Where is She? Obviously the angels touched us down from the ministry they did in us at the same time, your father and I.

!

We both went into an anxiety attack at the same time. I reached over onto the other side of the bed and a big fat hard Bible was being clutched hard in your father's hands. I was deep in my usual anxiety attack but I hadn't known he was. Oh dear we both sighed. He said I am holding onto Jesus as best I can tonight. I am glad that you are. I don't know if I can. I know this is a good change but I do miss her, something awful. We prayed together and commiserated and we were comforted enough to sleep. Thank God the angels did their ministering to us on the road on the way home. The other children couldn't have seen us how we would have performed without their deliberate assistance. They have an app for sensitive parents and we are at the top of the charts for sensitive parents. Don't laugh at us. We'll stop crying when baby girl is home with us again. SHHHHHH!

A Whole Closet all to yourself? What else could you want?

Happy, sad departure and a long road home from dropping the "baby-girl"Evelyn woman to her new Chowan adventure. We are all excited to grow with her!

Trust in the Lord...As We Sail to Heaven's Shores

The questions swirl around your mind. I see them following you and bumping you on your head, this morning of the "lunar liftoff"{to change the analogy}. How do I?...What if? Is there a???etc.

T-12hours to lift off. Time will tell if the questions were "legit" or not. You have every emotional and mental tool at your disposal for the growing up app on all of our computers. Is there an app for this part of the parenting process? There should be.ie. A how to pack for college app. How to think like a grown up app. etc. I am sure you will find it, or create it, if it isn't there.

There is no shortcuts for leaning on the Everlasting Arms. You have to find them, like your pillow, everyday. You have to know you need them to lean on them, in prayer and in meditation on the Master's great plan. His Arms as your pillow will support your every effort with divine assistance. Knowledge that we are sinners and fallible and in great need of the help of the Lord, everyday. I do thank Him for making you the dear girl that you have been and the wonderful woman you are becoming. I do want to see you soar and the soaring process means there must be some distance. Even that swallows and the starlings put some distance between themselves and the nearest air-swimmer. They are sometimes very high in the sky and sometimes very low to the ground. College is the distancing, before liftoff to an even greater sphere. It is not the sphere, yet, although it may be a very great useful place for you. Do all you can. See all you can. Help all you can. Grow all you can. Don't miss one opportunity that your conscience says yes to. And try not to jump into any mess that your conscience doesn't go for. But, if you do, know that you have an advocate with the Father. Jesus is the answer! Jesus is the WAY. Keep your eyes on Him and you will be just fine. We are still here for you. Always praying for your growth and safety and trying not to make a big deal of your challenges.

We are at the dock and you are nearly setting sail. All of the clocks are set to count down for a blast off in 72 hours and counting.

Why am I thinking of telling you all of the stories that I didn't tell you, growing up? You are grown now. Stories have to be relevant. I trust that this one is.

Once upon a time, not really very long ago, far far away, you were sent to us and we are eternally grateful for the gift that you have become and were from the initial onset. It wasn't that we needed another girl or anything. That is the wonderful gift of being the fourth child. It was just the wonder of your individuality and skating into our lives at a settled season. We were neither wanting nor aggravated in your season. That was a small pocket of time that lasted for a very short time. There is never a want for complaining in any size family and we were given to our share of discontent, I must confess, to my shame. You were certainly not a part of our complaining. The girls were girls and that seems so very long ago that I have to stretch my mind to think of it. They always thought they were women, but they played girly things and sometimes you became a baby doll to them.

Enoch was a boy. So totally different from the girls, but a very boyish fellow. His boyness could have easily been swallowed up in their girly play. I was always trying to find a masculine character to insert into their girly game, here and there. Often it was the security guard or the safety inspector or some other rule enforcer. {It seems he's grown into those game roles, somewhat?}

Well then there was Evvie. She was absolutely the most placid part of our lives in that season. Not a rabble rousing 4th child. Not an invisible baby. She and you seemed to fit perfectly into the puzzle. It was as though you had always been there. We had school in the basement and much ado was there about your participation in our school day from birth. What is 6 times 3, etc.? When the girls had trouble with their cyphering, I would tell them, Evvy was born knowing that fact. They knew this wasn't true. We did a lot of laughing and a lot of adventuring. Sands Point Museum and the surrounding park were often our distinct pleasure to invade and study and learn from. We went to the beach often and the close parks, nearly everyday, for sometime. My four dearlings of which you were the baby for a long time.

