On the front porch...

When I left for college my momma had all the special people in my life place special letter, or memento in a box for me to take. A few months ago I found that box again, and among the sweet sweet letters was a very special one. It was a small short letter from my cousin Micah. It had been attached to a fake plastic martini glass-that now holds brooches in my room. You see, when we were younger every few months we would buy those ugly plastic drinking glasses to "drink" out of...our drink of choice was Sprite and Orange Sherbet.

Micah's letter was short and sweet. It said something like this. "When the travels of your life are over, remember there is no place like home. I'll meet you there, on my momma's front porch and we'll have a Sprite together, and drink in the sweetness that is home."

He's right, there is nothing like that moment where you miss home. I've experienced it a few times. But never fails something can always make you feel like home. For me, that is gospel music. Micah sang Southern Gospel when I was growing up, and boy do I miss hearing him belt it out. 

Something about those great Gaither singers can always take me back to a simpler place and time. A time where all I had to worry about was if Micah was going to pick the glass I liked  to drink from.

Time has separated us, but home is a place that will always be in our hearts.  I'll meet you on your momma's front porch....

How lucky we are...

I work at an elementary school. Some days I feel like I should be IN elementary school. Those days are when things go wrong...my hands and voice hurt from signing/speaking too loudly, yes it is possible to sign loudly. Then there are days like today...days when a little ray of sunshine can be found in a little girls eye. When children play together nicely and my job is sweet and full of beautifully composed ASL sentences.

These children teach me more about the love of my Heavenly Father than I would have ever thought. Some of them are dirty, smelly and have no way to get anywhere. Some of them are abandoned, live life with out parents and are yearning for attention. Some of them are defiant and down-right mean. Day by day I find God showing me one more "grown-up" characteristic in each of these children.  The tattle-tale will probably become the town gossip when they grow up. The cry baby- the person who always gets their feelings hurt when you don't talk to them immediately. They are smaller versions of who we become. Smaller versions of those people who have hurt me in my life. Smaller versions of me.
So how in the would can they melt my heart so quickly? How can I not care about their dirty clothes when I pull them in for a hug? L.O.V.E.

Each day I get to plant little seeds of the Father's love in their hearts. Most days, I'm happy to go to my job. Happy to come home empty, happy to be filled up with more love, so that I can give it out.
Maybe, just maybe, I'll remember this when I encounter the "grown-up" versions of them in my "not at school life"....

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² now, and what we will be. Beloved, we are God’s children has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears^[a] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. ³And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." 1 John 3:1-3