Renew My Home: Eighteen

Friday, April 12, 2013

Eighteen

Here they are,
my oldest daughter
and my youngest son.
She can't get over how great babies are.
As for me, I can't believe how wonderful it is to have an infant
when there are two big girls to help me.
Today they both happen to be gone,
so the baby is crying, I'm missing the Tracy Anderson workout,
the kitchen is messy, and I am a little bit lonely.
(Which is odd for me, since I am never lonely as long as I have a good book to read).

Julia just turned eighteen.
Eighteen!
Somehow that is a watershed number.

She'll have two little parties.
Here is the first party, with her high school friends.

Two of these girls are quiet, two are lively.
Can you guess which ones are quiet?
I love them all.
While they were here, I kept trying to give them advice, which probably bored them to pieces.
I don't usually do that, but since I was fresh off my own high-school reunion,
I had plenty of thoughts on the matter.

When Julia was little, she wanted to do all my crafts with me,
including complicated beading.
It got to the point where I tried to make jewelry when she wasn't around,
because she clamored to do everything I did.

Now she has found a craft she loves, leather work,
and the things she makes are far beyond my skill set (you can see her creations on Etsy).
She's going to college next year,
but she'd rather be home, pounding out beautiful leather pieces.
I'm going to miss her terribly.
I keep telling her that college is priceless, that she will love it,
but I sorrow at the thought of our house without Julia in it.

My girl and her friends are at the brink.
From the promise of eighteen,
the wonder of life is an open field in front of them.
I wish them joy.

"Before calling has anything to do with doing, it has everything to do with being, that essence of yourself that God knew before the foundations of the earth, that God called into being and that God alone truly knows. It is the call to be who we are and at the same time to become more than we can yet envision....it encompasses everything that makes us who we are: our genetics, innate orientations and capacities, our personality, heredity and life-shaping experiences, and the time and place into which we were born." (Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership).

(Julia also sells her pieces at Krista Artista Gallery in Anoka, Minnesota).

Pin It

No comments:

Post a Comment

Hush

"Can we say 'Hush' to ourselves? Can we command our thoughts? I believe we can. God has given us the power to close the shutter of our minds upon hurtful, weakening thoughts. He has provided all manner of shutters. A book that swings us off ourselves and into another world is a very good shutter; a song set to music; beauty; the dear love of those who love us. Above all, there is this: look at Calvary. Look steadfastly. Take time to look and all within you will be hushed, for power streams forth from Calvary. We need never know defeat." (Amy Carmichael)

A Prayer (Not by Joel Osteen)

"Take from me, Oh Lord, that self-pity which love of myself so readily produces, and from the frustration of not succeeding in the world as I would naturally desire, for these have no regard for your glory. Rather, create in me a sorrow that is conformable to Your own. Let my pains rather express the happy condition of my conversion and salvation. Let me no longer wish for health or life, but to spend it and end it for You, with You, and in You. I pray neither for health nor sickness, life nor death. Rather I pray that you will dispose of my health, my sickness, my life, and my death, as for Your glory, for my salvation, for the usefulness to Your church and Your saints, among whom I hope to be numbered. You alone know what is expedient for me. You are the Sovereign Master. Do whatever pleases You. Give me or take away from me. Conform my will to Yours, and grant that with a humble and perfect submission, and in holy confidence, I may dispose myself utterly to You. May I receive the orders of Your everlasting provident care. May I equally adore whatever proceeds from You."
-Blaise Pascal

Solitude

by Henri Nouwen

We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with him and him alone.
Our primary task in solitude, therefore, is not to pay attention to the many faces which assail us, but to keep the eyes of our mind and heart on him who is our divine savior.
Only in the context of grace can we face our sin;
only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds;
only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature.
As we come to realize that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us, that he is our true self, we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience the freedom of the children of God.

A Meditation

by Henri Nouwen

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept. Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even dare to be silent with you.