I celebrated my 70thbirthday this August. That fact in and of itself is enough to make 2018 memorable, but this past year is significant for several other reasons.
For one thing, this past November we were blessed with the birth of grandson #3,Hugo who joins grandson #1, Walter, who turned 3 this year, and grandson #2 , Arthur, who turned 1 this year. How fast time does fly. “I blinked my eyes and in an instant, decades had passed.” *
We spent most of the winter, spring, and summer of 2018 preparing and selling our beloved Wayside home. God guided every step and with His hand on every detail and the help of many dear friends along the way we bought and moved into a lovely loft in downtown Hopkins this fall.
When we sorted and throwed, we found Christophers’s baby teeth, Andre’s childhood yellow bear, Claire’s handmade rocking horse, and in the process we revisited past memories: precious, breathtaking, historic or not-so-historic moments captured mostly in the photographs of my mind at age seventy.
As I review them I wax nostalgic and pensive, almost incredulous at the wrinkles on my face and in denial of the steady slow aging in this frail body, keenly aware of the need to preserve these memories whether mundane or extraordinary for posterity.
The hourglass sand of my life flows quickly to the other side so I will spend the time writing my stories and praying the Lord of All to guide each day for my Good and for His Glory.
I wrote this simple poem/prayer while I was in college over fifty years ago but it continues even today to frame how I look at the coming year. I hope it does the same for you.
What will you write on the blank pages, Lord?
Will it be happy or sad?
I know you will lead me lovingly thru.
So always in that I’ll be glad.
My Future I bring you.
I give you its Pen.
I pray that you’ll take it and write
Whatever is best for me, blest for me, now;
For you are my Author in Life.
© 1 January 2019
Barbara LaTondresse
____
*Quote from Green, J. (2018). Taste the Wild Wonder. Createspace
Images courtesy of:
https://www.shiftfrequency.com/sands-of-time-slide-through/
http://clipart-library.com/clipart/8cxngqK6i.htm
So, here I am, twenty-some years after that, sorting boxes for another move. This move is unlike the others in that we’re opening and sorting and processing a vast LaTondresse archeological dig, which spans many years and numerous sides of both of our family trees. It takes a lot of time because we actually feel compelled to look at the stuff partly because this time around Andre and I are the gatekeepers for our two grandsons (with a third on the way, due in October!)
Labor.
My bruised and bloodied fingers bore witness to the grueling nature of my task within that process which was to transfer by hand the freshly shiny canned corn cans by twos out of huge iron baskets into cardboard boxes containing 24 cans each, over and over again, until the whistle signaling the end of the 18 hour shift blew and I made my way home to collapse exhausted in my bed until the morning whistle blew six hours later jarring me awake and signaling the time to start the work day all over again.
In another arena, I have known the painful yet beautiful anguish of childbirth. Those of us who have birthed and delivered babies could, but maybe shouldn’t, write volumes about the ins and outs, the upside down sides of that messy, miraculous process of birth.
And I have been a foreign missionary on the front lines, engaged in all-consuming spiritual labor, birthing, and nurturing a Siberian church in Akademgorodok, Russia.
Each of these instances show the work to be worth the effort and ‘well done’ whether from fellow humans or God will be the judgment; as a result it becomes easy to measure one’s worth by what one is or is not able to perform well along life’s way. Labor toward perfection seems to lead to success in life.
Do I have a meaningful place in God’s world despite my disability?
It was 6:30 in the evening when my father and mother met my beau for the first time. 
The evening began innocently enough with the usual pleasantries, like my dad asking the boyfriend “if he liked to fish” and my mom asking me “how I am”, but soon we got beyond and into the serious talk that happens when ordering food at a fancy restaurant, like my dad saying “he’s sure glad we picked a place that had real meat and potatoes, not one of those funny organic spots that serve fruit salad and sprouts,” and my mother saying, “Now, Lorence, let’s not bring that up,” when dad starts to talk about the particular trials of being a funeral director, like the fact that the Catholics always used incense during the service that made him dizzy.
Andre had only recently brought up this Meet the Parents idea. It made me happy. He was special from the first day we met washing windows at a University of Minnesota fraternity house and the more time I spent with him the more I began to think he might be The One.
Rollercoasters.
It’s time to cultivate what I’m going to call the Arts of Silence: Listening. Seeing. Breathing. Touching. Reaching. Loving. Resting.
Shaft light shards
Foretastes of heaven’s future ecstasy,
Narnia we could not find tinsel or lights or Christmas displays or Christmas tree lots or a bombardment of ads for Christmas deals. No loudspeakers blaring carols or Nativity scenes or Santa at the mall. That part of life in Narnia was actually a pleasant surprise.
Norman Rockwell comes to Siberia.
Mother!
were President of Tabitha Society, Progress Club, Camp Fire Girl’s leader, Cub Scout’s leader, and faithful church choir singer. You always celebrated the holidays in grand-style decorating to the nines. We were one of the first in town to have a flocked Christmas tree. We even made May baskets on May Day to distribute to neighbors and friends.
Night Lights and Morning Joys 
