Up the Sunbeam

-- Great philosopher, Ferris Bueller once quipped, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Blurring . . . whirring . . . jumbled colors . . . sight and sound . . . Does life ever feel to you like a scene in the old Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie? You know, the one where Willie Wonka puts them on his whimsical boat and they sail off into a tunnel filled with disjointed and terrifying images projected all around them while he screams bizarre and disturbing poetry into the strange glow? Everyone is so relieved when he yells, "Stop the boat!" Life does move fast. Life is filled with change and challenge, the unexpected, the unwanted and the uncalled-for. But life is also filled with joy and laughter, dreams and fulfillments, pursuits and triumphs, the tried and true, the glorious, the counted-upon. It IS a bit of a jumble, priceless treasures thrown in the same blender with hideous gargoyles ...

-- When you become a mother (or a father), you can never anticipate all that you are saying yes to.  If you're wise you'll let the prayers fall from your lips like raindrops. Three times life has blossomed within, twice I have delivered beautiful, healthy babies into the world.  Three times I have known the rending of my heart to make room for the flood of love it would have to hold as a new life came to be; one of those times I had to release that too-brief little life to heaven in the sorrow of an early miscarriage , and twice I have been blessed to watch those new lives grow into the amazing children God chose me to mother. I was a few months pregnant with She So Sweet the first time I heard the song "Breath of Heaven" by Amy Grant.  I was nervous in those early months, especially when complications came that felt like a repeat of the miscarriage.  As I prepared to go home from a scary trip to the ER, relieved to get good news but still shaken, the male n...

-- I think this was about 1966 in Iowa getting my first riding lesson from my Mommy! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ If I had been a mother before I was a child    Oh what a different child I would have been. I would have gone to sleep at bedtime, no fighting    I would have only called “Mommy,” when I had something to say And I would have limited the number of consecutive “Why’s”    To three instead of three hundred I would have done the dishes without groaning    And I would have cleaned up my room without being asked I would have appreciated you so much more, and    Recognized your sacrifices, and your amazing patience. If I had been a mother before I was a child    I wouldn’t have been the child I was. I wouldn’t have missed the bus so you had to    Walk with me the two miles to school and back I wouldn’t have put off doing my term paper    Until the night before it was due I wouldn’t have tur...

-- Great philosopher,  Ferris   Bueller once quipped, "Life  moves pretty fast. If you  d on't stop and look around once in a w hil e, you could miss it." " Blurring . . . Whirring . . . jumbled colors . . . sight and sound . . . does life ever feel to you like a scene in the old Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie? You know, the one where Willie Wonka puts them on his whimsical boat and they sail off into a tunnel filled with disjointed and terrifying images projected all around them while he screams bizarre and disturbing poetry into the strange glow? Everyone is so relieved when he yells, "Stop the boat!" Life does move fast. Life is filled with change and challenge, the unexpected, the unwanted and t he uncalled-for. But life is also filled with joy and laughter, dreams and fulfillments, pursuits and triumphs, the tried and true, the glorious, the counted-upon. It IS a bit of a jumble, priceless treasures thrown in the same blender with hid...