I cooked Rebekah a steak tonight. That's what she wanted for her Valentine's Day meal. I look at pictures like this and can't help but remember our first meal as a family in our hotel room in Russia... She would have eaten a mud pie if we had set it before her. Seems like a lifetime ago, but it was only about five years.
But tonight she wanted steak because the girl knows what's good and she got one, a big juicy one. And I was most impressed when she manage to find room in her stomach for nearly all of it. To this very day I still love watching her eat a big meal. The table of plenty, amen and amen...
It's fitting and routine to celebrate in our home with relative frequency, because with the naturally passing time and fair amount of effort none of us are where we were almost five years ago now, and I continue to be thankful for that.
This morning I took the girls down to Toomer's corner to see new oak trees that were being planted. The two that used to stand there unfortunately were destroyed and had to be removed... You heard the story... Don't worry, we all went and said goodbye.
Every community has it's own special landmarks and traditions, Auburn, Alabama, my home, is rich in both. I still point out the spot where I proposed to mommy, and where I worked up the nerve to kiss her right square on the lips for the first time. We have history here, and our history is now their's.
Our calendar is always full of special events no matter the season. Today is just another penny in our memory bank of special moments. I wanted my little girls to be able to say years from now they were there when things were made new and right and traditions were planted in fresh soil.
It's hard for me not to turn the simple events of steaks for supper and the planting of trees as symbolic reminders of the two little lives I've been blessed to watch grow. Surely we are all rich in such uncommon Graces if we stop to count our blessings.
The last five years have brought many changes and the next five will bring many more. And there will be times that the old must be painfully and carefully pruned away and the new must be nourished and given every possible chance to take root in good soil. It's the nature of this life.
Thankfully, Spring is coming and even in this mild winter I welcome it's arrival. Things grow easier in the warm weather. Some seasons I enjoy, some I don't. Sometimes we eat steak, sometimes we starve for hope. Sometimes we grow, sometimes we have to cut it all down and start over, like it or not. It's life isn't it? It's not easy, but it is desperately precious.
If you are being pruned, Bless you. If you have just been replanted, run your roots deep like a storm is coming. And if you are hungry, buy some ribeyes next time they go on sale. As Rebekah, my oldest little girl, will tell you, they are worth the wait.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. - 2 Corinthians 5:17
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