Oh the Bliss!

It's well known by now that I am a lover of words. I love the way they look on people's lips and how they sound when they come out. If I'm not staring at people's eyes (windows to the soul) I'm staring at their mouths because words are my fave. They are gorgeous, stunningly powerful, and for me, when put with music they're life changing. Music is the backdrop of my life. When words alone fail to convey a truth I'm trying to learn or teach, music steps in and beautifully articulates and translates for me. (I think that's why I was such a fan of the mix-tape. When I couldn't explain how I was feeling it was so much easier to say, "hear listen to this.") Music gets me. And God gets music. How gracious was he to understand his children well enough to know that simple words would not always do justice to our thoughts and feelings! He put songs in our hearts to give us another way of glorifying him. Getting our eyes off of us and back whe

I wasn't planning on writing about Mia on her birthday because I didn't write about Ben or Addison on theirs. But then I remembered that LIFE'S NOT FAIR and my six children are pretty well aware of that, so write about Mia I will. There is a line in a song and every time I hear it I think it was written for Mia... "I know that it's been said before, but you're my human holiday." Mia IS a human holiday! Everything about her is whimsical and theatrical and magical and wild. I mean, have you seen her hair? (Or  - dare I even mention - her EYES???) Her heart is so gorgeous, I want her to give me lessons on how to be. She is crazy articulate, and expressive. Supper funny. Loves, loves, LOVES God's creatures, especially anything in the canine family (not her mother's child but whatevs, at least she likes chocolate.) She's getting to know Jesus. She hears God's word and she obeys it... or tries to... most of the

Every now and then I catch a glimpse of him, the original Addison, in my Addison. Oh wait. Maybe you don't know how my Addison's name came to be? Maybe we've only known each other a few months, instead of a decade, and you think maybe I got her name from the character in Grey's Anatomy. (If you had to google Grey's Anatomy you are my new best friend.) No, she was not named after the former wife of "Dr. McDreamy". (Again, if you had to google that, I love you.) She was named after a different talent. A playwright. A director. A brilliant actor, yes. But not that Addison. I walked into his house at the invitation of a mutual friend for a Bible study. It was held there, I learned, so that he -Addison- didn't have to leave his home. The study leader asked a question and I answered it and Addison challenged me. We engaged in biblical banter for a few minutes until one one of us folded (I refuse to believe it was me, though I bet he woul

Loooking down, I held my phone in one hand, texting freakishly fast with my thumb, and signaled "one second, hush!" with my other hand. Mom. --textingtextingtexting-holdinguponesecondfinger-textingtextingtexting-shhhhhhhh-textingtextingtexting-justasec-textingtextingtexting-- Moooooooooooooom. --textingtextingtexting-holdinguponesecondfinger-textingtextingtexting-shhhhhhhh-textingtextingtexting-justasec-textingtextingtexting-hangon-textingtextingtexting-SHHHH-- MOM! I raised my head and met his eyes, "Child, just a second, I am PRAYING!" "You're praying? It looks like you're texting. Why don't you call them?" Instantly I flashed back to decades ago when my own mother would pick up the landline (do you young people even know what a landline is??? It's a phone, with a cord attached to it, and... oh never mind ), she'd hold up the "one second, hush" finger at me, bow her head, close her eyes and pray with whomever