ann kiemel

yesterday my friend loaned me her car.
yes, how amazing it is to have incredible, beautiful
people in our lives. i have some of the very
finest and best on earth. you all are some of
them. i've made it purely by the loving investments
others have poured along the sidewalk of my life.

i know you think i am never going to get a car.
but i am saving everything i can...everything...so
i can buy the very one God is saving for me. i KNOW
He has one. i absolutely know. through all my tears,
i have come to complete peace about this.

anyway,
i drove to marysville
where brandt and jasmine and my only,
doll-baby grandson live. i literally never knew
HOW MUCH i could love a baby the way i do
colben. born on thanksgivng day almost two
years ago. there is some shape of miracle that
he should pop his beautiful, curly, little head into
the world on such a special day. the children were
all home for turkey, and we got to watch colben's
birth instead. imagine!!! God gathered everyone,
and surprised us with a gift that made turkey and
mashed potatoes and gravy seem like chicken nuggets.

when i am with colben, all the hard things in my life
completely disappear. i laugh and cry and giggle and
kiss him and tickle him and crawl around the house on
my hands and knees until he can't stop giggling. he is
beautiful and precious and untouched by ugly things. oh,
life will come along and bruise him and hurt him, but not
today. thank Jesus, not yet.

and he and i have a special relationship. special.
we have our own language. we are completely content
in each other's arms. safe and joyful and at peace as
if flowers grew in gravel and thunder was dressed up in
choirs and dust was like perfume and uncontaminated.
he chatters incessantly and tries to say every word i say.
his head is full of fly-away curls going in every direction,
and he is sweet. so sweet. he has the look of mischief
in his eyes exactly like brandt did as a baby, and the
caramel-cream color of jasmine's skin. he's perfect and such a
gift and i am crying as i write this because i am so
grateful for him. for my beautiful daughter-in-law who
so selflessly shares him. for God's massive love that
created colben and knew it would be one of His finest gifts
in my life.

continued tomorrow.....