On the last night of the year, the eve of the clean and unsullied hopes, eve of a whole brand spanking new decade all stretched out just fresh, we do the wild and unthinkable, something we’ve done only once before and only then after we had sung a happy birthday and blew out all the candles.
My father invites us to bowl.
To take balls like heads and make them roll.
Pins will fall.
Dad laughs happy when I finally, haphazardly, stumble into a spare and the boys laugh that it’s all flashy glow in the dark and I hadn’t planned it but there I am in white shirt all lit up, neon sign for all gawky and ungainly.
We cheer when my Dad, plaid shirt and farm hat, shoots the thundrous strike after strike and strike and Farmer Husband gives him a run for his money and the boys root hard for the man with the Big Dutch Hands they hope to grow sometime this just-turning decade.
I relief slink off to the side lane. The quiet one with the gutter guards. Where her delicate hands cup the speckled and swirly balls. And life turns around and around so perfectly slow. I watch her browse the balls and run her fingers over the shiny. I watch her look for the just right color that she loves so much. I watch her pick and smile dreams.
I watch her aim.
I watch her drop.
I watch her release and hold her hands in hope, hope, hope.
And I watch the ball roll, roll, roll. The mind too with the thoughts of a strike so bad in life and so good in bowling, and the I can wholly trust that whatever He gives is good no matter how anyone may name it, and I know that there are gutter guards and a good God in heaven.
An apple falls down a pin in the Big Apple. The new year rings. A mother and daughter both let go, same prayer tucked loose between fingers.
She turns and we cheer.
Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him. ~ Job 13:15
(And too, may I thank you for your so generous prayers for us in this bit-more-than-a-week season? That the Body of Christ can give the gift of the knees. Our laid-low gratitude. And oh, I just come here late to find my wandering mind for a moment and hear His voice… and He whispers truth I wasn’t thinking of before it spelled itself out right there on the screen. The Word meets in words. I never get over that — and it’s why I am one of those souls that need to journal… even in the midst. Again — how your prayers gift our family.
All’s grace,
Ann)
Photos: Shalom bowling this New Year’s
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