Ellen's Garden

Today I played baseball in the backyard with C. We had exhausted a game of indoor “hockey” (light sabers and a bouncy ball) and he had put on his baseball pajamas hours earlier for the express purpose of “playing the game.” It was a little warmer today and the leaves on the trees have reached that extraordinary shade of bright fresh green. Ah, life again.
Through the backyard gate I could see Ellen’s garden. On certain fall evenings, while out there swinging with the kids, she would invite us over for a bit to play with Jasmine, the German Shepherd. The kids would pick tomatoes off the vines. I would watch their enthusiasm when the small red, yellow, and orange gems were spotted. Spring now finds her garden full of tulips, daffodils and, yes—I noticed them today—bleeding hearts. They remind me of Papa and Grandma’s and summer in the U.P. I don’t know why but they do. I miss picking raspberries with Papa out back or sneaking them when I thought he wasn’t looking but he was up on the deck the whole time ready to point me out. I hope I can get up there this summer…
I picked up my cap and gown today. Is it really happening? Graduation? With 8+ papers to go and a hefty 500+ pages of reading, I wonder how it is possible. But somehow it will get done, right? It has to…
I can hardly believe I’ll be leaving this place. I don’t feel like I’ve been able to process anything much lately. I seem too busy to think about what’s happening. All of a sudden it will be June…or July…and I will wonder where Moody went.
In some ways life is so unpredictable, isn’t it? Things happen that we never expected would or things don’t happen that we believed would. Sigh. I’ve been reminded in new ways how I need Him. I’m prone to forget His faithfulness. Less so right now, it seems, but only right now. In many moments of these days I have been made to sense His committed faithfulness in ways that makes me quiet. Oh how completely involved He is in relationship with us—moving, waiting, talking, quiet, watching, touching…and how patient in His steadfast love. We are a privileged people to have Him journey with us.
Next year (or life, for that matter) seems so big. It isn’t really. It’s just another year; another year to live, love, walk, believe, discover, hope, dream, fail, fall, learn, grow…Every season is special in its own way. We can’t help but look back, look forward, look around, and compare/analyze. But each season is significant and beautiful and ought to be lived. That’s what I want for the “going out” of this one and the “entering into” a new one. I want to live. I want to be honest with life and experience it as it is. This demands grace. Oh, how utterly grateful I am that I live with (and for) the One who has given grace upon grace. I am eager to live my life—tomorrow, next week, next year. It’s unpredictable and yet it sort of isn’t…Weird, huh? This place has taught me much about the beautiful weight of life, without making it a cumbersome thing to bear. It’s a funny tension. It’s an honest tension. It’s the now but not yet. I think we are left praying, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” or something to that effect.