35-36/365...Mom's Hands

We recently had the pleasure of a visit from Nana and Popaw.  Nana wasted no time trying out our new piano.

I just kept thinking to myself, "It is so right to have my Mom in my house filling it with music."

I grew up in a house filled with the music of her fingers.  Went to bed some nights to the comforting sound of her practicing.  Her music embedded itself into my heart and is still playing today.  It gets in you, music.  It soothes, motivates, cultivates.

That music represents the legacy she passed to me.  The roots that take me back to the

 safe place we called home.  And the wings that are the soundtrack to the soaring.

Now my monkeys, the next generation, benefit from that legacy.  It is a special day, this Mother's Day, to be a mother to daughters and a daughter to my mother.  I am especially grateful today for her beautiful hands and lasting legacy.

34/365...A Dozen Years

I pray my own daughters might be so blessed.  Partnered with a man who not only SEES them...but DELIGHTS in what he sees.  That is what makes a young budding woman blossom into the beautiful flower she was created to be in time.  That is the echo of a creator who creates...and delights in his creation.  He looked...and saw it was good.

He looked...he sees the parts I would prefer to keep hidden from the rest of the world.  He knows my tendancy to withdraw in fear of failure.  How I slump my shoulders when insecurity grips subtle and hard.  That beneath the perceived confidence and strength is an approval junky, a recovering pharisee.  He has seen me lose my cool in a good old fashioned come apart with the monkeys.  How good intentions mean nothing when they don't see/hear/feel love.  He has seen me step up to the edge of opportunity, rare back ready to pounce...only to retreat in fear and denial time and time again.  He never really bought my excuses.  But he never made me feel like a dumb scaredy-cat, either.

...and he saw it was good...when he sees the parts I would rather no one else see, he delights.  He sees good.  He sees value and worth and beauty.  He pushes me to use my talents, my gifts AND makes the path straight for me to do so.  He sees a girl who still has a hard time remembering grace.  A woman miraculously redeemed, forgiven, set free.  He sees freedom.  He sees it when I cannot.  He believes it when I do not.

It is a beautiful thing to be loved by another broken, fallen, redeemed human being.  A beautiful gift indeed.  Here's to a dozen more!

34/365...Monkey in a Tree

 We had to have our beloved Maple thinned and trimmed this weekend.  This monkey watched the arborist (did you know that is what a tree specialist is called?  learn something new every day!) from the front steps for an hour.  His comment?

"Somebody needs to give him climbing lessons."

Spoken like a true monkey.