Saturday, April 19, 2014

Life Is Beautiful

Once again, I find myself in a season of life that is too busy, and I'm falling down on the Blog Challenge I issued myself and my students.  There are so many things going on, and I keep meaning to grab a few minutes and write about them here, but I just can't seem to find any spare ones.  I hate it when my schedule gets like this.  I'm grading some really exciting final stories from my students, which I love doing, but it really does eat up a lot of my time, and my chance to do my own crafting and creating and musing goes out the window.

My husband and my son spent ten days together in China last month.  What an amazing opportunity!  What a special memory!  I had hoped to post some pictures and some thoughts about that, but it flew by, and now it is a month later.

This Easter weekend, my husband and I are celebrating 22 years of marriage, spending our wedding anniversary apart from each other for the first time in our marriage.  (I think, but I can't be sure, which shows you how much of a not-big-deal it is--or isn't!  We can survive being apart on an important day!)

But it was also just my father-in-law's 80th birthday, and I had so wanted to be able to be there with him to celebrate that.  Perhaps it was its being juxtaposed against our wedding anniversary... or perhaps it was the nostalgia of not being with the rest of my family there in NC for the celebrating... perhaps it is the ever-present awareness that my sweet mother-in-law is no longer with us... Whatever the inspiration, I am feeling nostalgic to the point of weepy this morning.

But alas, student papers call, and the screaming roar of editorial deadlines is ever before me, and so I must leave the musing to another time.  Oh, may I not miss one moment of the glories of life--both the beautiful, easy moments and the painful, poignant ones--even as I do miss the opportunity to get it all down on a blog!

Happy birthday, Opa.  Happy anniversary, my love.  And happy happy-sad day, world.  Thank you, Lord, for the beauty of life.  Thank you for beauty from ashes and for the certainty of Your loving Presence, which walks with us through it all.  And thank you for the amazing reality of Your death and resurrection, which we celebrate this weekend.  May the reality of it--the truth of it--be ever in my heart and ever on my lips!

*Entry 4, April - The 12 Months of 2014 Blog Challenge
The title is the title of many a song, but I had no particular one in mind when I chose it.