40 Days and Our LOVE DARE~ Family Edition

Yesterday I found myself shuffling along the cobblestones trailing a casket that the man of my dreams helped to push, on a cart of sorts, to the other side of our village.  I blended with the other villagers in black and listened to the priest ahead chanting "Hail Mary's" on the route from the Kirche to the Grab.  Margaret lived next door.  She was the one who blessed us with choke cherries last summer.  And strawberries she plucked from the ground.  Cancer overtook her body suddenly last week and today her husband of 30 years placed the pink roses in the gound with her.

Time.  An evasive gift.

I celebrated the gift of another year on Sunday and we basked in the sun on a hike through the wood nearby.  Just as the green from the earth yearns and stretches toward the sun's warmth, we long for the gift of time. Fleeting moments whiz past and young bodies mature and are gone.  Too fast. 

Those young bodies hoped and prayed for more time on the Deutsch countryside. More time to glean history. Experience. Travel.  Not move in the oldest's senior year.  Prayer answered.  Time granted.  The miracle witnessed.  Eyes wide.

Time is a gift.  Yet I can never grasp it.  I take with awe the memories that carve and leave evidence.  We, slowly with lightning speed, tick off the moments and days remaining with all 4 in the nest. I scramble to hold them, these time gifts.  Oh to have one more year here!  Savoring all of it. 

All of us have had Lent on the brain with the celebrations of Fasching stretching far into the night, we've been enjoying a hint of spring. Fruhling. The promise of Time.  And isn't that what Easter is?  The Miracle, the Promise of Time?   The Deutsch have certainly taught us how to celebrate.......everything.  And as we move into the Lent season, thoughts of how to truly 'clean house' and prepare for the Miracle keeps creeping into my noggin.

So, today we step into the season Celebrating the Father who is unbound by Time, and the Son who blew TIME away for us, we've been searching for how to relish these moments, and to look ahead.    A friend shared of her family's choice to rewire The Love Dare  for her whole family.  To tweak it and work on those relationships that are paramount. Those spirits who spend their days and lives together. Forty days of 40 dares.  OOOOooooo!!  What a concept! 

What a novel way to spend the 40 days of Lent with 40 Dares of Love of, for my family.....To consciously experience more UNCONDITIONAL love, and culminating with EASTER, the celebration of the AUTHOR of Love,  Even LOVE PERSONIFIED,  and His redeeming the Time, SACRIFICING HIMSELF to redeem Us.

We're in.

So, today is Ash Wednesday, or Day 1 of our LOVE DARE adventure.

The first part of this dare is fairly simple.  Although love is communicated in a number of ways, our words often reflect the condition of our hearts.   For the next day, resolve to demonstrate patience and to say nothing negative to your spouse (family) at all.  If the temptation arises, choose not to say anything.  It's better to hold your tongue than to say something you'll regret.     ~The Love Dare