june. july. august.
The shortest months but longest days of the year to most school children, filled with chasing fire flies, running after the ice cream truck, riding my pink, huffy dirt bike – with a dolly basket attached to the front for Rosie, of course – all over town and climbing trees for me. Summer nights never ended, but the weeks felt cut short as the school year abruptly reminded us that such freedoms were temporary.
We had block parties and built castles, ate popcorn on the couch and read books that weren’t assigned. We learned new things at camp and practiced our favorite hobbies on teams and in classes. We made up games and constantly changed the rules as our imaginations evolved. We were princesses and cowboys, speed demons and fearless adventurers. We met new friends at the park and spent hours with old ones giggling, over what mattered not.
I loved summer! I don’t remember not liking school, but I remembered the magical-ness of summer that made holding onto it feel like trying to catch sand. It just didn’t work, no matter how hard you tried and refused to give up.
Somedays I miss summer, the real summer, the one without alarm clocks and lists of things to do, more than others. Somedays, I get a glimpse at the freedom, the dirt-on-your-feet, ice-cream-in-hand type of days. And it’s good.
I wonder if days that are far few in between are a sweet sip of what is to come? A true taste of that for which we were made? I’m not one to get in big theological debates about heaven and what it will look like when Jesus comes again, but I believe it to be true that he will come and no matter what we try to predict or manage, it will be different. It will be different because it will be that much better. But I do believe that we won’t have to try to hold on so tight to something slipping away so quickly because we will be surrounded by and living in it, not merely visiting for a moment.
20 years & 1000 words 