They will come home and sing songs of joy on the heights of Jerusalem.
    They will be radiant because of the Lord’s good gifts— the abundant crops of grain, new wine, and olive oil,
    and the healthy flocks and herds.
Their life will be like a watered garden,
    and all their sorrows will be gone.
 The young women will dance for joy,
    and the men—old and young—will join in the celebration.
I will turn their mourning into joy.
    I will comfort them and exchange their sorrow for rejoicing. – Jeremiah 31:12-13

ONE: The fact that the grandchildren are all the way over in Dresden (Mr. T), and down in Miami (David and Beks) is driving us nuts! Yes, we are deeply grateful for video-chat, and the regular conversations are wonderful, but we miss them – and their lovely parents – so very much.

TWO: Our children are exceptional photographers (all photos in this post by Naomi Campbell). This makes a huge difference, because they understand the power of framing (hint – composition is everything). Thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment will do nothing to help if the person behind the lens doesn’t know where to point it. We are so very grateful for the photos!

THREE: Our Dresden grandson (now eight months old) has the rare privilege of experiencing this formative time of his life with two dotting professional teachers at home 100% of the time.

From the Facetime chats, video-posts, and photographs we can tell that Mr. T. is thriving, extremely contented, engaged, and as happy as a baby possibly can be. We just can’t share any photos on-line though, so you will have to take our word for it.

FOUR: The Miami children are also thriving, contented, engaged, and as happy as children possibly can be. Craig (dad) is working extremely hard in the Trader Joe’s job that took the family to South Florida, and Naomi (mom) is doing a great job of keeping the children on-task with their school work and occupied in various ways through the long days at home.

The pictures beg the caption, “This is how we Corona!” Seriously, watching the energy and the passion our grandchildren put into everything they do gives me such hope for the world.

Because the world “Going Forward” is not going to be the same. We won’t ever actually get our old life back, and that may well be a blessing. Why? Because we’re going to have to reinvent pretty much everything, and to be honest a lot of the way the world was doing “business as usual” needed to change.

Whatever it looks like, I pray that we do it like David and Beks and Mr. T. – all enthusiasm, all belief, all joy, and with nothing held back.

It’s kind of like this puddle. There it is, sitting there; we either detour or we jump right in and make a splash.

When we try to reinvent our life together as brothers and sisters here on Planet Earth, somewhere in the not-too-distant future, let’s not look backwards. Instead, let’s take a run, land with both feet squarely in the messiest possible way we know how, and let’s make a huge splash.

Life will be like a watered garden,
    and all (our) sorrows will be gone.

– DEREK