Interlude

 Interlude: an intervening episode, feature, or period of time.

Whew. Busy is what we are. Yesterday was Caleb's graduation from Northwestern College in St. Paul (my alma mater). I was a bit of a wreck. I started crying on the way there and didn't dry out until late in the day, after many events had unfolded.

Caleb and his baby brother, who does not seem a bit impressed.

 

 Maybe that's because this is how I remember our son. Just a little curly-headed two-year-old, who even then knew how to play hard and work hard.

I've been following a blogger (in my sidebar, Summer Harms), who just mentioned as a parenting goal To not check out. I think that's how she put it. An excellent goal. Because if you check out you will find that after about three weeks have passed, the kids are completely grown. That's how it feels sometimes. Like a blur.

 Our back yard, as green as God can make it.

So after yesterday, which included the graduation, a reception where we met classmates and professors, and lunch with Caleb's grandparents, we rushed home and my husband and I hied ourselves to a wedding.

A lovely wedding, with one of the best wedding sermon's I've ever heard, but oh my was I ever tired by the end of the day. (It is impossible in our own strength to be as perfect as Scripture commands. But God gives us the Holy Spirit, who equips us to love each other in a way that is supernatural).

Malachi Jude admiring the rain

And here's our interlude.
We have one week before our daughter graduates high school.
Today was rainy, a steady, nourishing rain.
The kind that makes pulling weeds almost a pleasure.
All the crab apple trees awakened, pink and white.
The bleeding hearts arched like delicate balloons on a string.
We rested.

Here's the poem that came to mind as the rain fell and fell and fell today.

Rain

by Robert Louis Stevenson

The rain is raining all around,

It falls on field and trees,

It rains on the umbrellas here,

And on the ships at sea.

(If you have a young child, try to find A Child's Garden of Verses).