... and when he is old ...

"Hi, Mom," I hear. A man's voice, and not my son's, comes crackling through the phone.

I scooch up higher in bed, hoping the extra few inches will land me in that elusive current of "Yes, I can hear you now." It works.

We'd spoken earlier in the day, when his father and I had walked together down a long gray strip of gray in a tunnel of sun-flecked firs. He'd sounded cranky then. Bible college has its moments.

"Sorry about earlier," he tells me now. "There's a lot of warfare down here. I didn't mean to be so crabby."

Warfare. Like migrating birds and winds and well-wishes, warfare honors no borders. Its arms are long and unhindered, its claws hungry for flesh.

We swap war stories for a minute. And then my boy begins ministering. "Read Psalms 7, Mom. The whole thing." Without the benefit of his Bible, he quotes words that pierce and burrow, soothe and heal.

This is the child who once doubted. This is the boy I've dreamed giant dreams for, prayed mountainous prayers over.

"I'll be praying for you, Mom," he says, after we've spent the better part of an hour talking about God, and His goodness, our worship of Him, and the new work He's doing in our midst.

"Goodnight, honey," I tell them all ... the man he is this moment, the man he'll be tomorrow, and the boy still there--the boy who would fall asleep to my half-whispered songs.

Beautiful, beautiful
Jesus is beautiful
And Jesus makes beautiful things of my life

Carefully watching me
Causing my eyes to see
That Jesus makes beautiful things of my life

lullaby

"I want to go back," he said. So we made the right phone calls and bought a last-minute ticket to southern California (via Las Vegas).

His reasons were good. "I need to know I can do this. I need to finish." And he said he wanted God to break him. So though he'd left the Bible college campus a month shy of finishing his first semester, vowing to never go back, back he was going.

I helped him pack, cooked his favorite dinner, kissed him goodbye, and cried while Dave held me and we watched his friends drive him up our hill. The foursome planned to stay up all night in honor of Zac's departure, and then those same friends would take him to the airport Sunday morning after their usual Denny's breakfast.

Mark and Cathy Rich, my precious southern California friends, would meet him at the Orange County airport, feed him, shelter him for the night, and take him to Murrieta in time for registration. "Once he gets on that plane," I told Cathy, "I won't worry about a thing."

But that's when all the worrying begins.

The first leg is turbulent and full of sudden dives and screaming people. "I feel so sick," he tells me during his phone call from Las Vegas. I remember another flight, a long time ago, when he was little enough to pull in close during those turbulent dips and dives. "It will be okay," I'd told him then. He'd snuggled close, hiding his face in my side, trusting my promise.

This time, he'd made the flight alone.

"Not only that," the 18-year old Zac continues, "but my connecting flight is delayed." He doesn't know any of the new details, so I tell him to talk to someone at the counter and call Mark with the new pick-up information.

We say goodbye, but not long after, he calls again. "I'm so bored, Mom."

"Do you have any movies on your laptop, any games?"

No movies. And he reminds me that his laptop's chess game cheats, which makes him mad.

"Go grab a sports magazine at the gift shop," I suggest.

It had once been so easy, back when my bag of tricks contained crayons and coloring books, puzzles and picture books, finger puppets and Skittles.

"You'll be getting on that plane before you know it, honey," I say. "Maybe you can find a spot near the gate and take a nap."

From nowhere, Shawn Mullins begins to sing, heard only by me.

Everything's gonna be all right
Rockabye
I want to believe it.

But things get worse. After two hours on the tarmack, Zac's flight to Santa Ana is grounded due to engine trouble. They can't get him on another flight until the following evening. He can't find his luggage. They have no plans to put him in a hotel. And I'm a thousand miles away, and my arms aren't long enough to shake the unhelpful woman behind the counter and force her to care for my son.

Everything's gonna be all right
Rockabye

Dave takes over. We stay up for hours, making fruitless phone calls, waiting on hold, enduring three suspicious disconnects from "customer service." In the end, we cancel the second leg of his flight, find a bus that leaves Las Vegas around midnight, and instruct him on what to say when he approaches one of the waiting taxis outside the terminal.

"You'll be okay," I tell him.

But it's not over. The bus is full, and he has to wait until the very last second to learn that they found a spot for him. An hour into the drive, the bus breaks down. They have to wait on the side of the road for another two hours before a replacement bus arrives and loads up all the passengers and cargo. He winds up sitting next to a woman who keeps leaning on him. He temporarily loses his cell phone between the seats. He doesn't sleep for a second ... for the second night in a row.

When he tells me he's going to have to transfer buses at the LA greyhound terminal, my stomach lurches. We were there together once, when he was eight, and I was terrified of taking my eyes off of him. I didn't want him in that filthy place then, and I don't want him there now.

I'm powerless. I don't control the wind, or time, or circumstances. So I turn to the One who does. I like to think that around the same time that Zac looked up at the middle-of-the-night sky and whispered, "Well, God, You've got my attention," I was looking at my ceiling and whispering, "I can't protect him, Lord. I'm giving him back to You."

And when I do fall asleep, briefly, it's to a lullaby.

Everything's gonna be all right
Rockabye.

crazy

What do you do when you're eighteen and crazy about a girl who lives 655 miles away?

First, you talk your Volvo-owning friend into taking a road trip. Then you sell your X Box and your big screen TV (the one you just traded tires and rims for) to another friend for $400. Then you toss a hastily packed bag in the back of the Volvo, ask your parents to pray for you, and hit the road.

I prayed. I asked God to put a giant bubble around my son and send some road-trip angels along for the ride. And I asked that the girl I've never met would receive him kindly.

Zac called me a few minutes ago. "How's it going?" I asked. Those few words were a far cry from what I most wanted to ask. Are you tired? Have you slept yet? Are you guys keeping your eyes on the road? Any sign of angels?

"Well," he began, "it's been rough so far." He then launched into a play-by-play. "We come around a corner early this morning and find a deer carcass strewn all over the road."

"Did you hit it?"

"Just a piece. Then we run into a blizzard ... in California!" Clearly, he holds little memory of the unit study we did on the Donner Party back when he was a homeschooled seventh grader.

"To make matters worse, Theron's right turn signal won't go off, his windshield wiper is stuck in one speed, and his electrical system is going haywire."

I should be alarmed, but I can't find it in me. Instead, what I'm thinking is that Zac will describe this adventure to his children one day.

"We're so hungry, Mom. And we agreed we were only going to eat off the dollar menu. But then we got to talking about how good Subway would be, so we decided to treat ourselves. We're hungry now ... but it's only 8:30--Subway won't be open." He sighs.

"You'll find something soon, honey."

He tells me again to pray. I tell him I haven't stopped. We swap "I love you's." And when I hang up, I think about the girl in Sacramento who has no idea of what my son has sacrificed for her. She doesn't know he's coming. I wonder what she'll think when he knocks on her door, and wonder what he'll find her doing.

And then I think how familiar this all is.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field ..."

Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

~ Matthew 13:44; Luke 12:40

how i spent the last hour

From this perch (again ... in the coffee shop), I can watch the students sprawled on all those fake leather couches. They laugh at the antics of one another, and wave at newcomers who saunter around the corner. One girl twirls her keychain around her index finger. Another moves to a wooden chair, tilts it back on two legs, and twists her shoulder-length blond hair in a temporary bun. When she tires of holding it, she drops the bundle and it untwists itself to her shoulders.

