she is picturing it all. I'm sure the tallest ladder or biggest building could surely touch the sky. Maybe even standing up on our roof we could reach that high.

She slurps milk and soggy cereal, from a Snoopy bowl. Dribbles collect on her chin. "God loves me," she announces, "because he wanted a person like me." It's almost presumption. I watch her suck down the dregs. She tilts her head, grins, doesn't seem to be posing for her mind's eye. She's probably wondering how big God actually is. For her it's just so normal the milk dribbles, the grin, the flood that touches the sky, a God that wants her, a creator that made her just to like her. Simple.


















And then, "God's teaching me not to lie. He's saying 'Janie, I'm gonna give you treasure in heaven, but I'm first gonna teach you not to lie.'"


















So, I keep asking, "What's he teaching you now?"

She says, "I can't tell until I read my Bible and have my special drink and listen for a bit."


















Listen.

Simple.