Splashing Around in the Ordinary

Even before Carolyn was born, I started writing letters to her. I've decided to share excerpts from some of them with you. They are each special in their own ways -- but as I'm reminded of things I've written to her and things I've had to learn myself, I'd like to share those thoughts with you.

From April 9, 2002 (Carolyn was 7 months old.)

"I know that you will probably never know (or remember) your Grandmother and Grandaddy. They are two amazing people -- amazingly ordinary. They fell in love, married, started a family -- and lived out their lives, content in the ordinary. Never ashamed that they didn't do something "great" by the world's standards. Instead, they thought it was great to just love their children and grandchildren -- and, yes, great-grandchildren. We went to see them today, and their faces lit up to see you! They love you, sweetness. You are their hope. Not their hope in that you'll do something "great" or perform some incredible feat. You are the hope that their lives have made a difference even to people who will never really know them -- people like you. Don't we all really want that? Splash around in the "ordinary" blessings of God -- because nothing God does is ordinary."

Today was a perfectly ordinary day -- or should I say an ordinarily perfect day. Hummingbirds checked in regularly at their feeder just outside the kitchen window while I watched, cutting up a watermelon inside. Green tomatoes lined the windowsill, and my good and faithful husband passed by in increasingly frequent intervals as he circled the house on the mower with Caleb, clad in dark sunglasses, "driving." Do you think God just wishes we would be content in these ordinary days? That we would see that "every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights . . ."? That we would stop looking for something else?

I would love to look out that kitchen window and see a beautiful mountain scene. Maybe even pop open the window and feel a whisper of cool float in -- even in July! I would love to then watch several months later as the leaves turn crimson and golden while I make pumpkin muffins and light jack-o-lanterns. And wouldn't it be amazing to stare out my kitchen window and watch snow flurries drift to the ground, anticipating the laughing and squealing I'd hear when the kids got into it? And, oh, to feel that cold mountain winter turn to the promise of spring -- and see the mountain laurel come alive. That would be extraordinary. But, it's not my ordinary.

My ordinary view is a now-empty, above-ground pool backdropped by a line of cedar trees -- that, by the way, never turn a different color. But my ordinary is amazing all the same. God gave me a wonderful husband, three healthy (and occassionally happy) children, two amazing step-kids, and family all around -- literally. And on days like this, I'm able to see that my ordinary is "abundantly above all that I could ask or think. . . " And if this ordinary view is all that I ever see from my window, I'll still have had a kitchen filled with love, and laughter, and learning -- and I will not have missed anything!