Falling in Love

No one tells you, when you choose this life of marriage and family and sticking to covenant, that you will get to fall in love again.

It happens all at once one morning, when you are drinking coffee at the breakfast table, and there is a little boy sitting there eating bread with jam and chatting about airplanes and bad guys.

It happens when she sidles up unannounced and slips her hand into yours, even though she's a big girl and doesn't need you in the same way she once did.

It happens when you catch a particular smile you've never seen before, because he's just discovered something of importance and his hair has never been that shade of sun-kissed before.

It happens when she jumps off a new height and puts a little dizzy in the pit of your stomach, but you hide it because you are so flushed with pride, and as she turns to grin she has suddenly sprung up taller.

No one tells you the unending capacity children have to make you see things new, to be plunged into love in a thousand wondrous ways. You thought that "to forsake all others" was to shut up your heart to the thrill of love, but this narrow path of two-become-one floods into acres of freedom. This life of co-creation is deep and wide, and here is all your heart's desire.


~lg

morning prayer :: 3

From the Book of Common Prayer, "Forms of Prayer to Be Used in Families"


Thanksgiving for the gift of another day

We give thee hearty thanks, O heavenly Father, for the rest of the past night, and for the gift of a new day. Grant that we may so pass its hours in the perfect freedom of thy service, that at eventide we may again give thanks unto thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

* * *

~lg

Free (lyrics)

Long my spirit lay with no hope in the darkness
Couldn't see my way through the shadows of night
Then the Saviour came, stepped right into my sorrow
Lifted up my head, filled this dungeon with light

My chains fell off
My heart was free
And I heard the voice of the Risen One call out to me. . .

Rise up, rise up and follow Him
Cast off the heavy weight of sin
And be free
Free indeed
Rise up, rise up and follow Him
Run to the prize that won't grow dim
You are free
Free indeed

Bound and broken one - He is hope in the darkness
Weak and weary one - He's your song in the night
Lost and lonely one - you have not been forgotten
Oh lift up your head, He comes flaming with light

'Tis mercy all
Immense and free
The amazing love of the Risen One calls out to me. . .

Rise up, rise up and follow Him
Cast off the heavy weight of sin
And be free
Free indeed
Rise up, rise up and follow Him
Run to the prize that won't grow dim
You are free
Free indeed

Let every chain be broken
Let every heart be free
The curse of sin and death and hell is crushed beneath His feet


(with inspiration from Charles Wesley's hymn, And Can It Be)
* Acts 12:1-10, Hebrews 12:1-2, Philippians 3:12-14

~lg