My Heart in Manhattan

I've talked to him nearly every day since he left, usually more than once. I have never loved or been so achingly proud of him. The last time I saw him (in person), he was racing to catch up with the other boys in the House of Reagan at The King's College, bound for a Circle Five boat tour on the Hudson River. His tie was flying back over his shoulder, and at the last minute he looked back at us, smiled and waved. Then we couldn't see him anymore. Other parents leave their children safely in a dorm room housed in some bucolic setting, with sloping green lawns and the ivory towers of academia. Not us. We left our son walking down a sidewalk in Manhattan, looking back over his shoulder, grinning and waving.

I would not have chosen any other way.

Not that this has been easy. Not that even he is entirely sold on it yet.

But the Lord in His Providence has led us here. And the lessons so far are both painful and sweet. I can't even write them yet, because they are still being written in life. I don't want to smudge the ink on what is still so fresh and incomplete. But all of it I am storing in my heart, and all of it matters so very, very much and is so different than I ever could have imagined. I praise God for His story, His mercy, His faithfulness and His very real presence right now.

The following is from a blog post by Ann Voskamp

The uncontainable God reveals Himself in the smallest containers of grace.


... the first light through the window
the sole sparrow on the telephone line
the cold glass of water and the laughter after lunch
the blankets at the end of the day...


And writing thanks for the seemingly trite let me see that nothing is, that the small is sacred and the Doctor in the house binds up our wounds with scraps of daily mercy. He is the sacred in our everyday and I still doubt and who I doubt is me and I have found He is real in the daily common and the hallowed, ordinary now.

Faith-Filled Fascia

I looked around my house the other day, realizing how many things we have put off repairing or replacing while we paid for other things we deemed more important as we homeschool our children in the Lord. And I had the thought that, in a way, this lack of grandeur is a display of faith, a sign that our hope is not in the present. Now when I look at the fascia board that needs replaced and the frayed carpet, I remember that anything done by faith pleases God. And, after all, that's all I want: for my home and what we do here to please Him.

Giving My Best

God reminded me of this story as I have been struggling over some of the things He is asking me to give up right now.

My mom's friend had asked to borrow one of my dolls for an extended period. I loved my dolls, and really did not want to loan her one. I agonized over it, and finally loaned her this doll that I really did not like at all, Kendra. She was made of hard plastic and was made to stand up, not lay down. My very favorite doll was named Susie, and she had a soft, cuddly body, and looked just like a real baby. So I kept Susie and gave up Kendra. Then my mom's friend invited us over to have lunch, and while we were there she returned Kendra -- along with an amazing wardrobe of handmade doll clothes -- made exactly to fit Kendra. I actually wanted to cry when I saw them.

This story shook me awake -- reminding me of what I already know and should never foget -- that even if He seems to be asking me to give up something, He is only doing it to give me something amazing back. And giving Him my best will ultimately make me the most happy.

"The God Who Sees Me"

Two Sundays ago we visited R.C. Sproul's recently built church near Orlando -- the new building is beautiful and God-honoring and we enjoyed worship there so much. We returned home to find, coincidentally, a letter that had come in the mail thanking us for a very, very, very small contribution we had made years ago toward helping to build that particular church -- so small we had not even remembered making it. God sees and remembers even the smallest gift. And it gave me so much pleasure to know that we had had even the smallest of parts in making that building a reality.