Among our special weeks this summer were when Emily and Christopher visited. Emily came in late June. Christopher came in early August.
The highlights during Christopher's week included many opportunities to see wildlife (and especially birds, including puffins that seemed to walk and then run on water before lifting off in flight) during trips from Homer and Seward, not to mention eating fish and chips on the spit. The highlights during Emily's week included a trip to Denali National Park (we got a peek of the peak of the highest mountain in North America), walking on a glacier and enjoying a meal on the roof of the 49th State Brewing Company.
Needless to say, both weeks created new and wonderful memories which we will be playing over and over in our minds for a long time. While pictures help freeze special moments in time, nothing can replace the real time joy of seeing and feeling their real time joy. Part of a poem at one of the marshes we visited helps capture this:
A little boy skips stones
across the outlet
as if all that mattered
was the moment between
each weightless bounce. (Wendy Erd)
Thank God for the moments in life when nothing else matters, except what is going on right then, right there, right in front of us! Such moments come and go quickly, although sometimes we are lucky and they linger. For sure, they do not last forever, but they give us the strength and motivation to keep going, confident that there will be other such times in the future.
And what keeps us wondering and waiting with eager expectation is that such moments often happen without any of our planning but appear as surprise gifts, already opened, already bringing us pure joy.
I have said these things so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete (John 15:11)
John
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