A boy walks in wearing a green sweatshirt (how can he do that in this heat?) and sporting iPod earbuds. He looks around to see who else is in this room, drops his backpack and his Bible on the table next to me, and heads toward the coffee bar.

A girl directly across the room from me sits on an equally tall perch, dangling her skinny girl legs in time to her own privately heard iPod playlist. She's typing on a Mac like mine. Her hair is my length, my color. I wonder what she's typing; wonder what she's thinking. I wonder why she's at this Bible college ... and I wonder what God might do with her life.

My own child is not here. He'd planned to be. Without my knowing it, he'd turned down an invitation to head Yucca-way with a friend for a birthday party. When I found out he'd done that so we could spend time together, I told him he could have gone. But he shook his head and said, "That's all right. Besides, Ryan's already left."

We had walked toward the coffee shop together, talking about those little un-noteworthy things you talk about while meandering. But when we rounded a dorm wall and began to cross the street, Zac looked to the right and said, "Hey, there's Ryan. He hasn't left yet."

"Go, Zac," I said.

"I couldn't," he said back. "I should stay here with you."

We've eaten twice at O'Hana's Hawaiian Barbecue since I got here. We've sat on those fake leather chairs and talked with his friends. We've shopped at the mall. We've called and sent each other a dozen texts. We've hugged and said 'I love you' and enjoyed the nearness of one another. Did I want to spend another two hours with him? Of course. But did I love him enough to give him a guilt-free hall pass? You know I do.

"Go with Ryan," I said. "I have so much editing to do ... go have fun."

He hesitated only a second. "Are you sure?"

My kiss said yes. Oh, how I love that boy.

Lord, have Your way with him. Take him just as far as you want him to go. Make him a man who will capture the world for You, who will share Your heartbeat with all who will listen.

Do the same with the Mac girl, the boy with the backpack, the laughing duo on the couch, the girl in her tilted-back chair.

Make them Yours ... and then launch them.

all's right

My daughter sits at her computer, headphones in place, hands flying over the keyboard as she types in a homeschooling schedule for herself. Tera is most happy when she's in "secretary mode." I couldn't say no when she asked, awhile ago, "Mom, can I please make up my own work schedule for school?"

So she sits there, oblivious to my own flying fingers in my office fifteen feet away. She's oblivious to the sounds of the Seahawk's game drifting from the living room below. She's unaware that I can hear her singing along with her new favorite CD.

Tera's happy.

My son is walking around his Bible College campus, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and black slippers he bought at the Murrieta Walmart. "I love being able to walk around campus in my slippers, Mom," he told me when he called a half-hour ago. He also told me that he nearly drowned yesterday while surfing in Oceanside--information I could have done without. But I'm reminded that God is in control of my child, and once again, He's done His job well. Zac tells me all the details of his surfing incident, tells me how good it felt to sleep in this morning, tells me there are no classes tomorrow, tells me what he's going to order at Jack in the Box when he runs across the street for a bite.

Zac is happy.

Dave is in our bedroom, prone, watching that Seahawks' game in his usual Sunday afternoon garb--flannel pajama bottoms and his favorite gray robe. "Beautiful!" I hear now and then, when his outburst defies our bedroom door and drifts upstairs. He's full of spaghetti and meatballs, and if that wasn't reason enough for lying around, there's also the fact that he's been up since 4:00. While Tera and I kept sleeping, he rose in the dark and worked a bit more on his sermon notes. After a long and busy morning, he's earned the right to that robe, and those pajama bottoms, and the nap I know he'll fall into soon.

Dave is happy.

My family is safe. My heart is full. My house is warm, and filled with the scent of wood smoke, a hazelnut candle, a fresh pot of coffee, and just a hint of spaghetti sauce. God is in His heaven ... and all is right with my world.

tonight's food

Dinner tonight consisted of a dozen fat blueberries, picked straight from the bushes that line our driveway, and one plump peach that whispered, "Pick me." The tree that bore it looks too delicate to hold 31 peaches, but I did the counting myself, and that's the truth.

Dinner tonight consisted of a walk along the woods, with only the fading sun and a merciful breeze for company. The sky above held cottony clouds, with just the barest flicker of gray, which I know God scattered there for me.

Dinner tonight consisted of the happy sight of our puppy, Hunter, who had returned home when I told her not to follow me, and who sat straight and tall waiting in the driveway when I walked back to her an hour later.

Dinner tonight consisted of a stab of pity, when I found a robin who had flown just an inch too close to one of the cats, and who drew her last breath on the green carpet below the apple tree.

Dinner tonight consisted of a sad thought--that while I was dining on blueberries and walking under the clouds, praising Hunter and mourning a lost bird, my son was having his dinner among strangers, 1500 miles away--where he's no doubt scanning those faces for a friendly look, and wondering about this new adventure, and missing home.

We're missing you right back, Zachary.

watch me grow

How does it happen so quickly?

Just a few short memories ago, Andy was a big-eyed four-year old showing me his favorite red truck. In an hour, he'll arrive with a new show-and-tell: a fiance named Nichelle. I don't remember watching him cross the line from child to adult ... but here he is.

Just a few short memories ago, Zac was a wide-eyed six-year old standing on my sister's front lawn, alternating gawks between a controlled burn on a long-gone house, and the firemen handling all those flames. I remember with heart-hurting clarity the impassioned look on his freckled face when he turned and announced, "I'm going to be a fireman, Mom." As I type this, Zac is home from his first attempt to get into the firefighter academy. He passed the written; passed the physical with flying colors (he actually had the best time in three of the events), and looked the part when he headed out for his oral exam. His appointment--apparently--was at 1420 (military time), but in the translation, he'd written down 2:40. That means this attempt is over.

He loosened his tie and sat in the doorway of my office to tell me his news. Those long legs (did I mention he's 6'2" now?) filled the doorway and spilled out into the hall. He's disappointed, naturally, and embarrassed about the mix-up. But he put the right spin on things. "It must have happened for a reason. I'll just try again next year."

Next year will be here before you can say, "Watch me grow." Andy and Nichelle will be married. The puppy at my feet will be bigger. Tera will be taller. Zac's legs will likely be longer, and I'll be ironing that dress shirt for round two.

Oh, Lord, help me capture these minutes and memories.

on 'olks and forkheads

"Can you make mine 'olky?" Tera asks.

She's standing behind me, so she doesn't see my smile.

"I like 'olky eggs," she adds, for good measure.

When will I tell her that eggs have yolks, and not 'olks? Never. Someone else will have to spill the beans, because I cannot bring myself to correct that word.

I couldn't correct Zac, either, when he used to refer to his "forkhead." It was just too cute. Sure, I had visions of a future-him pointing to his forehead and mentioning casually, to his teenaged friends, "Man, I ran into the door the other day and banged up my forkhead," and having to endure their snickers, but still, I could not bring myself to correct that word. He didn't discover the truth until he was about ten. And that was way too early for me.

I've always let those words stand. A much younger Tera would sometimes note my tiredness and pat my shoulders or my head. "Does that feel ya better, Mom?" she'd ask. I'd nod, and let the more-interesting sentence stand. Or she'd offer to read Good Night Moon for me, and I'd hear, "Potanonna time, they was three kittens ... and they all is gonna be died. Amen." After the first time I heard that rendition, I never wanted to read Good Night Moon to her again because I didn't want to ruin her version.

At four, she practically taught herself to read, and she learned the truth about Good Night Moon. She learned that the kittens didn't die, and that the book didn't end with an "Amen." And something saddened inside me. But she was still young enough to not realize that "We should get arid of some of these clothes in my room" contained a wrong word. So I let it stand. Everytime she thought we should get "arid" of something, I treasured her mistake.

