Category Archives: Nostalgia

Thanking You, Right Here In The Middle

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Before the celebration is over, right here in the middle of it, I want to thank the Lord, the Giver of all these blessings.

Thank you for hearing my request years and years ago for Christian education for our children, and for providing it. We had to sweat for it, but You said, ‘Yes!’ Thank you.

Thank you for the layers of love my children’s grandparents supply. They are a fountainhead, a safety net, an extra covering, a heritage, givers of chocolate and family stories.

Thank you for the end of the school year and a chance to be reminded how much I love my students. And, for that matter, thank you for 16 – 18 year olds. Wow! What precious creations.  What energy and zeal. What ability and talent. What generosity and compassion.

Thank you for spring beauty, for setting sun turning green leaves gold, for the recent graduate, headphoned and playing soccer in the backyard.

Thank you for the college girl heading back to the mountain to work for the summer, rolling north and east on a full tank of gas from her Memaw and Papaw and on a new set of tires from her dad. I can’t orchestrate everything perfectly for her, but she has a job and a home and money for groceries. And she knows we love her. Thank you!

Thank you for the first born, the working girl, office clothes on a hanger in the car, heading back early, early to get to work on time, and for the chance for me to fix her coffee and boxed lunch complete with napkin-note reminiscent of elementary school. Thank you that we don’t really have to say goodbye to their childhood years – we can live them in little ways their whole lives! Thank you.

Thank you for Mom on the couch beside me, here for a long visit. Thank you that we speak the same language. Thank you for the way she loves all her children and grandchildren. Thank you.

Thank you for our church that has loved and raised our children alongside us, going far beyond the vow they took at the children’s baptisms to “assist the parents in the nurture of this child.”  Thank you for each face and each soul and that you knew we need each other.

Thank you that tomorrow morning, you will meet me on the back porch for the luxury of an unrushed quiet time. If that is all I had to be thankful for, it would be enough.

Thank you for whatever lies ahead for the graduate.  And for your word preached this morning reminding me that this will be a chance to trust you in new ways, to choose your way, to expand your kingdom by planting our feet in new places and claiming those places for you! Whatever that looks like, thank you for the privilege of being a warrior in the grandest of battles – pushing back the fall and spreading your glory to the ends of the earth.

Thank you for beauty and for the urge and time to create it. Use me!

Thank you, Lord.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
    and his wonderful deeds for mankind, 
for he satisfies the thirsty
    and fills the hungry with good things.
Psalm 107: 8, 9

Honey Rock Farm

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I grew up in Louisiana in a house with a name.  The McClendons built the house under a canopy of Spanish moss and named it Honey Rock Farm.  When they moved up the hill and built farther back in the woods, we bought Honey Rock, chickens and all.

We were not farmers of any kind.  In fact most of our time was spent passing one another on the six miles of Lee Road heading into town to our fast-food jobs or to Campus Life events or to endless school days in the portable trailers on Three Rivers Road.

But if a farmer is one who loves his land, then we were farmers of a sort.  Every one of us looks back at Honey Rock days with a sigh.  They were 13 acres of beautiful. This poem was written in 1991 shortly after we left Honey Rock:

Around Honey Rock Farm

The gravel track
Runs past the barn and scrabbling chickens,
Just past the oaks along a bygone fence,
And forms an ellipsis.

The brown house, though on stilts
Against the rain, rocks low
Under an arch of oak and pine.

Brown boards on the walkway, gone
A permanent dust-yellow from pollen,
Lead on around the house.

Tall pines ring the pond
And hide the scrubby island
And the square, wooden duck house.

Sweet olive scent slips around
The back porch and relaxes, crepe-swathed
On a wrought-iron chair.

The green swing on its oak-driven pegs
Brushes the wood pile
And sways in an azalea breeze.

And the gravel track
Runs past the barn and scrabbling chickens,
Just past the mailboxes,
And joins with the blacktop.

Memory teaches.  The Word teaches.  Honey Rock got its name from this morning’s reading:

“And with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”  Psalm 81:16

If I let Him, He would satisfy me, fill me, with the honeyest of honeys.  He is the honey-giver, the mead-maker, and He sighs, “Oh, that you would believe me!”  I try other honeys.  They do not satisfy.  The honey that satisfies, the honey He offers, is His voice in my ear:

“How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth”  Psalm 119:103.

Lord, today I open wide my mouth for honey from the rock.  By your Spirit let this prayer cover me until this day’s sun sets.

I believe You.

~