Goodbye June

Not sure how I missed it

Apparently it’s June 27th.

Which is strange because I’m pretty sure we just got back from Alaska last week, but that was May 30th. I’m not sure what happened to all of those days between. I just have a random assortment of memories, all blending together into a hot, rainy blur called June.

Swirling around in that blur is a new season of wiffle ball, kicking off our 6th summer of spending Thursday nights playing my favorite childhood game. There was a Father’s Day of feeling extra grateful to be a father, and to have been able to see my own father, recovering a little more every day. There have been joyful weddings with great friends. There was a birthday where I realized that adding just one more number to 30 somehow feels like adding another decade. There was a week of neighborhood VBS, where I spent my mornings playing games and doing very important work like putting vaseline on some watermelons. There was a family reunion of people who live all over the country randomly gathering down the road in Pigeon Forge, TN. There has been bad news and sadness and most recently, the loss of JoBeth’s sweet, wild, wonderful grandmother, Grandma Aggie.

It was a month that covered the full range of emotions. It was a month in which I was reminded of our need for celebration, our need for friends, our need for family, and our deep need for a steady, ever-present, unwavering hope. A hope that rejoices in the good times and brings comfort in the bad. A hope that is not able to be heightened by the best circumstances or diminished by the worst. It is a hope that I believe can ultimately only be found in Jesus - our refuge in the storm, our ever present help in times of trouble, our mighty fortress.

Here’s to the hot, rainy blur called June!