She makes so few anymore. She's such a smart girl, with such a broad, tangy, impressive vocabulary. So when she asks for 'olky eggs, I crack two into the pan and I don't say a word.

It just feels me better.

ready

What is it about a blank canvas that puts me in such a mood?

We ventured out today. That makes us sound timid, doesn't it--like we're a family of field mice living under the floor boards, watching the giants we co-habit with through mice-sized eyeholes and wondering if we can scurry out fast enough to collect their dropped morsels without being spied and scooped. It's just that we've been hunkered down in this house all week, enjoying the after-Christmas stillness and moving only enough to refill our coffee cups or fetch our slippers or throw a bit more wood on the fat fire. Today, though, we traded robes for coats and slippers for real shoes, and we ventured out.

Our destination was the mall. That's a place I'm not fond of even during the slow shopping months, let alone the first few days after Christmas. We needed to do an exchange at REI and another at a sheepskin kiosk. Before we braved the mall mob, though, Dave had to drop off some paperwork at our insurance place out at Smokey Point. While he was handling that task, I took a stroll down the strip mall sidewalk until I found an art supply store. I love such places. If they didn't kick you out for doing so, I'd open every tube of paint and stick my fingers in all that color; crack open the linseed oil bottles and turpentine and take impolite whiffs; slit the plastic covering off every canvas and run my hands over all that pristine possibility.

Since I'd like to be free to return to that particular store from time to time, I resisted my artistic urges and tried to keep a safe distance from that side of the store. For a long time, I contented myself with thumbing through the art books (as my thumb is still not back up to par, and I'm still wearing this annoying brace, maybe I should say I contented myself with fingering through the art books) and reading all the technique tips. But I kept peeking toward the back of the store, where one entire corner boasted a ten-foot tall, two-decker display of plastic-wrapped canvases. It wasn't long before my feet dragged the rest of me back to ogle the bounty.

I hadn't been there five seconds and I knew I'd be leaving the store with a new canvas. I've been feeling a strong urge lately to start a painting. The nudge pokes me at odd times, like when I'm just dropping off to sleep, and the memory of oils tickles my nose and runs across my fingertips again. Or when I'm driving past a wide-open pasture and the cows within arrange themselves in 3-dimensional letters that read "paint me."

It took awhile to select just the right size. I almost went with the 14 x 18, but there was something so majestic and intense about the 20 x 24. I had to have it. And when I pulled it down from the top shelf (did I tell you I'm 10-feet tall?) and held its slickery self in my happy hands, a familiar, lovely feeling of hope washed right over me, just like it does every time I hold a frame stretched tight with touch-me, shape-me, tell-me-who-I-am potential.

It could be anything, you know. It could be a still life of plump limes resting in my burgandy wooden bowl, with rare Pacific Northwest sunlight dancing speckles across the green orbs while winter-bare branches fill the windows beyond the kitchen. It could be a pair of barefoot girls sitting on the front stoop of a cottage, whispering giggly secrets while a family of June bugs skitter toward the edge of the painting. It could be anything at all. That's the power of untouched canvas.

A few weeks ago, Zac handed me his headphones and twirled the pad on his iPod. Switchfoot's "This is Your Life" filled my ears. Nice song. But long after the song had ended, one line continued to play in my head: This is your life. Are you who you want to be?

I couldn't shake the question. Am I who I want to be? If not, what would I change? What will I regret if it's not added to my life at some point? Before I knew what I was doing, I'd begun a list. I'd like to be kinder. Less impulsive. More self-controlled. More disciplined. Less of a procrastinator. A better communicator. It's a big list ... but I'm ready.

In a few days, another year begins. Indulge me here: God is placing a brand new, still-wrapped canvas before me, before you. Anything at all can happen this year. We can change that moodiness, finish that goal, mend that relationship. We can fill our lives with good things so there's no room for the bad. We can put our energy where it matters. The truth is, we can become who we want to be--but only if we surrender. No painting ever painted itself. The only way to bring lasting beauty into our lives is to take the palette, the oils, and the brushes, and lay them at the feet of the Master Artist--then unfurl the list and hand it over.

Here are the lyrics to an old favorite written by brothers John Michael and Terry Talbot:

The Empty Canvas

An empty canvas waits before the Painter
It waits to be the painting it must be
Unto this end it has rightfully been created
To reflect the rightful beauty the Painter sees

A beauty that will surely find its life within its dying
So another might be born again
And in this constant death a constant beauty is created
Within a constant love that never ends

Jesus is the Master Painter
And the Holy Spirit is the Master’s Brush
To be dipped within the colors
That portray a Father’s love
That the Master’s painting might be born of us
To portray the beauty of the Master’s Brush
That the canvas of our life might know the Master’s touch

An empty canvas waits before the Painter
An empty canvas destined to be hung
Within the gallery once it has been created
Will the canvas bear the beauty of God’s Son?

Here's praying that God adds color and beauty to your life this year, and that you bear His image wherever you go.

2:00 a.m.

I'm one of those people who can't go back to sleep once I've awaken. And so tonight, just 45 minutes after first nodding off, I'm up in my office answering emails and perusing knitting patterns.

What woke me? Zac got home and did three things: he dished up a big bowl of our friend Cindy's fought-over fettucine, he popped in a DVD, and he let Larry out. Just as the microwave dinged, Larry took to howling right outside our bedroom window. Where else would he go to make noise?

I awoke hopeful. I'm optimistic that way. Deep down, though, I knew the truth. I knew my sheets and pillowcase would be long gone cold before I hit them again. But the Pollyanna on the surface said, "You'll just shoot out there, ask Zac nicely to turn down his movie and let the dog back in, and hop right back in bed."

I did all that. And as usual, Pollyanna was wrong. Though I tried, I couldn't shut out the sounds of the night. The clink of Zac's fork against his plate didn't bother me--not even when that clink turned into scraping as he endeavored to collect every last atom of Cindy's sauce. And the murmuring of his movie could have been ignored. What kept my eyes scanning the dark outlines of my bedroom were the sounds of maniacal howling down on the trail below our house.

Those coyotes are running again tonight.

We've been spotting them all week. One ran across the driveway as I was heading out a few nights ago. My headlights bounced off his scrawny torso as he leapt into the bushes. Another watched me with open nonchalance from the neighbor's pasture as I drove back home. When Tera, Dave and I went out for a long walk yesterday, we spotted another skirting the edge of the woods on the trail. And now tonight, the gang has regrouped for a night of mayhem. Their cries are the sounds of a gathering storm.

My opinion of those critters hasn't changed, nor has my reaction to their middle-of-the-night partying. They still make me shiver. But I discovered that the sound of my laptop's fan and the mindlessness of Spider Solitaire helps to drown out the memory of those raucusy cries. I think I'll stay up here just a bit longer ... long enough for the woods to absorb those 2:00 a.m. echoes.

those boys

When the two of them began wrestling (and laughing), I was sitting on the couch working on my laptop. A guitar sat perched against the love seat; a violin lay on the floor at my feet. The wood stove, lining the opposite wall, was stoked … and hot.

“Be careful!” I said.

Father and son ignored me.

“I mean it … someone is going to get hurt!”

