It is the typical question in a family with multiple children.
Mom, am I your favorite?
Every child wants to hear that they are loved the best…the most.
Every mother knows that she loves each of her children and does not have favorites!

Susanna Wesley had 19 children.
Nine of her children died as infants.
Of the ten remaining children, we would recognize one son, in particular.
Charles Wesley, wrote many of the hymns we sing in church.
Hymns like Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.

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My husband is an engineer…has an engineer brain.
Anyone married to an engineer can understand.
Very practical…very black and white…not very emotional.
I guess I make up for that…being a woman…being me!

Because the engineer in him loves projects, he does woodworking as a hobby.
I have been spoiled through the years because of all the beautiful things he has made.
One of my favorites is our large kitchen table with benches.
It easily fits the seven of us…and any other guests we might have for dinner.

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They were married sixty six years.
I would see them at church each week.
He, with his full head of thick, gray hair…his blue eyes sparkling.
She, tiny at his side, always with a smile and a song.

This was a couple…young at heart.
I would see them at the grocery store.
She, pushing the cart…purposeful in her selections.
He, sitting on the bench, waiting.

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Ever have a day where you feel as if you are walking with two left feet?
A day when things that should take this long..take T-H-I-S long!

I don’t know why days like that surprise us.
That is just the way it is down here…sometimes.

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Back to school…a phrase that can produce cheers or grumbles and groans.
This is the time of year when emotions are mixed…as if in a blender.
Mothers prepare their children by calling them in from outside a little earlier…pushing up bedtime a little sooner, so that the early ring of the alarm clock will be a little easier to handle.

Back to school shopping is an art in itself: the lists, the sales, the cleaning out of closets, the squeak of new sneakers, the sharpened pencils that have yet to touch the paper, the smell of never used crayons as each child longs to try the sharpener on the box just once…
The search for the perfect backpack.

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When I was a little girl, it was such a treat to go into the city with my mother and my aunt.
We would take the train and spend the day shopping and going out to lunch.
One restaurant I always seemed to ask to go to was Horn and Hardart.
I don’t think it was the food that drew me there…it was the entrance.

Horn and Hardart had a revolving door.

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My washer sings.
My oven beeps when it has preheated…my microwave beeps when it is done.
My refrigerator beeps incessantly until I close the door.
That is a good thing if I am unaware that it is opened, but frustrating when I am putting groceries away.

Take notice of your own house.
You know each and every sound…every creak of the floorboards.
You can distinguish which appliance is beeping for your attention.
You know the sound the heater makes….the sound the air conditioner makes.
Those sounds can actually be comforting because there is a predictability to them.

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My husband and I have been married for thirty years.
We have lived in one apartment and three houses during our married life.
As our family grew, our homes grew a bit to accommodate the seven of us.
We have moved locally each time.

The house we lived in before our current home was one that we built.
It was nestled in the woods.
Deer in our yard was a common sight.

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(part one of this story was written on March 27, 2012)

My friend and her husband returned from China.
They met their daughter’s precious friend…the one she had discipled in the faith.
They went to places their daughter had walked, as she ministered to many in His name.

Their daughter, Katelynn, had crossed over from this life to her eternal life in an instant.
The victim of a horrific car accident that took her life at the age of twenty three.

They have continued to walk with their Lord…not understanding…but trusting.
They have cried out to Him.

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I never rode a school bus until high school.
During my elementary school years, I walked to and from school, or was driven.
It was too close for a bus to come and pick up the children in our neighborhood.
It was far enough away that it was a decent walk.

Not the proverbial…I walked miles in the snow…and the rain story that you tend to embellish when you are older.
But truly one mile from door to door.

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