Dear Reader:

When I returned home yesterday afternoon from my four-day stay with Mandy and the children…the sun was finally breaking through the clouds and in spite of groceries in the back of the car…I found myself going to my camellia/sasanqua bush and cutting two blooms off…to replace the ones that had faded since I had been gone.

There is nothing I dislike worse than returning home to dead flowers in the house. After putting them in Kaitlyn’s flower vase…I sat down to read my mail and there was a beautiful card from Joan Turner. The name of it (information on the back of the card) was: Birds and Camellia Bushes in Flower. 

How appropriate I thought… so I placed the card in front of the flowers and took the picture. I was home with a nice God’s Wink Welcome!

Isn’t it wonderful to feel needed? As I was leaving yesterday… Mandy said that she couldn’t have done it without me….(I think she could have…she is so organized) but it sure made me feel good to hear it. And to have time just to spend with Mandy and catch up with her life now…with all its changes and challenges….new baby and return to work. It can be a “hard-knot life…for sure.”

Before I left last Wednesday to go to Mandy’s ….I attempted some organization myself…stacking different books by favorite authors close to the computer so I don’t have to go searching for them each day when I write the blog.

It just so happened that when I turned the computer back on…and glanced at the books around me…Madeleine L’Engle’s 40-Day Journey was sitting on top.

I adore L’Engle’s writings…so down to earth… she makes mundane sound perfectly marvelous in her relationship with God.

As I casually glanced through the devotional…one paragraph literally jumped out at me. It was a “palpable passage” (as I like to call them)…a passage so intense it can be almost felt or touched.

…”The job of the teacher (Jesus) is to help us remember all that we have forgotten…One of the great sorrows which came to human beings when Adam and Eva left the Garden was the loss of memory, memory of all that God’s children are meant to be.”

The example she gave for this idea was the story of Peter walking across the water to meet Jesus’s out-stretched hands. “As long as he didn’t remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it.“

I stopped here with my typing and took a break…I found myself walking back out to my ‘garden of grace’ as the sun’s rays sank lower in the sky…beautiful pink/orange streaks shooting over it.

At first glance everything appears dormant…even dead. But underneath the black, prickly mums are green patches of new life starting to make their appearances and bulbs planted last fall are breaking through the ground.

How short our memories are of what lies beneath what the visible eye can’t see…  life doesn’t cease to exist just because colors are faded or leaves are wilted. Plants, I think have better memories than people…because they do  remember who they are and the life that awaits below and above the ground.

So until tomorrow…as Madeleine L’Engle concludes… “We are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and grace.” 

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* When I try to remember what all happened in Mt. Pleasant for four days…I struggle…so thank you Jesus for any help You can throw my way…me, myself, and my memory… thank you.

Thank goodness for photos which spark the old neurons….

Eva Cate and I slept together so I didn’t have any problem getting up…at 6:30…she is like her own personal alarm clock …she is up and at’em. (She and Jake were going to wear their new “monkey” outfits…a one piece for Jake and a dress/pants for Eva Cate. She was very excited and ready to go!)

Thursday night Rutledge joined us for a PJ party…chicken nuggets and movie night…since Jake couldn’t join in the games…he just talked with mommy…

Rutledge to the rescue…bringing Eva Cate a tissue! Nuggets and Jake and the Neverland Pirates…a winning combination! (Every child loves trying on grandmother’s shoes….Jake loves Aunt Mollie/Mo Mo)

Thursday for lunch Mollie picked me up and we tried out the new restaurant (for us) on Shem Creek-Table and Tavern…beautiful warm day…beautiful view…and great food and company!

Friday I had Jake all to myself…so happy….what is it about a sleeping baby that puts one so at peace?…I just wanted to crawl in the crib with him and sleep away….we had fun!

Saturday (yesterday) was Jake’s four month birthday….Happy Birthday Jake! (Eva Cate can’t figure out how her little brother has caught up with her with birthdays….suppose it is confusing?) Jake just wanted to sing about it!

I am fading fast…..starting to feel like Jake with his monkey cap on….enough with this “monkeying around”….I am going to have a ‘long winter’s sleep’….without my little squirmy adorable bed partner Eva Cate.

*On Monday’s blog…want to share some comments with you….that were terrific while I was gone!