Little Gifts

  This evening we walked a trail we've walked dozens of times. The sun was just sinking below the treeline and encouraging shouts from a peewee football game drifted through the air. The first fall evening this year that could be defined as crisp.

  The two-year-old ran ahead, like the wind. Sunshine curls flying all helter-skelter out behind him, his little heart bursting with joy to be outside with his "whole famp-ily".

  The big red dog ran zigzags across the sidewalk, constantly being reminded to not jump in the creek. Not this time. Bedtime is soon and we didn't bring a towel.

  The little girl sat quietly in her stroller, looking for all the world like an Eloise Wilkin illustration with her big blue eyes and little mouth and delicious cheeks.

  We walked past the shady place where we said goodbye to the baby we lost, one year ago tomorrow.

  Josh said, "Isn't this so different from when we used to walk on the golf course?" When we were newlyweds, when we lived in a basement in a gated community, when our lives were quieter and calmer and we were only two.

  We were so happy then. We laughed and went on adventures to foreign countries. Our hearts were full. We could not have known how much our joy would be multiplied in the years to come. How much more we would laugh and how our hearts would explode with a new kind of love.

  I don't know why we've been chosen to parent these precious ones; but I do know that, "children are a gift from the Lord," (Psalm 127:3a) and He has been generous to me.