Skip to main content

Door to Door

"Goodbye!"
"One hug more."
"See you in a few days!"

We pulled out of the driveway, weighted down with two car top carriers, honking, waving to cousins.

"Goodbye!"

Over Virginia mountains. Weaving through truck traffic, recording license plates, reading, sleeping.

And when darkness falls, we leave the highway to the trucks and wind over a ribbon of country roads. John navigates, scatters direction-covered Post-Its, shuffles and reoganizes. We grope tentatively through inky night, stop to read road signs.

"We're almost there!"
" This is the road. Look for house numbers." Eyes squint and strain.

"10057. Almost." Headlights seek treasure, family, at 11164 Frog Hollar Lane.

"Come back!"
"Back up! You missed us!" A flock of children crows from porch and yard.

We do back up, thread though exuberant greeters, burst from the car, trailing empty water bottles and stuffed animals.

"You're here!"
"Goodness, you've grown!"
"We've been waiting for you all day!" Words puff in frosty air, squeeze between warm hugs.
"Come in! Come in!"

A tangle of cousins, aunts, uncles, we step out of the dark into the puddle of light spilling from doorway to porch.

"We're so glad you're here!"

And we are too, glad to be in the warm welcoming embrace of those we love.
Labels:

Comments

Xandra@Heart-of-Service said…
Oh, it's so good to be in the warm circle of family again, isn't it? Have a Merry Christmas!

Xandra
December 25, 2008 at 11:34 AM
God's girl said…
I felt like I was there with you! Merry Christmas!
Ang
December 25, 2008 at 5:04 PM
Amy said…
Does this mean we are in the same state right now? Any chance you'd like to have a stop over in Chatt-town? We'd love to have you!!! Any time!! The front porch light is always on for you!
Love you lots!
Amy
December 27, 2008 at 8:53 PM
Sarah said…
Hi Kate - Hope you guys had a great time. I thought of the all fun and confusion we were missing out on all day on Christmas. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

sem
December 27, 2008 at 9:49 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Child's Story Bible

I have recommended the following book so frequently that I think a post is in order so that I may recommend it to the world. In the early nineteen hundreds, when my grandparents were growing from children to adults, when they were meeting and marrying and making ends meet during the Depression, Catherine F. Vos was at work. She had been out shopping, looking for the perfect children’s story bible. The Christian bookstores of the day must have had the same unsatisfactory fare for young children that they carry today. Her standards were high as she was the wife of a professor of theology and she could not find what she was looking for. So she started to write. The results of her writing, The Child’s Story Bible was first published in stages between the years of 1934-1936. It’s been republished in every decade since that time. My grandparents had my parents and they met and married and had me and somewhere along the way I acquired a Bible. I read from the book of Proverbs from time to t
10 comments
Read more

A Sure Foundation

The kids and I have been nibbling our way through the book of Isaiah for months. It's our first venture as a family into the prophets. We wrestle with the message. It's a book for our times. Isaiah wrote to his people, the people of Judah, at the dawn of a long season of international turmoil. Assyria ran rough shod over the Middle East, followed in quick succession by Babylon, Persia and Greece. According to Isaiah, each empire was brought down because of they were quick to gloat over their achievements but failed to give God the time of day. The sin of haughty eyes he calls it. I brown the meat and simmer the stew and slice a crusty loaf of Italian bread but do not bow my head before I eat. It's the little red hen complex. I ground the wheat and kneaded the dough and sliced the carrots. I don't take into account that I didn't make the carrots or the wheat grow. I forget to be thankful that there are groceries in the pantry and healthy children around the table.
15 comments
Read more

Finding Rest: Part Two (Scroll down three posts to read this story from the beginning)

Why share such a personal story ? I share it because I have talked to enough women to know that underneath the makeup and the matching outfits and the small talk that make up our exteriors, we are a broken people. To pretend otherwise creates isolation. Thoughtful honesty creates closer relationships and greater understanding. When we share the way God works in the difficult things of life it encourages first oneself and then others. For some of us, the pieces have been patched and restored and there is wholeness where there was none before. But some of us are walking wounded, barely hanging on and wondering if there is hope. We have a choice. We can either be completely shattered by bitterness, depression and anger or we can lay the fragments before the One who can take the sharp slivers and jagged pieces and create a beautiful, productive life. Here is the conclusion to John's story. When John was ten, he was sullen and moody and difficult and so was I. But I was no longer proud.
28 comments
Read more