A Walk in the Sun

This morning I have that particular delight of spending focused time with my children.  We've cooked pancakes, stirred the batter with chopsticks for no particular reason, watched copious episodes of our favorite cartoons, and finally exhausted our little energies with a nice walk in the sun, up on the levee, overlooking the Mighty Mississippi.

As I held the hands of my children, was repeatedly rewarded with handfuls of rocks and seashells found along the way, and walked the morning away in the ever-heating sun, I found myself enjoying a sense of the true blessings of the Almighty.  I cheered as JeeP showed me how he can "go fast", and wowed and exclaimed over Jordan as she discovered beautiful white seashell after beautiful white seashell... and then accepted their hands back in mine as we continued our walk.  Cyclist after cyclist rode by, but instead of wishing I was training for another triathlon, I found the peace of the love of my children and considered how our walk in the morning sun had become so much more to me.

In the years to come, the expressions of the blessing will undoubtedly change with the growth of them, but for today, it is enough that a smile of the heart was imbued with little hands holding rocks and shells on a walk in the sun.

On a cooler day, we'll walk farther perhaps... but today we have walked together, and that is more than enough.

In the peace of Christ,

John

My Bride

This morning during prayer time, I read about my bride.

Today's readings were wonderful for me.  As we read about the descendants of Levi, the heritage of that house of Israel, and the descendants who fulfilled it, I found myself praying for my own children, and celebrating before the Lord the heritage He has given in their wonderful little lives.  I prayed for them individually, praised God for them, and proceeded to read the rest of the day's Scriptures.  As I journeyed through, I came to Proverbs 19:14... and the face of my bride filled my mind.

"House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord." (Prov. 19:14, NASB)

I waited many years for Penny, because I had from an early age discerned God's calling on my life into the clergy.  I had read from my earliest days about the paths of the Lord's clergy, and of the Bible's standards of a Godly wife.  In the end, I had determined from the time of my youth either to find that person whom God had set aside to work with me, live along side of me, and celebrate life together, praying that He had prepared just such a woman, or to live out my days in this temporal life in the sole intimate companionship of the Lord.  The day I met her, my soul jumped with fireworks.  A woman of beauty, of joy, of strength, and as the Proverbs said today, of prudence, or understanding, stood before me and suddenly worked along side of me!

Far beyond the blessings of this world, are the blessings of a good wife; and such are the blessings which God has attended unto me.

May my children, and their children to them be so blessed, and may the blessings of my God be visited continuously upon the bride who fulfills the heart of my youth and the joy of my grey.

Pax Christi,

John