Dear Becky,
Summer is winding down. It has been a good summer for me – a lot like the summers when you were a girl, before I started working out of our home. I’ve been blessed to be with Amity and Dara four days of most weeks and blessed by a dear friend who enjoys the girls on Fridays.

It has been an eventfully uneventful summer. The girls and I have gone fishing several times … I love it! I enjoyed fishing as a girl and haven’t managed to make it happen much over the course of my adult years. Then comes Dara daily into my life. Dara had some money to spend a while back and when Jacob and the girls visited Cabelas, she spotted a fishing pole and had to have it. Hooray! Amity borrowed an old, broken down pole I have, I grabbed the pole Steve got me for Christmas eons ago, and off we went to local ‘kid-friendly’ stocked ponds. Dara is the fish-catching queen and Amity and I plug along behind her, lucky to get any at all. But what fun!!!

We enjoyed Grandmapa Camp together with Joni and Kristin and Helen and Patrick. We went to Enchanted Forest, spent a day at the coast, ate Moe’s, swam at Otter Beach, visited area parks, ate Burger King with Grandpa, and just plain enjoyed each other for several days. These cousins love each other TONS and delight to be together.

The girls are growing up, plain and simple. Amity is a thinker – so ready for sixth grade (can you believe it?). She loves being outside, rough and tumble play, living in the river, making her own way and proving who she is. Dara is an engager – she loves being with people, orchestrating rich and detailed stories into complex lives played out by her dolls, cuddling with those she loves, she is also so ready for fourth grade. They spent hours and hours at the Fair this year, learning about pigs and hold the hope of raising their own 4-H pigs next year, a great goal!

It is clear that they still miss you, but also clear that they are going to be OK. I see the hand of God in their lives in so many ways. He sees their hurt, He is concerned for them and He has come down to care for them in the many blessings He provides every day.

Early this year some dear friends gave us a gift certificate to a local nursery. Their intent was that we find something for our yard that would somehow speak to us of you. We held off on that, waiting until our landscape project was done. Yesterday we went looking and decided upon a wind chime! You knew how much I enjoyed wind chimes and I still have the chime in our backyard that you and your family gave me several years ago. The new ‘Becky’ chime hangs under our front eaves now. This morning I sat enjoying time with the Lord right by our open front window. The early morning was quiet, but as time went by breezes began to stir the chimes into sweet music. What a wonderful gift! The chimes waterfall into joyful melodies and I remember the cascade of your laughter both as a little girl and a grown woman. I miss you, but I also sense your joy and the joy set before me.

Life is good – even when it is bad, but I’m more eager than ever to step into the reality of eternity and see Jesus face-to-face. And oh the joy of embracing you once again!

Can’t wait to see you!

Love,
Mom

Wind Chimes – a gift from dear friends!

WINDCHIMES

Sweet song
Stirred by breeze
A single note
Here … there
Now cascades of joy
On currents of air

Peace, tranquility
Always waiting
The next breeze or gale
Wind’s breath comes when it will
How it stirs
I will wait to hear

Again breeze and sweet music
I’m ready
Stir me Lord
To Your joy