And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

BIG NUMBERS! So yesterday, it appears, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,200 readers checked out my post about the big Rebekah & Derek move to North Carolina – see “ACT III” if you missed it.

NEW BABY: For today, I’ll simply follow up with an update on our new granddaughter, who spent her first night at home with her very tired and grateful family.

Rebekah Mae is, in a word, exquisite. This morning all I can do is ogle. I’m sure I’m not the first granddaddy in history to instantly fall in love with a little girl, but I may have fallen the fastest and the hardest.

Here we are in Brandon, engaging a boatload of mind-boggling details, what with the wedding and the baby and the move. We’re juggling the requirements of two contracts on houses 686 miles apart; trying to get everything squared away for the road trip, (Midland to Connecticut to Wake Forest to Brandon); working on everything that has to be accomplished before our August 11 departure for North Carolina…. And there, front and center in a family home in semi-rural Moodus, resides Rebekah Mae, lovely grandchild, the epitome of perspective and grace.

TODDLER: Just in case we should forget the balance of the story, Naomi’s keen photographic eye caught Rebekah Mae’s big brother gazing through the hospital window, out at the world he and his sister are growing in to. His perspective, of course, is wonder, and adventure, and discovery, and possibility.

It’s a very helpful perspective (thanks, David), because it embraces the essence of The Life-Charged Life, of Living Like we Mean it, of responding to the promise of a new day as Children of the Light.

David may not understand any of that, but he does understand that his life to date has been an amazing adventure of discovery, rooted in the moment-by-moment realization of love, and that is what I want each one of us to remember.

I want us to remember that this life is still an amazing adventure of discovery, rooted in grace, and experienced in the moment-by-moment realization of a love that will not let us go.

SO GOOD! And there she lies, sleeping in the security of a family that loves her so much. That’s something her brother, David, can help to teach her, and it’s something we can all teach each other, as we live into the truth.

But I can only teach you as much as I am willing to learn myself, and this is a steep learning curve, sometimes. Sometimes it all comes at us too fast and too hard. So I am grateful for the image of a newborn baby girl, resting peacefully in the sure knowledge of a love that will not let any one of us go.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

In love, and because of love – DEREK