i rarely resist a change in season, and most especially not when it is fall. fall is always the most divine of seasons when i feel refreshed by crisp cool air and awed by a rainbow of leaves. the leaves each take their turn to hold on to their boldest color before they fall. this time though, i want to pause or better yet, rewind. back to the season of sun and warmth. and more importantly rewind to the nanosecond when we were feeling optimistic, curious and adventurous. honestly, now it feels foolish, unknown and scary. and not the fun, BOO kind of scary that is looming in the Halloween season but the OH **** kind of scary where i have no idea what tomorrow brings.

and here i am writing from Vancouver at my sister's house as she and Aaron are in their 7th hour of pre-op appointments for their sweet baby girl's open heart surgery next week. I could hardly wait to get our girls down last night so i could spend the next few hours holding Beatrice. To me, she's perfect. She's unreal with sweetness and what seems like joy even though you see her work so hard to breathe, sleep and eat with her rapid and irregular heartbeat. you can feel all the pitter patter in your hands and you wish so bad she had no pain and a big strong heart. maybe soon. maybe real soon. she heads in for her stitching and mending on Monday. she has enormously brave parents and a sister who pays no nevermind to the tube out her nose or the regular vomiting. that's her BEE-A as she says it.

and as i talked with Amy last night and we think about how each day we shun the life of fretting. it gets us no where fast. and we read verses together claiming over and over to BE STILL and KNOW, to trust. the whole stillness thing really gets me, that is neither our cup of tea, but there are no instructions to panic, scheme, work harder, do more to FIX this life. there are SO many more instructions about stillness, repentance, rest, love, waiting, love. So, i'm still. begging fret to stay outside and longing for all strokes of peace as we each head into days of unknown, of pain, of control-less-ness.

we laughed last night as we recalled a time with our mom when we had moved to greensboro where we were talking about daily bread. that God would never let us go hungry, he provides richly for us. at which point (and i was in 8th grade here), that i told them i thought we were getting moldy bread. it gave us a good laugh. Really in remembering we both sleep easier recalling that we have spent our little lifetime calling out to this same God and for our lifetime He responds and cares for us.