a faith observed: Body Art on a big day!

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Body Art on a big day!

What a big day! I watched Jasi and Dani - today, and Liya and Mandy came for a few hours in the morning to visit. I'm not used to having so many girls around and it was really fun! They played beautifully together and my activity for the morning - Body Art- was a huge hit! Gracie is even more beautiful covered in paint - she looks like a beautiful, tribal warrior girl. The girls loved painting themselves and splashing in the kiddie pool. It took a good hour to scrub off all of the paint (I handed them a kitchen dish brush and some rags!) and then another hour playing in the bath tub afterward. Perfect for a hot day.

Also included in the day: all four of us baking 4 loaves of vegan, gluten free, xylitol banana bread (it turned out so well! too well considering I am supposed to be on a candida free diet again); vacuuming the floor I think 4 times; one load of laundry, lots and lots of playing; and one mighty clean up of the inside and outside of the house. I felt like superwoman when I had bbq chicken, broccali, corn, and salad on the table at 5 pm, a clean house, and my flowers watered! And I only resorted to Alvin and the Chipmunks for the last two hours of the day when I couldn't get my three to take a nap.

Days like these make you feel happy, accomplished, like you can't believe how much you are capable of doing.... and pretty darned exhausted! And to think, mom, you had three girls every day!

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This is me, a faith observed.

C.S. Lewis writes about the pain of losing his beloved wife, Joy, in his book, "A Grief Observed". In some ways this is my attempt to share my journey through grief and back into life, as the past nine months have been characterized by an immeasurable longing for my beloved father, who died suddenly this past January.

After months of hibernation from the internet, I unexpectedly find myself able to re-begin this blog and connect with my larger community of family and friends. This blog will likely reflect less of the intensity and depth of my pain and more of the simplicity and ordinary joy that keeps my life full - namely days running after our little boy, Simon Pierre. But it is because of the incredible love and presence that defined my relationship with my father, that I feel I can will myself to not just survive each day but to pour that same kind of love and attention onto Simon.

My father was an endless source of strength to me, a pillar of faith. His last words, spoken to my mother as he passed into that which is unseen, "God is good - good all the time", have remained with me through this dark cloud of grief. And when God seems hidden, when justice seems to be losing out, when life is unfair, and when death swallows up the one I most love, I remember my father's words and breathe in this promise, that the God of love is in the process of restoring that which has been destroyed.

And as my father told me in dream I've had since his death, "Look to Jesus. As a father, to point you towards Him is the best gift I can give to you." So here I am, this is me, a faith to be observed.

I hold onto that which is not always seen- the promise of God's goodness, the hope that one day in the promised new heavens and earth- on a grassy hill or a sand covered beach- the lion and the lamb will lie down side by side and I, too, will lie down side by side, next to my father, and we will laugh and laugh until there are no more tears left to cry.