August.

My family survived July; we’re getting our second (or third, or fifty-third) wind, as the summer wanes. And as much as I wanted July to be over—specifically July 30 and 31—I want August to Just. Slow. Down.

Time, as the old Steve Miller Band song pontificates, keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’ into the future.

As I turn the calendar pages to August, the first day of school glares back at me. I don’t want this summer to end.

I long for just a few more days of laziness, of staying up late and sleeping in.

A chance to snuggle on sleepy-eyed, messy-haired boys, before they awaken enough to realize they’re being loved on.

I want a few more evenings of no school-related obligations, where I can sit on the couch between two laughing, increasingly-long legged children as we watch borderline-inappropriate-boy-humor programming.

I want to freeze these moments in time.

I keep two school pictures of the boys on prominent display in our front room–they were always on Mark’s desk at work.  Taken during the last school year he was with us (2010-2011), our boys 3rd and 2nd graders.  

This is how they looked when their daddy was alive.  

This is a moment forever frozen in time.

A time where we all had the world on a string, where laughter and fun echoed throughout our household most every day.  AJ and Ben really didn’t have a care in the world.  Loving parents, a nice home, everything they needed, along with a few things they wanted–they couldn’t ask for more.

As I look at these photos, it seems like a lifetime ago.  

Two little boys, one tow-headed blonde, the other, dark eyes dancing above a snaggle-toothed smile, had no idea how life would change that summer.

And although I want to take away the pain, I cannot.

It’s a pain they will never “get over.”  A longing they will always have.  A void no one or no thing will ever fill.

My job?  To stand in the gap and fill that void as much as I humanly can.   I trust God to fill in the rest.

On days like this, the responsibility overwhelms me.  I have so much to teach them, so much to tell them.

And so little time.

They tell me on a regular basis that I am enough.

I know, deep down, I am only enough with God’s help.

Summer’s waning.  

And I’m not ready to give them back to Barwise Leadership Academy.

Two weeks and counting.

What will you do with your children today?

Whatever it is, make sure it counts.  

For starters here, at least, I’m heading in for some sleepy-eyed snuggle time, then we’re heading to church.  God likes it when we visit His place.

The True God who inhabits sacred space is a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows.

Psalm 68:5 (VOICE)