7 years - A New Season

Indeed it has been 7 years since my short lived and fun writings in this blog about our Hurley dog.  We have changed jobs, moved back to California (again) and welcomed another child.  We live on acres in a small, 100 year old adobe home and I often imagine that God has given me the best of both worlds; as if He carved out a piece of Oregon and planted it in San Diego county saying simply, "Here you go Pattons, you can live here for a while".  In biblical farming, there were 6 years of planting and harvesting and then it was decided that the whole land should rest the 7th year and anything left on the ground would be for the poor.

This is our 7th year with no significant starting point to reference back to other than the time I last wrote and although life was fairly uneventful and comfortable then, looking back I can see that it was the beginning of changes.  Changes that would take us on a journey.... and in 38 years living we can both testify that these 7 have been our most trying, most questioning, and most difficult.  I'm reaching over and knocking on wood because so much could have been worse.  In that season, there wasn't a single devastating event, no loss of life, and by His amazing grace we've always been ok, better than ok.  Raising little ones is a season and not a parent on the earth would argue that it takes your breath away, knocks you on your butt and changes you forever.  It is an ongoing and sacrificial love and you are forced to put YOU on hold, period.  And that is ok too.  In fact it's good and when you do experience it you will understand God's love for you in the way that other parents talk of and pastor's teach about.  And you'll get it.  It's hard and beautiful and painful and wonderful all in the same day.
Then you fast forward a few years where diapers are no longer on the shopping list and wonder where the time has gone and suddenly you're in a house all alone most mornings with your coffee, your good old dog (still alive by the way), 2 cats and a laptop....and the sound of quietness is piercing.  But this is also good.  It's just different.  What do you do with that?

Work a little more, yes, to survive.

And write a little more, yes, because it's in me.

Write about what?  Well, about life.  It will require some digging into the dusty files of my library called 'memories' as well as telling today's stories.  Words are powerful and children always want you to "tell us a story".  A great gift will not be memories of mommy spending way too much time staring at her iPhone and texting (bluntly stated); but making the memories with them and then documenting them, to show them my heart today and also down the road when they are grown, because I've written it.  It is my great hope that they always know that our faith is the thread that binds us together and what will also bind these pages.