[From the archives. Happy Valentine’s Week.]

Dear you

I was chopping tomatoes when Cam said:

‘Mommy, I’ve seen you and Dad having one of your special cuddles.’

I gave a calm non-committal oh... Feigned intense fascination with rearranging the lettuce…

And later you and I conferred in whispered alarm: It couldn’t possibly have been that kind of special cuddle, could it?

But it made me think.

Maybe our boys should see us snogging in the kitchen more often, even if it grosses them out.

And even though you come home grey-faced after long days and I keep finding grey hairs in the mirror, maybe we need to paint for them the bright colours of marriage because the world doesn’t need any more grey. There are too many grey lives botched and blotched by sin, suffering and complacency. Marriages choking lonely and frustrated and sliding insidious into grey areas in a desperate attempt to find hope.

I want our boys to see that hope is the colour of laughter splashed over breakfast tantrums and the crazy rush and mess of life.

Hope is the colour of supper on the stove and the gate opening to say you’re home. It’s the colour of tea and fudge – the sacred caramel quiet of you-and-me that closes the door on anything else clamouring for first place.

Hope is the colour of late night prayer and past-present-future wonderings and musings, worries and misgivings, that keep on driving us back to God whose hope palette never runs dry.

Hope is the colour of scrolling through news and standing on the brink of the future’s gut-twisting unknowns and knowing I don’t stand there alone.

It’s the colour of my hand finding yours when we’re singing in church to magnify again God’s great Name above the hopeless state of the nation and the worse state of the world so that we can hear again the calling that clears our vision.

I hear the colour of hope in your voice when you scold the boys for disrespecting their mom.

It’s tattooed on your arms when you hold Scott tight to stem his tears.

And when Cam comes with big questions and we have ridiculously insufficient answers because we’ll never explain away his journey or understand exactly how the world comes at him – then hope is the colour of your eyes holding mine soft and steady, because I know you’d rather face the questions and the anger with me than with anyone else.

Your old-school choices are hope-stained because we’re one flesh and the integrity of your soul colours mine.

Hope is all the shades of knowing that, for better or worse, we’ll keep finding each other in velvet nights at the end of the rest of all our days. Your all-of-me, John Legend kind of love – the kind that says I’m enough – drenches and dyes me in techni-coloured hope.

So I don’t need grey pages of mommy porn or big-screen turn-ons to keep the love bright and burning.

Because by God’s grace I have you.

And I have hope.

Love,

Me

. . .

Thanks for reading. You’re so welcome to share this post, leave a comment, or get in touch here, on Twitter, or on our Facebook community page.

I’m completely THRILLED that Walking in Grace is here! Find it where books are sold in SA nationwide, in English and Afrikaans!

If you’re in North America, click here to order. Walking in Grace will be in stores stateside soon, and worldwide on Amazon.

It’s been so exciting to hear from some of you who grabbed the first copies off shelves this past week. Thank you!

Where it’s sold out, new stock is on the way!

This devotional is for women of every age and stage of life, because we’re never too old to start leaning into our calling and never too young to have already glimpsed something of God’s destiny for us. I’m praying that Walking in Grace will offer you the grit and the grace to keep on being brave enough to use your time, gifts, capacity and unique areas of influence to live a story that shouts about God’s splendour.

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