The Business of Summer

When catching up with friends lately, it's been typical for each of us to ask, "What have you been up to this summer?" They have great answers like, "I'm having a baby!" and, "I'm going on a mission trip!" or, "We just bought a house!" When it's my turn to reply, I blank. Completely. Vacation was almost two months ago and I'm still harking back to it. "Well, you know, we traveled the first week of May..." Lame. 

The truth is that nothing very exciting or earth-shattering is going on for me this summer. The things that do happen look pretty much the same from day today, until I get right down on eye level with them, and hold my breath, and don't blink, and then I see some things that are amazing.

What am I doing this summer? Here's what I wish I could remember to say.

I'm watching my baby girl learn to walk in that hurtling, crashing, forward motion full of hope that she finds my arms before she hits the floor. She does. And then one day, really soon, she's not going to launch herself into my arms. She's going to push off from them. And that part of the business of summer will be done. She will officially know how to walk, and all her life will change. 

I'm watching my son run, run, everywhere in shoes that surely belong on a circus clown and not his feet. How he doesn't trip and fall all over himself, I don't know. But he doesn't. He runs and jumps and moves like the deer that venture into my yard, wrecking my roses and somehow still making me thankful for a glimpse of them. And when they appear, the nervousness so obvious in their twitching tails and flaring nostrils, I call to my boy to come, quick, but be very quiet, and we stand together and watch these beautiful, destructive creatures. For a moment he is still, and then he's off again, springing away on those skinny little legs, bounding with energy. No one told me that part of the business of parenting is learning that you will constantly watch your child moving away from you, in tiny steps, then leaps and bounds. 

I'm  being amazed by the magic of witnessing a hummingbird feeding from the blossoms on my hosta plants, which have exploded into a riotous entanglement of leggy stalks and broad leaves all along the front of my house. Just watching those plants grow a little (or a lot) each day has been a small but sure pleasure since those first strange purple fingers began clawing their way through the soil into the sunshine. And now to see these enigmatically beautiful birds coming right up to my window and passing from flower to flower is a moment pregnant with wonder and amazement, bred in my grandmother's living room as everyone stopped whatever they were doing in order to watch the "hummer" at the feeder outside the window.  The business of appreciating beauty, no matter how small or momentary, is best learned early. 

I'm working with my husband every day to keep our family fed, our house clean, our souls and minds and bodies nourished with love and forgiveness and gospel and grace. I'm doing the mundane, the boring, the essential to keep life here afloat. Most days I think a lot about what I do, and don't spend nearly enough time thanking the ONE who allows me to do it, who gives me the strength for it, who pours grace all over me and my family when I fail. Which I do. A lot. A nutrient rich breakfast is nothing if it's served from a surly, closed hand. So this summer I'm learning, and learning, and learning, the business of loving, because I'm loved. 

So the business of my summer is growth. Growing flowers. Growing kids. Growing awareness of grace. Everywhere, in everything, there is a way to grow in grace.

-Ashley