Second Windsong

Rather than a location with sprawling green grasslands or sand filled tot lots, when I think of the word park, ​a picture of my car immediately comes to mind. I am what I call, "parking challenged."  No matter how hard I try, I am always just a little bit off tilt.  The front of my car inevitably turns just slightly to the right or to the left.   And, parallel parking has been blackened right out of my personal dictionary.   I have tried every trick, every hack, every YouTube example and I cannot master it. Even after a hundred thousand little moves forward and little moves backward, I either end up with the nose of my car protruding or my back tires on the curb. I have compassion for my fellow parking challenged sisters and brothers who try in a hundred thousand little ways to fit in and stay on the straight and narrow only to find that they are just slightly bent.   I am thankful that God takes us just as we are and that his grace make...

Five Minute Fridays: Mail – Non-Descript Address, Lifegiving Words Watching from the sidelines while my daughter, pen in hand, signed her very life away.  She joined the Navy the day she turned eighteen.  I knew it would be hard to say goodbye. I was braced. I was ready. My arms ached for one last hug.  She had been in a back room of the recruiting office for what seemed like an eternity. I wriggled in my chair, arms still aching. The recruiter returned alone. He handed me a piece of paper with a non-descript address for a post office box in a non-descript state and simply said “write letters; lots of them.”    My daughter was gone. No goodbyes. No relief for aching arms. Only words to be penned and sent. Often. I sat for hours over the first piece of tear stained paper trying to choose just the right words. How could I write to my now missing daughter without handing her a page filled with the sadness I felt so deeply.  I used my letter w...