heavy heart

It hit me today while doing some last minute shopping. I saw this awesome marker tower and thought, Avery will love this and get a lot of use out of it because she will probably grow up to be an artist one day. When we got home, I started to wrap it, and I broke down. Just started crying.

Twenty families have Christmas trees or something else to celebrate the holidays, and most likely there are presents under those trees that won't be opened by the intended recipient. They'll be opened by sorrowful moms and dads and tears will come again, and again, and if it were me, I'm not sure when those tears would stop.

I looked at Avery today, walking up the stairs to our porch, not needing to hold the rail anymore and I think, she's getting so old. She was barely walking a year ago.

Each parent remembers the first step their kid takes, and for these twenty families, that moment is even more precious to them. Lord willing, there will be many more moments when we'll see our girls walk. Their first day of school, when they earn their diploma from college, when they walk arms linked with Ken down the aisle. I think about those dads of those precious little girls. They won't get the chance to say, "Her mother and I do," and then gladly hand of their daughter to the man they marry.

So I'm here, frustrated that this happened, a bit fearful for our world, and longing for Jesus even more. I have no answers, only tears. I have thoughts, but no opinions about gun laws and really, we can change and amend all the laws of our country, but our world is broken and in need of a Savior. Until the respect and reverence for human life in restored in each person, I don't know what the government can do to change things in the long run.

It's four days before we celebrate the birth of Jesus, who came to be born and then to die because he loved. He loved us first so that we could love. In the end, and at the beginning, that's all we should do.

Love.

The past two nights, I've read this book All in a Day to Avery before she goes to bed. It says,

A day is all you have to be, it's all you get to keep.

Underneath that great big sky the earth is all a-spin.

This day will soon be over and it won't come back again.

So live it well, make it count, fill it up with you.

The day's all yours, it's waiting now...

See what you can do. 

I thank Jesus for another day to be with my girls, and I pray there are many more to come. This past week has taught me though, to live it well and make it count. I hope you can do the same.