To that point, they’d been wrestling standing up, circling each other like wary cats—jabbing, grabbing, retreating, wriggling out of each other’s clutches. But just as I gave my dire prediction, Dave pulled a maneuver any 45-year old man would be proud of. He picked up all 152 pounds of Zac, swung him up and over his shoulders, and began spinning them both like a whirling dervish.

My warnings faded as laughter took over. Despite my fears that they’d both land on the guitar, the violin, the wood stove, or me, I couldn’t speak.

When Dave thought they were both sufficiently dizzy, he dropped him down in a wrestling pin and began playfully and repeatedly poking Zac’s thigh with his knuckles.

“Dad!” Zac managed somewhere in all that laughter, “Stop!”

Dave didn’t. He poked again and again. “Charlie wants to play! Charlie wants to play!”

When he finally ended the torture with one last, I’m-still-the-king-of-this-house jab to Zac’s rear end, and walked away, Zac did what any 17 1/2 year old boy would do. He stood up, punched the air, gave a vicious karate kick toward the wall, and said, “I could have taken him if I wanted.”

I laughed.

“Seriously, Mom. I had him by the wrist. I could have spun him around and put him in a choke hold.” He ran through another karate series, defeating a foe seen only by him. “Next time, that’s what I’m going to do.”

He then sauntered toward the kitchen—where Dave was putting the finishing touches on a batch of beef jerky—and began scrounging through the fridge, though dinner was a mere half-hour memory.

And what was I working on? I was midway through an edit for a friend … on a piece she wrote about sending her last child to college.

I’m grateful tonight that my nest is still full.

inching away

Zac doesn't live in our house anymore.

He's moved out. Gone. Shoved every belonging he had in a box or a bag and hit the road.

Of course, that road was a short one. He only moved to my office behind the house. And as it's a mere twenty feet away, I haven't yet shed a tear.

But still, I'm sad. My son is seventeen, and salivating for independence. For now, he's satisfied to have a room apart from the house. He loves the cedar-lined ceiling of my former retreat space. He likes the light I picked out at Ikea--the one I used to have angled down at my writing desk. He's okay with the expanse of hunter green wall paper along the tops of the walls and the coordinating green and burgandy plaid along the bottoms. He's even promised to not poke pinholes through the wall paper.

But even that promise makes me sad. It implies that one day -- probably long before I'm ready for it -- he'll repack all those posters, trophies, tennis shoes and basketball paraphernalia and vacate this space again. I'll come into an empty room and stare at my pristine, pinhole-less wall paper and wish he'd left a mark.

Yesterday, when he was off at basketball camp and I had the whole 13 acres of property to myself, I went out to his new room and sat on the edge of his bed. I absorbed the smell that only a seventeen-year old boy could imbue into the fibers of a place (and, remarkably, in less than 24 hours), and then, because I wanted to know what it was like for him to sleep in his new room, I curled up on his bed. And the feeling that came over me as I settled against his comforter was one of complete, utter peace. The tension I'd been carrying slipped away. I felt my face relax, the frown and furrows gone. Outside his window, beyond the burgandy curtains I hung last year when the place was mine, the green leaves of a distant maple splayed against a vivid blue sky. I laid for a long time watching those leaves and letting the silence surround and soothe me.

They can't stay little forever. Eventually, I'll have to let him go. But when that day comes, I'll pray he'll carry a measure of peace with him on his travels. I'll pray, too, that wherever those travels take him, he'll remember this place ... where he's loved and missed.

someday ...

Zac was in his usual spot this morning, standing in front of the giant mirror in our living room, checking himself before he left for school.

"Mom, you know what I want to do once in my life—before I grow too old and die?"

I looked up from my laptop. "What?"

"I want to get up in the morning and put on my t-shirt, and boxers, and sweatshirt … and walk out the door … and forget my pants."

Obviously, I laughed at that. “You mean … and not realize it until you got to school?”

“Yeah.”

“But why would you want to do that?”

He grinned. “I just think that would be the funniest thing ever.”

It's good to have life goals.

Hopefully, his will change at some point. I know mine did. When I was little, my one goal in my life was to grow up and have a Volkswagon Bug-shaped car made entirely of purple plastic coils with metallic flecks interspersed throughout the plastic. That happened to be the color of my bike seat at the time, and I happened to really like coils for some reason. In kind of a serendipitous, Reese's peanut butter-smashing-against-chocolate collision, my two favorite things merged together into an image of the most awesome car ever seen. Not only would it be made entirely of purple coils, but the glove compartment would have a steady, never-ending stock of bubble gum.

I never got the car.

But that turned out to be okay. I grew into a woman who would have felt a bit odd driving around in purple coils. By then, I had a new goal--one I nurtured for years. My dream was to raise my own sheep, shear their wool myself, clean it, card it, dye it, spin it, and knit a sweater out of it. I didn't know how to knit back when this goal was birthed, but seeing as how Dave and I lived in an apartment at the time and owned nothing wool-bearing or bleat-enducing, my lack of knitting ability was the least of my obstacles. Eventually, we left the city and bought a farm. A half-dozen sheep joined us swiftly. I couldn't wait for that first spring, when I could come at them with a pair of sheep shearers. I practiced my snipping, and read up on dying techniques. A kindly someone caught wind of my goal and gave me a beautiful spinning wheel. And then ... a prowling cougar put an end to our sheep-raising. We had no hooved animals for several years, until, needing something to tackle the blackberry bushes encroaching our meadow, we switched to goats. Then--finally, when it didn't matter anymore--I learned to knit.

I suppose I could beg Dave to run down to the auction with me and pick up a couple of sheep so I could start my goal again in earnest. But somehow, it’s not as important to me as it once was.

My goals these days are simpler. They're "by the end of today" goals. By the end of today, I hope to have crossed a few tasks off my list. I hope to have made a nice dinner for my family. I hope to have laughed with one or two of my friends. I hope to have included God in all my conversations.

I don't think it's that my dreaming abilities have waned ... I think I'm just more realistic. All I have is today, but it's plenty of time to accomplish what matters.

Which includes making sure my son leaves the house with his pants.

Seventy years are given us! And some may even live to eighty. But even the best of these years are often emptiness and pain; soon they disappear, and we are gone . . . Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should. --Ps 90:10, 12 (TLB)

beautiful day--part two

He didn't see us enter Key Arena or traverse the stairs to a pair of close-up seats, but I saw him. There was my boy, warming up on Ray's home turf.

He looked good. He looked natural. He even looked comfortable, though I couldn't imagine how he pulled that off. Thousands and thousands of stadium seats--17,072 in all--faced that court, looking like an enormous avalanche of red plastic, frozen in mid free-fall. I think the seats alone would have unnerved me. But there was so much more. The backboards, clear and backed by nothing but space, gave the shooters no reference point. Instead of a gym ceiling overhead, a giant, multi-lighted mother-ship of a structure hung suspended and staring. Only the black-striped, orange globes in their hands offered the boys any sense of familiarity.

A whistle blew and warm-up ended. And then, as if this were an ordinary game and there was no simply no need for ceremony, the announcer called out the names of the two teams, listed the starters, and brought the game into play. Zac wasn't among the starters. He's okay with that. He's the new kid, the one who hasn't been playing with this group of boys for all their high school life; the one who came from a small private school that never gave thought to actually memorizing and running plays. Zac has had a lot of catching up to do. But he's getting there.

