Morning Reflection

Driving home after dropping kids off at school this morning, I was thinking about how incredibly blessed we are to live where we live. The sun is out in a clear Colorado blue sky, setting the red rock outcrops along our little piece of Rampart Range on fire. It is still a summer green here, though fall is definitely in the air. We just had about 25% of our annual rainfall in a 36 hour period, so wildflowers are having a hay day.

I get more time for these reflections now, since all the kids are in school, mostly full time. I am not sure how productive they are, mostly just meandering thoughts and taking in what is around me, with an occasional nod of deep gratitude to God for what I see and realize. Whether it is the advancing years of my life, or just a more relaxed pace of life here in the mountains, I find I am taking things in more and not necessarily doing anything about them.

I am enjoying doing things that have been put off for years, such as organizing family photos for scrap booking, writing real letters (you know, the kind you put in an envelope, stamp, and mail...), and taking showers. It feels good.

Having a rather large family means I will always be occupied with something or someone (thank God!), but now it just seems I will be able to think about it a little more. Was I on auto pilot before, just doing and not thinking? Not really. We are always busy in one way or another, despite our best efforts to occasionally "do nothing". But neither did we mindlessly follow a religious bent or principle. Having a large family is not an ideology or religious mandate. When I think about it now, I see that all the years of childbirth (9 children in 21 years), nursing babies, homeschooling, moving 12 times, traveling, volunteer work, and keeping house and home together have been a continuous stream of consciousness of one unifying reality: Life is a beautiful gift of love from God. Pete and I decided early in our marriage that we would allow that life to flow through us and be expressed in the children that came along as a result of our love. However it works out from year to year, we are returning the gift of our lives as married people to the Giver, in service to each other and our children. No heroic virtue here, just living out one thought, one decision, one love. One day at a time.