The 30th Post...

I took a refreshing break from blogging this year...but now it's been way too long, and I missed posting one that I meant to post back in January. Doh!  I have had several reminders from people to start up again, so here I go.

Here's the forgotten post...as is...and then I shall begin afresh with more current updates!

On the heels of our second anniversary and the long awaited family trip to see my folks in California, I am sitting down to write a bit of a reflection.  I often can't believe I've come to where I am now...that I found the love of my life, that I moved away to start my own adventures with him, that I have a baby...two babies, and that I'm twenty-four. Crazy...

On our anniversary, Daniel and I went on a lovely little drive down to a local vineyard to go wine tasting, before dressing up for a delectable dinner at Bistro 161 in our little downtown.  We were the only people there in the little wine shop lined with Cherry Point wines, local art, and specialty teas and chocolates.  We arrived twenty minutes before closing time, but the vineyard owner, who had the coolest Australian accent, let us stay a bit longer.  We tried white wines with hints of honeysuckle and pear, red wines with a dark oaky flavor, and even a blackberry dessert wine.  As I stood there in conversation with my handsome husband, a wine glass in my hand, a wedding ring on my finger, and thoughts of how my four-month-old was doing with Nana Leslie while we were out, I suddenly felt very awkward. Then it dawned on me why.  It was because I felt like an imposter...I wasn't old enough to go wine tasting! Was I?  I still feel at times like I'm fifteen, looking forward to when I'm a real grown-up. But I am. I am?!

It was a thrill to spend a whole week surrounded by my own beloved siblings, my parents, and my grandparents in California.  One lazy afternoon, Kersti, Peter, Rachel, Daniel, and I stretched out on the back deck at my mom's place, the warm California sun on our backs, a hint of a cool breeze lightly touching our faces. Two baby monitors were leaning against the back door, one for sleeping Caleb and one for sleeping cousin Evan.  It was just us, brothers and sisters, snoozing together. It reminded me of those summer days as kids, warming ourselves by the pool on our tummies with chattering teeth in our soaked little swimsuits.  It made me realize how much I appreciate California in the winter, and how amazing it was to be me with my family again, just sharing a moment in life together.  

It was a thrill to watch Caleb interacting so much more with everyone this time around, and so strange to have the baby in the bunch be my baby, not a sibling.  He laughed for Peter.  He loved to be toted around by Nana Lynn and Grand-dad, Jim.  He loved Kersti's enthusiasm and Rachel's cuddles.  He loved treks through the house on Johnny or Andrew's arm.  He was overjoyed to watch James and William make all sorts of exciting sound effects and play with his toys on the floor.  

We took Caleb and Evan to Fairy Tale Town, a kids park featuring a giant shoe slide, a big cheese with holes to crawl through, Cinderella's carriage, a Sherwood Forest obstacle course, a big bunny to climb on, and other objects from fairy tales to explore.  I loved that place when I was little.  It seemed so much bigger back then...and that didn't seem very long ago.  I made peanut butter cookies with my dad one afternoon.  All I needed was a little bobbed haircut and a big apron and it would be like old times, helping daddy in the kitchen.  

Another afternoon I took a walk with my mom, along the nature trail near her house...I remember walking there with her years back, talking not about baby development and being a fit mom, but about my current boy crushes and my big plans for college and beyond...  Funny, I found a journal entry just yesterday that I wrote around that time, when I wanted so badly to have someone to love and someone to love me, but was learning so much about simply being content in God's love:

"The Hero of Heaven, who shows me real love in real life,
surrendered that glorious and pure power and control
to chain Himself to humanity 
so that humanity would be chained no more.

"He slowed His strong and firm step to walk with the weak.
He was a friend to prostitutes, robbers, and murderers
who didn't know the meaning of friendship.
He accepted the unacceptable, 
broke his heart to mend ours,
died a criminal so that criminals could live,
was rejected by choice so that I could choose to embrace Him.

His love is one so intense that it defies logic...it is infinite.

"The reality of love felt by the senses is nothing compared to the reality of love
experienced by the soul, that deepest place in human existence.
Comparing what we see, touch, hear, and taste with what we sense in our souls
is like comparing a murky river on the horizon to 
a crystal clear stream, bubbling at our feet.

"Though what we sense with our bodies may seem closest, it is what we experience in our deepest self that colors even this.
What feeds our soul? What air do I breath, what spiritual thoughts do I embrace to nourish that inner core of my existence?
Is it the spirit of the world, binding me to the passing pleasures it thrusts at me,
or the Spirit of the God of the universe, freeing me to reach out for a joy He holds in His hands?

"He waits for me to take it and take His hand and remember that I am not earth-bound but heaven-bound. I am bound to be free."

From the moment I wrote those deep thoughts until now, I have become someone very different, and yet someone whose soul is still kept alive by the same hope I felt back then.  It's a new year, a fresh new season to cling tighter to the only One who holds my world together and makes even the worst memories worth recording and worth remembering because they, too, can be worked into loveliness...