Summer in Summary

Hammond Castle, Gloucester, MA

Summer has been an emotional, lazy, and beautiful monster. And I am READY for fall. Please Dear God, let fall be Refreshing. Not vacation refreshing but goodness refreshing. I need to see and hear goodness in the world.

For me, this summer has been mostly SAD with a few sugar sprinkles thrown in here and there. Too much yucky and devastating and brutal. My globe wears a shawl of mourning, and I hope and pray that the coming Fall months drop this cloth of despair and bring something positive, or even, dare I hope, HAPPY.

When you have prayed and had faith and waited with hope, but what you seek just doesn't come, it's just so FREAKING YUCKY. But then, when you put your desires into perspective. . .life, for YOU (I mean me), is still good.

YOU (I) have an awesome husband and healthy children and a safe home and Glennon's posts to remind you that you have a refrigerator and clean water and it's all a matter of "perspectacles." (Click the link and read her post. It's awesome.)

You (I) have a smart phone and Facebook to stay connected to your family and friends, even though you are thousands of miles away. But, part of the downside (or maybe it's an upside - I'm not sure) to social media is that you can hear and SEE everything. All that connectivity is emotionally draining. When you see footage of person after person being executed and your heart and mind are SCREAMING STOP! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP! but your hands can only bang on the keyboard of your laptop and your voice dies right into the cookbook perched above you, the reality of that inability to DO SOMETHING about the things you are seeing is achingly devastating.

When rockets are launched and bombs burst despite a pledge of cease fire in the Holy Land. The Holy Land. The Land of baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph and the resurrection. The Land that God set aside and chose for His people, who are blamed for defending themselves against terrorists. Summer is burning rotten brutal.

And when, someone who brought so much laughter and joy to the world, stills his own life. And a town in MO goes crazy over the death of a young black man. And you blindly thought the world would never let religious persecution lead to genocide again. AGAIN. Over and over in country after country. Summer breaks your (my) ever-loving, justice-driven, idealistic, stupid, huge heart.

All this emotion led me to blurt out this poem on my FB page one night:

Pray
It feels the world is falling into despair
Tonight. Between Gaza and Israel and ISIS and Suicide of a beloved comic
Personal pains of loved ones.
The heart feels so filled of sadness, 
Squeezed to overflowing of blood and tears
Rivers into seas across oceans.
Pray.
Walk toward Him. Fall. 
Shut out the sounds.
Pray for Peace.
It's what we can do when we cannot reach
To Touch and lift to help.
We hold no weapon.
Tears are our ammunition.
Pray.
The whisper gets louder:
Relief comes after.
Pray.

But. Wait. There was lazy and beautiful too. The ability to be lazy for like minutes or even hours is something I will cherish about this summer. Reading books. Glorious. Our pace has been v e r y s l o w. No camps, no sports, no big trips. Nada. Just days and days spent in Gloucester, where the weather has been GORGEOUS. We've gone to church - thank God in Heaven that we can still go to church! And that's where we went to a great concert and heard the very talented Jenny & Tyler for the first time. (Side note: They are FANTABULOUS musicians and justice-seekers, and I completely love them. You must click on their names and listen to a bit of their music on the website. You will thank me.) 

I think we may have seen one movie at the theater. Oh, and we went to Maine! Lovely, quiet camping in Maine via Mom & Dad. And, of course, we spent days at Good Harbor beach. Sun and sand and slushies. Good stuff.

And those were pretty much the sugar sprinkles. Other than that, I played a few million too many games or lives or whatever of Candy Crush and ate a few too many pounds of chocolate.

Oh. But. The Beauty. If it weren't for 3 beautiful women writers who blog and post their hearts out, I may have gone insane this summer. So, many many thanks to you, Jen Hatmaker, Glennon Doyle Melton, and Sarah Bessey. For saying so often what I am thinking. For doing hard things. For being Jesus Feminists. For carrying on, warriors. The lives you touch. God Bless.

Please join me in praying for peace in the fall,

Ashley

These photos show some of the beautiful in our summer.

That boy right there. The one who makes goofy faces in all the pics. His beauty takes my breath away. 

And this is beautiful. It just happened when I just had to get out of the house one random summer afternoon and drove to one of my favorite spots in Gloucester.

And her. My Keesha. AKA The black monster.

Truly. This fresh face. Her beauty shines and laughs out loud.

This might be the most beautiful of all. Because they had to COOPERATE to create this pose! See that beauty in the middle? She isn't mine, but she is light and humor and such imagination! And she can get my two children to do this!