My friend Ann says, “Life is not an emergency.” I wonder, how do I live this truth?  It seems to me, life moves faster each day.  I long to find the slow, to keep it manageable, but most days I just hold on for dear life.

Until…

I see her dance,

or listen as she plays Ode to Joy on the hand me down piano.

When she smiles, and her tooth wiggles,

and I snuggle with my growing toddler before she goes to bed.

These moments seem to teeter as if on the edge of something bigger. They freeze only for a split second and then they are gone.  Many times, my eyes catch it and I am lost within the beauty of the second.  I  grab it and put it safely in my heart for keeps. Other times I’m too caught up in the busy, and it tumbles off the edge into the chaos of life.

What do we do with the moments we catch and now treasure in our hearts? We string them together like pearls as stories and we give them back to our kids.

And we tell them, you are beautiful. We thank God that we gathered enough to string our story together.  And we give Him the glory for giving us even just one.