I watched the shifting sky, the colors filtered and spread wide.
I’m with my granddaughter on our morning walk, earlier this time.
The sky beckoning her gaze.
I capture her profile, her mama and daddy’s home in the background.
Her cheeks are full and full of joy and their blush is the same as what God has mixed in with the sky.
We walk.
I hold tight, shift her weight, careful not to have my arms press in to her tiny frame.
She welcomes my hold.
She regularly tilts her sweet face in awe of the trees, the sky.
I pray out loud, sing songs that include her name and other crazy things.
I love her. What a sweet thing.
Someone from the coast asked for my thoughts yesterday,
What do you say to your storms? DH
I answered.
I tell the storm, “I’m protected.”
This morning, I think of my children, my family and I have a moment of new and needed clarity.
If I’m protected, are not my children protected as well?
I journal my thoughts on a morning that God woke me at 4 and I decided, get up anyway.
I thought about God’s all encompassing immense and protective love.
How he loves them even more than I ever could be able.
God, you’re their protector just as you are mine.
I don’t have to “stay on top of things”.
I don’t have to anxiously remind you in my prayers to keep things under control.
Ha! Wow!
Me, reminding you of your role?!
I don’t have to watch from a distance so far that I squint to hope to see what’s going on, strain to hear, concentrate or calculate the endings of stories of their books when they are barely a chapter in.
And that you, not I, have already written.
I can set aside my book, my syllabus of reading between the lines, leaning toward tragic stories over beautiful and memorable autobiographies.
Like mine.
Yes.
I can know they are protected.
“No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”
1 John 4:12 NLT
I can love more fully than I’ve ever loved.
Point more clearly towards hope.
Be strong so that my strength is what they admire.
Yes, love.
Love is the protection, mine to freely give.
Best I can offer.
Protection is yours.
Lisa Anne Tindal 
Lisa, this was such a blessing to me. I copied down the line: “I can know they are protected.” in my prayer journal and it led to me penning the poem I just posted. I have had God repeatedly give me glimpses of injustices and then shut the door on me doing anything about it …or so I thought. I now see He’s been opening the door of my heart to intercede. As I did that over a loved one recently, only a week or so later that prayer was powerfully answered…but I didn’t see that till God had me reread my prayer journals…it’s then I saw numerous prayers He’s answered. So, all this to say: thank You for growing the grace and knowledge of God in me through your anointed words.
LikeLike
We are growing! Both of us.
LikeLike