Love Never Fails

Today I grabbed a beach chair, the straw hat that Kayla picked out for me many years ago, a good book, my camera and my phone and drove to the beach.  This is the view I enjoyed as I strolled through the sand to the water's edge.  It was quite early in the morning and it had rained so only a handful of people dotted the shoreline.

After I found the perfect spot to unfold my chair and get comfortable, a grandmother and her grandson began to dig and play in the surf.

I called my mom on my cell phone.  What is it about your mother's voice that just makes you emotional at times?  My mother's voice is hoarse now from cancer treatments but after just a few minutes we were both crying together and neither one of us needed to ask the other one why.  Tears flowed from under my sunglasses, cleansing tears not angry ones.  Pure love flowed with them for all the phone calls, all the emails, all the prayers, and all the love.  Love never fails the Bible says and I never fail to see and feel God in it!

A Father's Love

As Father's Day approaches I find myself thinking about four men.  My own father, who passed away three years ago this August, was the first man I ever loved.  He was a builder and to this day, the smell of fresh sawdust is my favorite smell in the whole world!

I have two favorite descriptions of myself, "Mom" and "Grandma".  But "Mom and Dad" and "Grandpa and Grandma" doubles every good and perfectly wonderful thing about them!  Is Jerry my better half?  I know one thing for sure, he is the half that makes me better!

Nine years ago a young man tapped lightly at the door of my heart and  I opened it just a crack.  When I saw that he was everything my daughter had told me he was, I through open the door and welcomed him in!  He is the loving father of three of my most favorite people in all the world, and he's devoted to guiding his family in the way of the Lord.

I have one more father on my mind this week and he is my son.  He became a father very young and to the world quite unprepared.  Upon hearing the news, a broken and fearful boy fell to his knees before the Lord and when his cries were met with God's strength and love, a man stood where a boy had been. In ONE DAY he turned his back on everything he was doing that would get in his way, and he walked with the Lord into a new life with a family of his own.  That life is being challenged right now and as I watch him, one word comes to mind to describe this father's love and it is heroic! 

Festival, Food, and Friends!

Thirty one years ago a young man called me on the phone explaining that he was a friend of my brother-in-law's and would like me to accompany him to the Festival in downtown Grand Rapids.  I didn't hesitate because my sister, Sandy, had met him and said that he was very nice. Kody was eight months old at the time and Sandy offered to stay with him while I was gone.

The following Saturday I was on my way to the Festival, a future re-marriage, a miscarriage, the saving grace of Jesus Christ, two more children, and discovering that I really was tucked safely deep inside the heart of a man that would work with me to create a marriage that could survive anything, and it has.  I was in for a pretty wild ride when I stepped into that young man's car on a beautiful summer day in 1978, but to be in love and loved the way that I am makes it all worth it!

Here we are at that same Festival, we went with our friends Steve and Garnette last Saturday and Steve

took our picture. 

Pirates, Cannons, a Fort, and a phone call

St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest continually occupied city in the United States.  It has the oldest wooden school house on St. George Street, and a fort dating back to the 1600's.  We loved the history, the beautiful beaches and gardens, and the amazing Fort Castillo De San Marcos.  The fort was made with coquina which is rock formed from tiny seashells that is strong enough to repel cannon balls!

Here I am with a "pirate" outside the store where we bought pirate hats for our grandson's.  I can't wait until we're all together this summer and I can get a picture of them wearing them! 

I will always remember St. Augustine, and Fort Castillo De San Marcos with it's enduring strength that has stood defiantly for over 400 hundreds years against wars, fires, tornadoes, and hurricanes.  I will use it's memory as a symbol of God's strength in my own life and in the lives of all the people that I love!

Oh, and the phone call that I recieved from home while visiting the fort felt like a cannon ball, for the first time in history, did penetrate the walls and land in the middle of my stomach.  But, like the coquina, God has placed His love and strength all around our family and we are safe, I feel it!