On the Brink

Today, I become the mother of another teenager young adult.

I can't say I'm all that sad about it - there's something wonderful and wacky and wild about the way these older ones need me.

It's certainly not as simple as these days:


When a bowl of pretzels, a dinosaur party, and a romp in the yard made for one happy boy.

It's more challenging, full of paths unknown and less traveled, but with rewards as sweet as a dripping wet man-child hug after a high-speed tube ride on the lake.



Now I look in the face of this amazing young man - poised on the brink of becoming an adult, a bright arrow in the quiver Yurii and I steward with fear and trembling - and pray. . .

That the Lord will guard his heart,
keep him as tender and sweet towards his future wife and children . . .

as he is towards his sisters.

Most of the time!

That he would always use his talents - in music, film-making and the like - to bring glory to the Lord, and not to himself.


And, most of all, that he would never stop being the blue in the midst of our pink, the tender heart in the midst of a sinful world, the nonstop talker, movie-maker, joke teller, joy-bringer, Jesus-lover that he is today.

We love you, Nathaniel. Happy 13th Birthday!