Love plans a summer afternoon

I am sitting right now at a little yellow and blue plastic picnic table on the lowest level of the play fort. The two oldest girls are on the swings (the oldest with book in hand), our songbird is on the fort directly above me, and the little one is mimicking me - wiping off the picnic table so I could lay down my tablet, then patting me on the back and peering around me up into my face with a grin... now intrepidly climbing up to join the singing above me.

This was not on the agenda.

After lunch, I put the little one in bed for her nap and then loaded up the older three for errands and shopping.  The plan was to stop at home to unload from the first round, have a little snack, grab the little one then head back out again for round two of shopping.  Given what we have to accomplish tomorrow, this was a good plan, though not one that would be very much fun for the girls.

Thankfully, the lure of a magnificent summer afternoon and a watermelon that has been begging to be eaten intervened.

I enjoy the challenge of capturing experience in words, but at this moment I feel that I cannot do justice to the color and wonder of this here and now.

This gift of afternoon and breeze and shade and light.

The green and gold of meadow, azure and white of sky.  Of space and time with hints of eternity.

Seeing the girls soak in this summer grace, hearing the voices at play (or the sound of pages being turned - now from the hammock).


This would not have been had we not stopped, laid aside the agenda.


It's true, I have no meat for dinner.  (This would have seemed like an insurmountable obstacle a few months ago, but thanks to entertaining a vegetarian weekly for three months and thanks to a garden bountifully producing squash and cucumbers, I can deal.)

It's true, the house is in a state of disarray that I will not let fully register in my mind lest it steal from this bliss... this foretaste.

It's true, all that was not done today will pile up on all that needs to be done tomorrow. But in this, I share the sentiments of Scarlett O'Hara. "Fiddledee-dee! I won't think about that today. I'll think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day!"

Yes, Lord willing, another day.

Another opportunity to lay aside my plans, give the gift of time to someone else and in doing so find the needs of my heart - needs I could not even articulate - being met.  Finding myself soaked in His love.

How often, Lord, our grateful eyes
Have seen what Thou hast done,
How often does Thy love surprise
From dawn to set of sun.


How often has a gracious rain

On Thine inheritance,

When it was weary, wrought again

An inward radiance.

Thou Who upon the heavens dost ride,

What miracle of love

Brings Thee more swiftly to our side

Than even thought can move?

Our love is like a little pool,

Thy love is like the sea,

O beautiful, O wonderful,

How noble Love can be.

-Amy Carmichael