I waited through every moment of the first quarter, watching Zac, cheering his friends, scrutinizing the face and movements of his coach. My stomach began to churn as I noticed how frequently the opposing coach swapped players. Why couldn't our coach follow suit? A dormant fear--one that had sprung into being the moment I learned we got to shell out $26 for the chance to watch both MPHS and the Sonics, but which I'd tried to squelch--surfaced yet again. What if ... what if the coach didn't put Zac in? What if my son suited up, warmed up, and then spent the entire game holding the bench in place? Like mothers do (and a few fathers, too, I suspect) I rehearsed my greeting to the coach, should such an oversight be committed.

Thankfully, the specifics of my imaginary greeting need not be revealed. After uttering a prayer and asking God to sway the coach's thoughts--and head--toward my boy, that's exactly what happened. While I sat staring through sprinting bodies and blurry orange passes and watching Zac's face, and marveling at his ability to laugh with a bench buddy and cheer and not seem to care that he hadn't yet made his pro-basketball-court debut, it happened. An invisible hand took hold of Coach's head and turned it to the right. I watched his eyes traveling the line of waiting boys, watched his arm lift and his finger point at the boy at the end of the bench. Zac grinned, stood, and raced to the announcer's table, where he hunkered down and waited for the beckoning whistle.

I can't tell you everything he did (one stuff and four rebounds); nor can I tell you how much time he spent playing during that quarter and another appearance in the fourth (8 minutes, 42 seconds total), but I can tell you that my heart pounded like thunder and my throat ached with pride and I whistled so loudly at one point, the spectator sitting in front of me swiveled and stared.

We won. Dave--in charge of the camera--is still kicking himself that he didn't get a picture of the giant "Marysville--60; Everett--49" sign, but we won't forget. And when it was over, and enough time elapsed for one proud mother to knit six rows of her project and one sweaty boy to have himself a shower, Zac "The Stuffer" Woodward rounded the arena and swooped in for a hello. Not only that, he sat with us through the entire varsity game, reliving the glory and letting the reality of the day sink in a bit.

And then he was gone--off to meet the team, with whom he would hang out at Seattle Center while waiting for the Sonics game to start. Which meant Dave and I were alone. Alone in Seattle ... staring at three hours of freedom.

"Want to take a walk," I suggested?

He did.

beautiful day--part one

I had looked forward to the day after Christmas for a couple of reasons. First, the 26th of December loomed as the first day of a much needed rest. It meant the shedding of several great weights: I'd be finished with a lengthy academic book edit and the writing of that book's study guide (the deadline of which coincided with Christmas Eve). I'd be finished with the transcription of another book. I'd have set my needle and thread aside, because the three sheep costumes I had offered to make would be not only finished, but already-worn and already-packed away. That meant the Christmas play would be behind me, and Christmas Eve, and the wrapping of waiting packages, and the bustle of a Christmas morning church service.

I couldn't wait for the 26th of December.

It wasn't all about putting that busy week behind me, though. I also couldn't wait for that day because an amazing thing had happened. Through an unbelievably swift turn of events in early November, we decided to pull our son from the private school he'd attended for four years and enroll him in public school (we'd made the same choice for our daughter at the beginning of the year). I won't go into the detail of why. I hinted at some of those reasons in a post last June that started a flurry of back-and-forth discussion. Suffice it to say, we held out as long as we could and in the end, we're certain we've made the right choice.

Zac, who set aside his interest in basketball not long after the events I wrote about Thursday and didn't pick them up again until 8th grade, worried about his eligibility on this new team. But within one week's time, we'd withdrawn him from the old school, registered him in the new, and watched as he tried out and made the high school j.v. team. And that team--along with the varsity boys--had been invited to play a near-town rival on the 26th of December ... in Key Arena, the home of the Sonics.

We couldn't wait. The morning of the 26th, I drove him down early to meet the team bus, stopping first to load him up with bananas, Gatorade and protein bars. After seeing him off, and checking on Tera (who got to spend the day with Aunt Tarri, Uncle Todd and the boys), Dave and I headed down to Seattle. We didn't take the direct route, though. First we stopped at Dick's.

If you live in the Seattle area, you know how mandatory a trip to Dick's is. (Think of it as our version of In-and-Out Burger--another fine and addictive eating establishment). I've yet to take in a Mariner's game or transport or fetch someone from the airport without exiting at 45th street in the U District (U being the University of Washington) and pulling into the parking lot of that happy orange drive-in. It doesn't matter if there's one line of six people or four lines of twelve people, you scoot yourself to the nearest and wait your turn. And if you're a good Seattle-ite, you don't hem and haw when you get to the window. You know your order. Ours is "three deluxe, three fries, five tarter, one chocolate and one vanilla shake." Dave eats two of the deluxes and we split the fries, but the tarter is all mine.

We bought. We ate. We moseyed down the freeway a bit and found a spot for our car near Key Arena (at only $5 for ten hours ... not a bad deal). Lugging a backpack full of water, homemade licorice caramels I'd made for Dave, and Tarri's famous, you-get-it-every-year-for-Christmas caramel corn, we walked toward the arena. We'd gotten through the green and red madness of the week before, and now we were free, with a whole day of enjoyment staring us in the face.

It's not a far walk to the arena. Maybe five minutes. And it takes you past the embarrasingly ugly Experience Music Project (the one blight on Seattle's landscape, if you ask me. Whenever I see it, I imagine that the designer procrastinated until the night before his drawings were due, threw a bunch of clashing colored globs on the page, and pretended he'd meant all along for it to turn out that way), past a few grassy areas, past the entrance to the Fun Forest (an arcade and carnival-ish area), and past the fountain.

It was when the fountain came in view that I switched roles. The free bird gave way to teary mom, and suddenly, this day wasn't so much about my catching a needed breath as it was about watching my son reach a milestone.

We'd sat together at the edge of that very fountain on a long-ago summer day, back when Zac was two-ish and curly-haired. The sun stroked our back and music--from a hidden CD player connected somewhere to a giant set of speakers--filled our ears. Zac watched the water in absolute silence, something that didn't happen often. I'd wondered at the time if he was just winding down from a full day of walking and nibbling, and that accounted for his stillness. But when the first piece of classical music drifted to an end, I discovered the real reason for his pensiveness. He'd been listening ... and enjoying.

Those tiny hands came together in applause, and he opened his mouth. "Good job!" he yelled. Tears had filled my eyes then, too.

His voice still echoes in my memories, but that boy with the long curly hair is now a tall man-child, who relishes his ability to tower over his mother and pretend to not be scared when I order my edicts. He still calls me Mama, but now he chops firewood for me, fills my gas tank and instructs me on everything from how I should parallel park to what's making a particular noise under the hood.

And on this day, December 26th, I was about to watch that child run the same courts that Ray Allen, Gary Payton, Shaquille O'Neil and Michael Jordan have run.

Good job, little boy.

game boy

A week ago Monday, I experienced a day so perfect, so beautiful, that right in the middle of my bliss I snatched the nearest napkin and scribbled swift notes as fast as I could conjur them. I can't fit it all in one post. Too many observations came to mind, too many "must share" details. So I'm going to share that day in a series. Before I do that, however, I need to share a chapter from my book. This story is called, "Game Boy," and when you read the first part of my to-be-yet-named series, you'll understand why you needed this intro.

*    *    *    

"How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly! I can't even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me. And when I waken in the morning, you are still thinking of me!" --Ps 139:17 (TLB)

"Let's go, let's go, let's GO!"

I sink further into my folding chair as the echoes assault my ears. I've only been in the school gym five minutes and already I'm claustrophobic. How does that happen in a room with a forty-foot ceiling?

