ten years and eleven days

because today is both!

Happy birthday, dear Luke!


Ten years ago this morning, sweet Luke arrived in his small, silvery-haired, snuggly cuteness.  Our first babe with hair.  Silvery blond, wavy hair.   I remember staring at that hair endlessly, running my fingers through it, gently rubbing the nape of his little neck.  


Luke, you are our little Tuck.  And I honestly have a hard time believing you are ten!  10!  Two hands worth of years.  You are our ball-loving, laughter-bringing, life-living boy, who is as sweet as sweet and as boyish as boy.  Turtle hunter extraordinaire, obscure animal lover, chipper and cheerful, gentle and driven.  


Luke is a blessing.  A son who makes our hearts sing with joy.  And what a last year he has had.  The Lord has grown him in some very serious and huge ways.  The onset of his seizures in late November turned our lives a bit topsy-turvy.  Truthfully, a lot topsy turvy.  Luke dug in, deciding that the Lord was with him and so He would trust; the Lord IS with him and he can trust even when.  I've seen Luke develop perseverance and endurance.  Fortitude.  He is, in the hardest of hard, growing in grace in ways that astound me.  Luke is learning to be flexible about his view of life: to hold loosely to things to give God room to show up.  And show up, the Lord does.  He is also developing the skill of holding fast to that which matters, that which remains.  And in Luke, I see glimpses of who and what he is growing into.  It is lovely to behold.  And a true work of the Lord.


Luke Tucker, we love you.  So very much.  And bless you in Jesus name.  


"We pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
                                                                                               Ephesians 3:16-19




And...
eleven sleeps to China!  
ELEVEN!