happy little sigh

For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

-Psalm 139:13-14

After nine long years, I find myself here once again. This place that was so dear to me as home. So inspiring to all my senses, and aspirations, and heart. I hardly want to sleep (though I am). Hardly want to miss a second of all this sweet Scottish air (oh, how purple the heather on the hills just now!). Don’t want to miss a minute with the sweetest of friends who will be, through eternity, lodged in my heart.

Our first weekend we went to Inverness to stay with friends from our former church. First a play at the park with my sweetest friend Mhairi and her boys–oh, what fun to have Scottish children to show them all the best climbing trees and hiding spots! Then at Maureen and Alasdair’s, where there’s endless snacks for the children to keep up their strength, and endless cups of tea, and her beautiful garden where the boys picked raspberries, and her husband’s workshop where he helped them make wooden porridge stirrers, and all the talk of things big and small that we managed to cram in-between. I tried to soak, soak, soak up all the love and goodness and wisdom I have always felt from their presence.

And at Rona’s, the stunning views over the highlands toward Loch Ness, and the mouth-watering Indian food she prepared, and the kids laughing with her son over a game, and realizing how similar a path we tread from different corners of the earth, and the talk of grace that seasoned it all.

Seeing these precious faces again, I thought maybe my heart would burst. Burst because of the loving so very much, or burst because of the having to say goodbye. It seems unthinkable that it’s been nine long years since I last saw them or last breathed the sweet highland air. Unthinkable that in three weeks I will once again have to say goodbye. That their life will go on, and so will mine, and who knows when we’ll meet again. The only thing that keeps it all from being too much is thoughts of eternity . . . One day, one day, we will all be together. And all those lattes, and cups of tea, and cakes, and misty mountains, and faces of friends, well, they will just not stop. Death will be dead and so will goodbyes.

Why would I want anything else? Why would I want to be anyone else but what God has made me? Why I would I want any other end than the one He has prepared for me? The thought that God not only created us with foresight, purpose, and detail but also continues with us throughout our lives with the same love, wisdom, and attention to detail is utterly mind-numbing. He made those friends. He made me. He brought us into each other’s lives, and He will carry each of us through until we are all reunited in the end. “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Corinthians 15:57).

“Dear Lord, thank you for the sweet friends in Christ you have blessed my life with. Thank you for making each of us with care. And thank you that you will carry each of us till the end–till we are forever with each other and you. Amen.”

Avonlea xo

Learn to love mornings & grow in faith . . .

Bookish devotionals for busy moms. Sign up here FREE

Happy Little Sigh

Homemaking Inspiration from Literature ❤