Please, Coach, I beg silently, please don't yell at my boy.

"Zachary – we’re not here to skip around the gym. Grab a ball!"

He's yelling.

I began my silent pleading again, but this time I've bypassed the coach and gone over his head. Way over his head.

Oh, Lord – I can't do this. I can't sit here and watch the coach watch Zac who's not watching anything but that one crazy, flickering ceiling light. I can't sit here and wait for him to get in trouble. Please stop this. Make the coach be nice.

Something – maybe the Lord? – urges me to pick up my book and ignore the scene on the court.

I read twelve words, and then I hear his name again.

"Zachary! Hey, Zachary – what position are you today? You're a forward, a forward! That means you have to guard Alex. Do you want him to make a basket and have it be your fault?"

It's a rhetorical question, and not even directed at me, but I answer anyway. Of course not, Coach. I don't want that. I hope, briefly, that he hears my unspoken answer by proxy and lightens up. I know the truth, though. Zac wouldn't mind a bit if Alex got a basket. He happens to like Alex, and this happens to just be a practice game, for crying out loud.

The coach has words, warnings and lectures for the other boys too, but somehow I'm able to read my book past those echoes with no more than the slightest register. Every time I hear his lips forming a "z" sound, though, my eyes lock on his face. Time drops to its knees and crawls while I wait for the rest of the coach’s word, although there's no question, really, about who he's berating. There are no Zanes, Zekes or Zeds out there. Only my Zac.

Only Zac, for whom the gym floor is nothing more than an indoor skipping hopping galloping surface. Zac, for whom the painted black arcs and lines are imaginary tightropes. Zac, who tries every week to jump higher so he can see out the impossibly high windows. "Maybe I grew this week, Mom. You never know."

He revels in things sensory. When the coach calls them all to the center of the floor for a midget huddle, Zac tries hard to concentrate. He makes a fairly good showing, but I know – because I'm his mother and mothers know everything – that he's really thinking about how to get the loudest and longest squeal out of his tennis shoes the next time he charges down court. I know he's counting the kids and wondering if he should invite them all to his birthday party, even though it's four months away. He's noticing the dampness under his arms and formulating a really good argument for buying deodorant, one he'll try on me the moment practice is over. "Mom, when I get hot, my armpits get all yucky and horrible. It's time, Mom. I am eight now, you know."

The huddle ends. Zac collects his thoughts and makes an adult, "I mean business this time" kind of face. At least a portion of the coach's lecture permeated Zac's brain. I can see within the first ten seconds that he's made up his mind to be the world's best guard. Poor Joey. He doesn't stand a chance. As the white shirts take the ball down court, Joey discovers he's grown a second skin. He moves left. Zac moves left. He breathes. Zac breathes. He blinks, he spins, he runs. Zac follows every move, the perfect shadow, the perfect little mime. I feel the first sense of relief I've felt since entering the gym. Surely the coach will notice his doggedness and praise him for such tenacity.

The blue shirts get the rebound and head to my end of the court. Zac is still shadowing Joey. As little as I know about basketball, I know enough that I'm pretty sure it's Joey's turn to guard Zac. I'm all but certain Zac is supposed to be trying to get away from Joey now. But no. He follows Joey into a corner and continues his mirroring.

"Zac!" I whisper as loudly as I dare.

He's too busy guarding his own guard to notice.

I clear my throat and try a slightly more intense version of the first whisper. "Zachary!"

I notice with my peripheral vision that the father next to me has glanced over to see what is so urgent. Ignore me, I demand wordlessly. I'm just a crazy, overprotective mother trying to spare her son a little misery. That's it … go back to your sports page …

"Zac!"

This time it wasn't me. It’s the coach. He noticed Zac’s tenacity, all right – but on the wrong side of the court.

"Why on earth are you doing that? You're supposed to be getting away from Joey! Look at Peter there. He's open. He's standing there waving his arms and making it easy for someone to pass him the ball. That's what you should be doing."

Zac nods his little 'yes, sir' nod. Invisible hands strap me to my seat, preventing me from marching out and giving the coach a piece of my mind. At this point it would be the last piece.

The coach blows his whistle. "You guys need to take this more seriously. This is serious business. No goofing off. This game counts! It COUNTS!"

Again with the intensity. What is he talking about? It's practice! I glance down the meager row of parents lining the court. I don't see any scouts. Even if there were – even if a whole bunch of scouts had snuck in, noticed Zac's prowess, and started a bidding war over him – I’d really have to insist that he finish third grade before signing any deals.

Zac gets the ball. He dribbles, stops, dribbles again, and shoots. It's short.

"Short!" the coach yells.

"We know!" I growl.

Sports page dad glances over. I consider asking him what the point of all this is. Am I supposed to just hand my son over to this … this … professional man maker and let him work his magical wonders? Is that it? Is this some sort of rite of passage intended to turn my humming, skipping, ball sharing boy into a serious competitor? And if so, why? So that someday he can become a sports page reading father himself?

Before I can begin my tirade, Zac gets the ball again. I hold my breath as he dribbles. He dodges Joey. He spins around Alex. He lifts the ball and shoots. All eyes follow the arch of the ball as it approaches the net and swooshes through.

A couple of parents clap. The coach yells again, but this time he's cheering, "Great shot, Zac!" He jogs over and slaps his hand. Zac grins. He'll carry that high five all week.

Me? I've been proud of him all along.

I talk to the Lord again. This time I'm not begging for intervention; this time I just need my Father. I tell Him how frustrated I am, how I don't understand how the coach won't understand that Zac can't understand what the big deal is.

I tell Him it's not a love of basketball that keeps my little boy getting up early on Saturday mornings – it's simply a love of being eight. It's the exhilaration of grabbing that beautiful bumpy ball and feeling the cool but stale gym air caress his face as he charges down the miles long floor. It's the chance to lounge against the back wall with two or three of his teammates, laughing together in fake tiredness while they fan their shirts and talk about the candy they have at home stashed in their p.j. drawers. It's all that. Nothing more.

God listens. And then He whispers.

He tells me He understands. He shows me, in a vast and indescribable moment of revelation, my own court in a game called Life. He points out His position, there on the side of the court, where His eyes never leave me and His heart beats in sync with mine.

He tells me how proud He is of me when I resist the pressure to become point minded. He tells me He loves it when I share the ball, when I don't mind someone else taking it down court, when I cheer for a teammate who finally gets enough coordination to dribble.

And He tells me to never stop. He tells me this game was made for His pleasure and as far as He's concerned, I can hop all the way down court if I want to.

He tells me I've already won.

"Mom? Mom!"

There he is. My sweaty little game boy, with flushed cheeks and one pink ear, a sure sign to me, his eagle eyed mother, that he's played hard.

"What, honey?"

"I have this problem. When I'm out there running and I get hot, my armpits get all buttery and slickerish. It's really horrible."

"Hmmm. I guess we know what that means," I say.

"Are you telling me … are you saying …"

"Yep. We'd better stop by the store on the way home. After all, you are eight now."

He hops all the way to the car.
*    *    *    
Next: The boy grows up and plays at Key Arena.

Excerpted from A Whisper in Winter: Stories of Hearing God’s Voice in Every Season of Life (New Hope Publishers, 2004). © Shannon Woodward.

making room

This morning, while finishing a book edit, I moved my favorite Christmas decoration aside to make room for my cup of coffee. As I do often, I picked up the jar and shook the straw inside. Then I decided to tell you about it.

