I stand outside pointing the big green water hose at my freshly planted mums. The smell of pumpkin bread swirls out the back door and beneath my nose, carrying with it warmth and wonder. Three precious blessings giggle in the background, stripping off socks and shoes so that they can run through the frigid water on what will probably be our last warm day for a while. I can hear the crack, crack of old aspen limbs as my man breaks them between his hands and sets them aside for outdoor firewood in the coming months. The wind shakes the leaves above, making them glimmer in greens, golds, purples, reds, and oranges – sort of the same way the sea glimmers beneath the sun in every shade of blue and green.

Wonder. All of it. Wonder.

I perch on the edge of my seat and consider that we have been here one year. A whole year of working, planning, praying, and living. We really, really moved here, planted here. It’s the first time in my whole adult life that I’ve done that on purpose. And, as it turns out, it works out nicely to invest in a place. I listen in gratitude as my pastor, our dear friend, lays bare his heart before our whole, ever-growing congregation, and I feel grateful that our families have been given the rare gift of bare bone honesty that looks exactly the same in privacy as it does on the platform. I weep because I sense how much all of this matters.

Wonder. All of it. Wonder.

I stand in the kitchen, my little walking man (as of today) toddling about at my feet, gurgling out syllables and enjoying a brief reprieve from the teething. I brown meat and chop onions and watch Parenthood. I feel grateful and I mourn because it never goes away for me, the way I yearn for my family. Sunday evenings always feel the hardest – like they were made for eating cereal and doing nothing with the people you love the most. Except a lot of those people are a half-country drive away for me, so that sort of natural, easy like Sunday morning (or in this case evening) togetherness just isn’t a part of our lives. I still ache for it sometimes. Sometimes for more than two days in a row. And I smash my finger in the back door, say a lot of ugly words, and cry like a baby – because my heart is aching and a smashed finger is just enough tangible pain to open the floodgates and release it all.
The interesting thing is that the pain is no less present than it has ever been, but the joy stands strong and proud right beside it now. They live together, and I am amazed by that.

Wonder. All of it. Wonder.

This was all in a day. In one single twenty-four hour period, we have the opportunity to see, to experience, to know so very much. But we – I – miss it more often than I’d like to admit. I feel cranky that I have to cook dinner while everyone else enjoys this lovely weather on their bikes. I let overwhelmed function as my buzz word and my crutch. I see everything as a burden when, in reality, all of it is chocked full of wonder. All of it is a bundle of precious gifts as God does is work of grace in my heart.

What has left you in wonder today?