The circle

Life is.... _________

That's how I started this post 3 days ago, thinking the right words would come to me.
But 3 days later and I still don't really know what to put.



Last week, the life of a mother was brutally taken from her children, at the hands of her husband. They went to our church. Their kids played with mine.

A few days later a son was taken from his mother in a quick and terrible act of nature's fury; lost in a flash flood. Though I've never seen her in person, I've followed along with her blog for years and felt her loss as though she were a dear friend.

My heart just hurts. I have yet to deal with the passing of a close loved one. I've been able to keep loss at a far distance...locked out of my house, pushed from the corners of my mind. I've only felt it's chill from a distance.

And suddenly everything just feels...
fragile.
crystalline.
paper-thin. 

Even with the priceless knowledge that the end is not really the end, and that more, and better, and bigger than we could ever image waits for us and those we love. Even knowing that not even a single, small bird can fall on this earth without the eyes of my Savior upon it, and His loving hands cradling it.

Even then.

Life is.... hard. painful. unfair. short

...................................................................

Last week I got to meet two beautiful new additions to our neighborhood.
Sweet baby girls born a few weeks apart...to two new moms on my street.

One of my best friends, and also a neighbor, is pregnant with yet another precious baby girl...due this winter.

And my own 2nd born will turn One next week. And you better believe I'm going to squeeze her and kiss her and breathe her in every second of that day that I can, before she wriggles away to chase after her older sister on wobbly, unsure legs.

Life is....precious. beautiful. breathtaking. stunning. impossible to plan. short

So I'm telling this to me, to you...Go live. 

Live Huge! Live Big or Go Home, damn it! Take too many pictures of your family. Hang them in too many frames. Hug the bejeezes out of people even if they don't like hugs! Find a new baby and just stare at the miracle of hands and feet that could be that small. Sing along with that c.d. in your car of 1001 annoying children's songs so loudly that other drivers think you're INSANE and your kids think your AMAZING. But live bigger than just you. Spill and splash your life onto other people or else none of it really matters. Give things. Share things. Say things that need to be said.

Put your sunnies on, baby.  There are always bright days ahead.