For a Year



"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"
-from the back cover of Anne Lamott's book "Bird by Bird"

The Great Unknown will come one day at a time. God's direction will progress step by step. Your relationships will continue phone call by phone call, or email by email, or visit by visit. And my favorite analogy, as my Greek prof. loved to remind us: "How do you eat an elephant?" "One bite at a time."

You can do it! You are so loved by an infinitely good and powerful God who works things for your good. You are cherished by many people both in Alaska and here in the continental 48. God knows right where you are, and right where He's taking you, and exactly what it will take to get there. Just take it bird by bird.

I will be forever amazed at God’s timing. He sends the right words and reminders and encouragement- exactly when they are needed.

For a year they were mine. Well, I kinda knew they weren’t “mine” but I called them that anyway. We laughed and cried, came and went, fought and got along, just like a normal family I guess. More often than naught I felt inadequate but I realize that it wasn’t my job to be adequate- that’s God’s job. And I’m afraid that I didn’t tell them enough how dear they are to me. We are all over the world now, doing a variety of things. My heart misses them, so do my arms and my ears.

Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all. Right?