Now we are 18. I do say we because I as Evvie's mother am 18. You are an eye-opening child for me. You are helping me see the me that I can be with a baby girl travelling far from me for a little while. I am looking forward to that aspect of growth for myself. I am looking forward to see how the skills of interpersonal interaction will help you in a broader sphere and how the broader sphere will impact you, as well. To me, you will always be the little lady on the bus with Rosa Parks, nursing her baby. I laughed that you seemed so connected to me in school as you were. We will survive this separation time. We will grow and we will get back together, Lord willing, with much to share about our adventures. I am grateful that you shared yourself and your struggles with me so much and often through the years and hope we never stop being the friends that we've become. I love you! MOM.

I'll never forget the first smiting of that beauty to my eyes that was Lauren Bacall

She walked or sauntered across the screen in "How to Marry a Millionaire" and I was mesmerized with study of the power of her fully dressed body on the screen.

I said to myself, if we could learn the power that she had, it would completely change the way we look at womanly wiles. We always think that less is more. She was powerful in the beauty of covering. There were scenes of uncovering, but herself covered and the focus on her eyes were a study, in themselves. I think she was blessed with Eve's eyes. Perfect! We all don't have those to work with, but perfect eyes doesn't have to mean wicked eyes. I love looking at the men who are hypnotized by her beauty on the screen, ie. Humphrey Bogart, William Powell,etc. They seemed to look into her to see what it was that they wanted to continue to see when looking at her. She was delightful to look at. We enjoyed 89 years of entertaining beauty from her great generosity to share it with us. I am thankful for the life study of learning to try to become beautiful that is my memory of Lauren Bacall.

The spiritual growth associated with the last season of pregnancy

Wait on the Lord, Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart

I don't think you know what impatience is, until you have an uncomfortable pregnancy prolonged beyond the due-date. The first doctor visit gives you a specific date and you start planning for that date, from day one. Each day that you go past that day is a waiting game. Sometimes you are distracted from the thought. But, usually, you want to see this new person in your life so badly, that each day seems an eternal distance from you and the new relationship you are anticipating to enjoy.

Finally, your heart gives way to trust God's providence as so many people who see you look like a balloon about to burst give you encouragements toward that thought and just at the time you accept the will of God, the baby is usually here and it is all over. Life with baby has begun.

Wow, He did strengthen my heart through that long waiting and uncomfortable time of life. I am now experientially in a new relationship with my baby and with my God, who has strengthened my heart to wait on Him and see Him give me grace and acceptance of His will. I have submitted to a providence that I didn't exactly like and I have seen an answer to prayer beyond what I could have anticipated. You simply cannot anticipate the amount of love God places in your heart for this little stranger, whom you have never met before. I know that I will love him/her. But, I never really know what a hugeness that God infuses in that love.

Can a woman forget her own son?

All may change, but Jesus, never!

God we pray for the women who are expecting that You will draw them near to You as they wait and may they know Your peace that passes understanding. Make their path straight in Your great providence and make them ready for the dearness of motherhood. I love you for letting us have such a privilege of learning to love, on this earth. In Jesus Name, Amen.

If I could go back to the beginning right now...

I think that the first thing that I would do in my last week of my first pregnancy, would be to choose a scent for the house and laundry.

I do love, now that the scent of "Gain" reminds me of my sister Jackie. She seems to have mastered the art of pressing her mark on the souls of the children through scents. Everybody in my family knows that Gain smells like Aunt Jackie's house. Always clean and always laundry done or getting done. I admire her in that.

I'm a first child, so my home smell is the smell of baby milk. I grew up with it as my most pungent remembrance and I grew my children with that as their primary home memory. It absolutely never occurred to me that I had a choice in that matter. I grew up with baby milk and I passed that along to my children. My third sister grew up with a mother who probably had developed a sense of aroma-therapeutic methods in her growth into nursing mastery.

I would go to the store in the last weeks of pregnancy and taste the scents and choose which of them, after the Woolite smell of early baby laundry. I am going to buy some Woolite today to reminisce about my baby-child scent remembrances that are now, only a faint memory, fleeting and going into "nearly forgotten". Uh-oh, it's gone...