The sky was pink orange through my window this morning and I ran out of the door five minutes late because of it.  Being late makes me tight on the inside but some things are worth being tight for.

Sometimes I wake up and I'm not ready for the day yet.   Sometimes I could use another night please.  And it is all I can do to throw the covers off and slide out of bed.  It is all I can do to not keep driving, driving.  Past the turn into the parking lot.  Past the houses and buildings and lake.  Just sometimes.

Sometimes I sit in my car for a while and look at the doors.  Look at the steps to the doors and the long long hallway after the doors and I sit there and whisper to Him.  Help me to get through the doors.  Help me to walk down that hall and to not be about myself.  Help me.

I tell my kids that they have something I don't.  I tell them that they have to hang on tight because life will try to pull it away from you and if you aren't careful it will slip.  Please be careful.

Because without it life gets really hard and love gets harder and kids, we were made to love.  This is how you keep it.  Wrap yourself around grace and forgiveness and don't you dare let go.  Hang on to trust and love.

And then give them away.  Away even to the kids who don't look like you or act like you.  Give it to the ones who don't have any of their own.  Because the more you practice giving it, the harder it is to lose it.  That's the trick.

That's what we forget when we get older and smarter.  We forget that life is not about us and life is not for us.  We forget that we don't earn the good things.  We forget how to give.  And kids, you remind us.