Here's an article I wrote for HomeLife magazine about eight years ago.

* * *
I remember–distinctly–how overwhelmed I felt the first time someone suggested an Advent celebration to me.

Four nights. I’d have to set aside four nights during the busiest four weeks of the year. Lighting the candles sounded nice. I liked candles. Prayer was fine. I liked prayer. Sitting around a table asking questions and singing songs–that part I could do without.

“You’d be blessed,” my friend promised.

I didn’t believe her. It sounded like one more activity, one more “have to” in a month already crammed with have to’s. I accepted the paper she handed me, glanced at the suggestions, and thanked her. When she left, I filed the paper in the very back of my filing cabinet.

It probably would have stayed there forever except for a half-hearted prayer I tossed toward God one day soon afterwards.

I’d been out shopping with the masses. Armed with four pounds of toy catalogs and flyers, I elbowed my way through crowds, hissed over parking spaces, stood in lines twenty people deep, and heard enough musical bells and animated Santas to drive a person insane. I spent too much money on things I was certain no one would like or appreciate. Worst of all, on a whim I picked up the newest book by Martha What’s-Her-Name on “How to craft the world’s most memorable Christmas ever using only a glue gun and fresh bay leaves from your own bay tree.” Despite the fact that I didn’t have a bay tree and couldn’t remember when I’d last seen the glue gun, I plopped the book in my cart.

Driving home, I realized that something was way out of whack. My month was as full as it could possibly be. I’d loaded our schedule with every festive event I could find: concerts, parties, cookie exchanges, pageants, tree lighting ceremonies. There wasn’t room for a single thing more. And still I wasn’t happy, or satisfied, or contented. I didn’t feel close to God. I didn’t even like Christmas anymore. In fact, if I could have my way, I would have ripped December right out of my calendar.

I couldn’t pinpoint how it had happened, but somehow Christmas had taken on a life of its own. It drove me, in an endless cycle of haves and wants and musts. I was on the Christmas roller coaster and feeling sick.

“Something has to change,” I said out loud. Not much of a prayer. But God, I’ve learned, can read between the lines and find a prayer hidden in our little outbursts.

I lugged my purchases up to the house and hid them in the bedroom closet. With a cup of tea in hand, I curled up in my favorite chair and opened Martha’s new book. I turned the pages, slowly at first, then more rapidly. One by one I vetoed the projects and recipes. Too big. Too expensive. Too weird. Gold leaf on cookies? Who puts gold leaf on cookies? Who eats gold leaf on cookies?? Most of the projects called for things I’d never owned and probably couldn’t track down if my life depended on it.

Dejected, I tossed the book on the coffee table and wandered outside. Voices drew me to the sheep barn, where I found Dave and Zac, then four, spreading fresh straw.

Dave used the pitchfork, but hands-on Zac was down on his knee scattering straw with his hands.

“How was shopping?” Dave asked.

“Oh, you know. Plastic Santas. Angry people. No parking. Same as always.”

I wasn’t good company. My two men wisely kept working and said nothing. Until Zac, finally, made an announcement.

“That doesn’t feel good,” he said, pulling straw out of his sleeve. “It’s not comfortable on your skin.”

From my perch on a bale of straw, I watched but said nothing.

“Mom?” he pressed.

“What?”

“It doesn’t feel good.”

“Well, then, don’t put it up your sleeve.” Cranky mother.

“Well, it’s just . . . I was thinking. Was Jesus really born in a barn?”

A cave, I thought. It was probably a cave. But I just nodded.

“Why did that happen?”

“They tried to find another place for him to be born, but there just wasn’t room.”

“That’s not good.” Zac shook his head.

He’d heard the Christmas story every Christmas of his young life. I couldn’t understand why this was bothering him now. “It’s just the way it happened,” I said.

“But, Mom,” he said, walking toward me, “feel this.” He laid a handful of straw on my arm and stepped back. “It feels bad.”

I looked at Zac. I looked at the small pile of straw on my arm and felt it prickling my skin. He was right.

His eyes were troubled. “They laid Him in a manger. I know what that is. That’s a thing full of straw. That’s not a place to put a baby.”

No, I thought. That’s no place for a baby.

“They should have made room for Him some place better,” he continued.

They should have made room, my thoughts echoed.

“It was God. He should have been born in the nicest hotel.”

The straw was still sitting on my arm. I collected it in my hand and let myself feel its scratchiness. And I tried to imagine my Savior lying in a bed full of plain, rough, scratchy straw.

Something clicked for me in that moment. Zac’s words pierced my mind and burrowed into my heart. No room. No room for Jesus. The Innkeeper was me, and I had left no room for the Savior.

I saw what was wrong, suddenly. I had pushed the Baby out and let unimportant things take the place that was His. I had banished Him to the far corners of our holiday. Church on Christmas Eve, maybe a prayer or two. A quick read of the Christmas story. Nothing more. All the rest had been reserved for talking Santas and toy catalogs and parties and such. A whole lot of fancy nothing.

In my quest for the perfect Christmas I had lost the meaning of the manger. I had forgotten the simplicity of the straw.

Our Christmas changed after that. I started by bringing that handful of straw up to the house and stuffing it in an old canning jar of my grandmother’s. Then I set it in a place of prominence, where it would remind me, with each glance, of the miracle that happened in a long-ago cave.

Next, I pulled out the Advent paper from the recesses of my filing cabinet. Studying the suggestions, I decided they were a bit too formal for our free-spirited family, so we started from scratch and formed our own Advent celebration. That first year Zac and I fashioned a simple wreath from evergreen branches we found lying in the yard and molded five little balls of clay into candle holders, which we tucked around the wreath. Nothing fancy. And on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, not knowing what to expect, we gathered around our table, dimmed the lights, and lit the first of the five candles. Dave opened with prayer.

“Lord, we ask Your forgiveness for our neglect. We want to honor You. We want You to be the center of all we do this month. More than anything else, Lord, we want Your presence.”

“Dad,” Zac whispered, “it’s not polite to ask for presents.”

* * *

This year, I pray you find your own way to make room for the Baby--the Baby the whole world is desperate to dismiss. May the miracle of the manger become a reality to you again ... or for the very first time.

so big

Zac edged out his dad finally. His newly measured 6'2" passed Dave by a mere inch, but that discovered inch threw Zac's shoulders back and filled his lungs and sent a rush of "maybe I can" running through his blood.

"Hey, Dad--let's arm wrestle."

Dave just laughed at first, but Zac pestered him into agreement. They pushed back the runner and cleared the dishes from the end of the table (we’d just finished dinner . . . beef stroganoff, in case you'd like to know) and propped their arms on top. “Put your other arm right here, by my elbow, so it doesn’t slip,” Zac instructed, sounding very much like a 6'2" arm wrestling expert.

Dave is the most easy-going person I know. He didn't point out that he'd been arm wrestling for twice as many years as the tall boy had lived. Instead, he followed Zac's instructions. “Ready?” he asked.

Zac started laughing—a nervous laugh, one to match the look in his eyes. “Are you watching, Mom?” he asked.

“No. I don’t want to see. I’ll cry no matter which one of you wins.” But I did watch. How could I not?

“Ready . . . go!” Zac said. And in the span of a blink, his arm hit the table. “Hey!” he protested.

“Were you trying?” Dave asked, laughing.

Zac ignored his question and propped his startled arm back up. “Let’s do it again.”

Again those two arms locked into position on the table. Again I saw that look in Zac’s eye as he stared at his foe--half hope, half trepidation.

