We are like little magpies these days, collecting color and taste and texture for our book of life. Reading and strawberry picking and seven-foot tomato plants. Coffee and jam-making and homemade swimming pools. Having close church friends over for a vehement yet unheated discussion. These are the people we are—trading food and stories with the neighbors, exulting in the unseasonably cool weather, not quite finding time for All The Things—some of who we want to be; some of the longing for what we wish to come.
All this beauty and also difficulty. Trying to be good to each other, succeeding then failing and asking for grace again, knowing this is how it always will be, world without end. Feeling God’s love filter down to us through the mesh of hardness we put around ourselves, reaching us anyway, reaching this little one too.
Salt and sweet, hard yet beautiful life.
Handcrafted and Homegrown 
Thank you, Sweetheart. So precious. I love you and I love that little boy. Uncle Paul Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 17:42:24 +0000 To: peekatn@hotmail.com
Much love to you too.
Yes. We are learning to accept the hard graces, along with the easy; recognizing that we get both without asking, but the asking helps us to see it as grace, to name it as grace, to feel it as grace. We are wanderers (are we not?) eating mystery, manna, wondering “What is this?”, and yet being sustained on it. Your faith in naming it beauty encourages this weary soul. Love, love!
Well put, as always. Thank you, friend!
I am late for a dinner out because I had to sit and read this through three times. It is so beautiful, and so are you, lovely girl. It’s a blessing to get a glimpse of your heart through these words. Love you.
Thank you. You’re so much a part of this blessed life I have.
Rachel, love–Your words make my heart soar and ache at the same time with the beauty and richness of them. I am so thankful for you. And thank you for sharing “this little one” with us. I love you.