Of dirt roads and feeling full

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He and I, we tend to make best memories down dirt roads.

No surprise to the people who know us and love us and have seen us then and see us now and have walked with us in times between.  The ones who have been with us this long-lovely-hard-wonderful-up and down-growing up living- it- out time.

They know our heart for the woods, the way we burst-joy over catching the first Spring-fresh trout of the season, how we start pacing the floor when the air itches cool and November deer are moving, how nothing feels so good to us as a sweet summer August night under a moonlit sky when I can hold his hand and laugh too loud.

I love to throw my bare feet up on the dash; to the expected roll of his eyes and roll down all the windows despite the dust.

I love a perfect date night riding the roads to nowhere of vintage George Strait mixed with a little Marshall Tucker Band and two fishing poles right before dusk when blackflies and peace are equally fierce.

I love how sometimes a road impassable the year before opens up and beckons new adventures…

and how sometimes the paths I have bumped over a million times thicken dense and close up tight, so I have no choice but to try some other road worn-traveled to others, but raw and untouched to me.

I love how life leads across a map of trails like these.

Sometimes I think I kind of know where they are going to end. The roads.

And sometimes I don’t know they are even going to. End.

But when I’m with him, it’s ok like that.

:::: When I’m with Him, it’s ok like that.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go…”  +Mark 9

And the roads……..

Some end at my favorite lake surrounded by sunset and some of my favorite people with laughter hanging on star-strings on a summer evening.

Some end with a meandering after a smooth tar beginning til they turn to spinning gravel and then to grass and then bounce and jostle slow til the path fades away into the silent woods like it never existed at all.

There’s those that just. End. Abrupt.

Some lead to some unexpected blessing, a road to things beautiful and enchanting, that I had never seen anything so feasting before, ending by a stream spilling refreshment and bubbles under the coolest shade of hemlocks with yellow shafts of sunlight shining and you know that somewhere, just somewhere there must be a fairy sitting on a pink lady slipper dripping with dew.

Some end up somewhere unexpected and jolting and I am not even sure how we arrived there.

But, it all…

it all…

Fills me, somehow.

…and the hungry soul He fills with good things… +Psalm 107

All the roads that lead to fulfilling that one thing, that one thing…

His purpose for us.

As I have planned, so it shall be, and as I have purposed, so it shall stand… +Isaiah 14

And I am content with that. I must be. Because I must trust Him down all of these roads.

And The Lord gave me this pretty amazing husband. The one made just for me. The one who leads me and accompanies me and guides me and walks beside me down every pathway. The one who rides all the roads with me.

The one who turns up the music and plows through the dirt and doesn’t mind the mud and keeps us moving and hunts for happy and discovers new paths and brings me along and clears the way when the brambles stick and holds my hand while he drives.

And that, by His grace…

we can trust Him down every way we walk.

Because He,

He

is walking with us.

I pray we remember that.

“Stand by the roads, and look,
    and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
    and find rest for your souls…”

+Jeremiah 6

Music.

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Her eyes welled to brimming when she didn’t have music class today.

The day was warm, thawed out and heaving a lifting fog on an odd-weathered January morning. I tried to focus on pictures of glistening drips of sunlight caressing a branch that days before was burdened with heavy snow and heavier ice. And I couldn’t quite focus in. To really see its resilience in the sparkle of the sun bearing down on the winter-beat earth. The way the branch gladly bounced each time a shining drop teetered on the edge and broke free to the ground.

Instead I tried to drink it into my self.

The beauty of the second before the shadows moved just so slight and the brilliance shifted from the trees. The light. The warmth. The glow of the mist blanketing the rays. I turned around and walked back ginger-like and stiff-legged, afraid to slip and nervous I’d forget.

Kids in the car, grocery list, snacks made and woodstove fed full, we melted out of our driveway and off to school. She was excited. To see her friends, to sing and giggle, to learn notes that she sometimes can’t remember but belts out with confidence in her voice that her momma loves to hear. I dropped her off at the door and drove the circle to park and scooped her brother and had plans to meet her in the building because I spent too much time snapping morning-glory moments a while before. But she met me on the tar.

Head down and blue eyes blue.

“Oh, Momma, there’s no music today.”

And my heart said I know.

And we came home after errands and library and a lollipop and she settled in to her studies and I hung laundry and answered messages and thought about dinner and sat down up-ended and down-right hardened and tired and I listened, but I couldn’t hear it either.

And my eyes filled and my lashes fluttered wet and I finished dishes and got ready for the next thing, but I looked around for something to dance to.

Because I know it’s there.

I just can’t breathe it in right now.

I hear it when they laugh and it echoes smiling in this heart of mine. I see it when I pick up my camera and capture the way a petal falls folded on the stem. I read it when David unabashedly praises the One who made him. I feel it when a lovely momma I know spoke deep encouragement in my ear.

I know it’s there.

Somewhere.

The melodies that wrap me snug to Him and secure in faith and keep these two left feet waltzing.

But I can’t seem to touch it right now.

But I know it’s there.

And I will trust that. That it’s there.

While it’s quiet.

I will trust Him.

While it’s silent.

Today.Tomorrow.

I will wait.

For the music.

Be merciful to me O God,  for in You my soul takes refuge… I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me… my heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody… Awake O harp and lyre… I will sing praises to You for Your steadfast love is great to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds… Psalm 57

all things new

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Ice came coating, preserving and fast and unrelenting to wintry new beginnings.

Sapping light and energy. 

Stuck in December over here in January.

Stiff and creaking slow into

now.

Not giving and not yielding.

This ice fell fierce and release seems asleep.

A static state of deep freeze on slumbering branches and unique flakes falling beautiful suspended:: glacier cinched.

When beneath, there is breathing::: still.

Life sap still rallying::: still glaze-covered but

still quietly percolating

heartwood warm

when new births seem daunting for favoring the age- old,

and the sparkle of the sun sweet- dripping sequins on fresh, spotless snowblankets traded for the tight- gripping familiar

appreciating the beauty of the storm,

and softening to a hope- flowing burgeoning spring.

Be joyful in hope…      ::: Romans 12:12