“Ready . . . go!” And once again, Zac’s arm hit the table.

“Were you trying?” Dave asked again.

“Of course I was trying!” Zac laughed, but he was shaking his head as he did so. “I’m never going to be as strong as you, Dad.”

That’s all I wanted to hear. Just the acknowledgment that his dad is an ox. I watched him watching himself in the living room mirror, admiring his extra inch. “You’ll get him someday, Hon,” I said.

He grinned and turned and attacked the stairs, taking them two at a time up to his room.

That’s really all he wanted to hear.

the m word

He was six, and we were driving through a gray mist, past an unbroken stretch of evergreen trees.

"Mom, when I grow up, you know what I want to be?"

For a long time he'd thought he might like to be a teenage mutant ninja turtle, but since he hadn't mentioned that for awhile, I figured he'd gone on to something else.

"No, Zac. What do you want to be when you grow up?" I glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw his reflection captured there.

"I can't remember what it's called," he began. "It's that m word."

"Musician?" I offered.

"No."

"Medic?"

"Not that either."

"Moose-hunter?" I grinned at him in the mirror. He grinned back, but shook his head.

"Mom, I'm serious. It's that m word that means you go over to other countries and you tell people about Jesus."

His words entered my ears and worked themselves down to my heart, where they settled like a warm blanket. "Really, Zac? You want to be a missionary?"

"No ... not a missionary," he said. "It's that other m word." He scrunched his forehead, trying to think of a way to refine his description. With another glance, I saw his face relax. He'd thought of a way. "It's that m word that means you go over to other countries and tell people about Jesus ... and they kill you for it."

The blanket around my heart became a tourniquet, twisting and tightening. And I experienced a moment of pure schizophrenia. Two beings awakened in me and fought for dominance. One half -- the She-bear half, roared a silent Never! to the thought of my son being martyred, to the thought of anyone daring to turn their ignorant wrath on my boy. But as quickly as I screamed that noiseless denial, the Sister-in-Christ part of me forced her way to the surface. Yes, Zac. You hold on to that devotion with everything you've got, she whispered.

He let his pronouncement hang in the air, and then he turned those green eyes toward the treeline outside the window. I watched him staring at the blur of gray-green mist, and without the privilege of entering his thoughts, I knew them. He was dreaming of someday ... a day when he would stand up for the thing he loves most, no matter the consequences. He was dreaming of a day when he'd grow into the courage of Paul, and Peter, and Jesus, and all the others he's heard about, who didn't seek their own deaths, or choose them, but who loved truth more than their own life, and who faced the closing of one door for the joy of the opened door before them.

I drew a breath ... and began to pray.


"A 'Martyr' has been defined as 'a Christian who chooses to suffer death rather than deny Christ, or His work... One who sacrifices something very important to further the Kingdom of God... and endures great suffering for Christian witness.' --Voice of the Martyrs (Not to be confused with those who take their own lives--and the lives of others--to further their own cause.)

What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. -James 4:14 NIV

And anyone who gives up his home, brothers, sisters, father, mother, wife, children, or property, to follow me, shall receive a hundred times as much in return, and shall have eternal life. -Matt 19:29 TLB

no doubt

A few summers back, for reasons known only to God and my son, Zac began to doubt the existence of the Almighty.

"How come, if he spoke to the prophets, God doesn't speak to me?" Zac asked one morning.

"He is speaking to you," I said. "Maybe you're just not realizing it."

Zac was silent for a long minute. "Don't you ever doubt, Mom? I mean, how do we know he's real? What if we're just making it all up?"

Calm down, I told my thrashing heart. "I don't doubt anymore," I said, in a voice more neutral than I thought possible. At least nothing in my tone betrayed my sense of panic. "But I did when I was your age. Younger than you, actually. I used to lie awake at night and make myself sick worrying that God wasn't real and that when I died, I'd just cease to exist."

"But you're convinced now," Zac said.

"Yes, I'm convinced." I couldn't put into words the rush of memory that filled my mind. I saw a hospital room, and the newborn I'd just watched delivered. I saw my friend stroking her son's face, and remembered the awe that swept through me and pushed aside some of that long-held doubt. I saw the northern lights again, on a night when God revealed himself through fingers of incandescent color that teased and tickled the sky, beckoning me to believe. I saw myself praying with a friend at 3:00 a.m. one morning, and heard again the unexpected thunder in my ears, saw again the orange, fiery glow behind my eyelids, felt again the weightlessness as God's Spirit filled my being and whispered, I'm here.

"I know he's real," I told my son.

"Well, I don't."

Before I could give release to the fear that surged through my heart, the voice I've grown to love so much whispered again. You can't give him your faith. He has to discover his own.

So God wasn't panicking.

"Why don't you just ask God to reveal himself to you?" I heard myself say.

"How do I do that?"

"Just ask. Just say, 'God, if you're there, show me.' "

Zac didn't answer me until he'd mounted the last stair. I felt his gaze from the upstairs loft. I looked up. "Can you do that?"

He waited a moment before answering. "Maybe. I'll have to think about it."

He left, and I started praying. "God, show him. Show him you're real, and you're near, and you love him."

Sometimes, God's answers take a lifetime of waiting and watching and listening. But some come mercifully quick. The following afternoon, Zac rushed through the front door and pounded into the living room. I sat on my same spot on the couch, only on this day, the thrashing heart beat in his chest.

"He's real, Mom," my boy said. Before the next words left his mouth, I'd already uttered my silent thanks.

"You'll never believe what happened today." With an exuberance pulled off best by fourteen-year old boys, Zac launched into the retelling of his day. He'd been walking along State Street with his friend, Broc. A man was drilling a sign about fifteen feet above the sidewalk, and Zac looked up to see exactly what the man was doing. In the same moment looked up, debris of some sort dropped from above and landed right in his eye. Zac staggered forward a few feet, bent over, and tried to blink out the intruder. And just as he did so, he heard and felt a fierce "whoosh" streaking past his head.

"Look out!" Broc yelled.

Zac froze -- but opened his eyes. And he saw a city bus zooming just inches from his head. The whooshing sound he'd heard came from the bus's side mirror -- which missed smacking Zac's head by a mere inch.

"Mom, that bus was going 40 miles an hour. If that mirror had hit me, I'd be dead right now."

I couldn't even let that thought sink in.

"God saved my life, Mom. He caused all that to happen -- me looking up, the dust hitting my eye, me bending over at the right time -- so I'd know he's real."

I could only stare.

"I did what you said. I asked God to show himself to me ... and he did."

Zac still has questions. So does his mother. So do most of God's children. But he's on a path. And every time I worry that he might wander a bit too far off that path, I have only to look at the picture posted above. Just a week after Zac's experience, he went to Whistler with our friends, Glen and Sonya Acord, and their three kids. While walking through a Canadian forest one afternoon, Zac noticed four or five doves flying from branch to branch. On a whim, he took some of the chips from his lunch, crushed them, and lifted them up to the birds. One accepted his offer ... and Sonya snapped this picture.

When she sent it to me, I printed it out and stared at it for a long moment. I thought about how much I loved that boy and how much I'd give up to know he'd always have a desire for God. The longer I looked at that picture, the more meaning I saw. Both Zac's wristbands bore embroidered doves. And there was something about the reaching and filling that caused me to pray out loud, "God, let this be a symbol of my son reaching for and being filled with your Holy Spirit."

On the heels of my plea, he reassured me with a whisper.

I want that even more than you do.