Monday, May 9, 2011

Mother's Day Drive

We travel a bumpy and slightly winding country road to get to church. On this day the sun shines brightly in a big, blue Texas sky. Prairie grasses wave in the gentle morning breeze. The trees are green and leafy. The bluebonnets have faded but there is still plenty of color. Texas paintbrush, primrose, black-eye susans and some that I don't know dot the pastures.

Joseph is "girl-trapped" between two of his sisters in the way back. Jacob and Sarah seem to be having a contest to see who can be the silliest. I look back. Jacob is wearing bright blue racecar slippers. I look at Kermit.

"He brought the slippers to me. I put them on his feet", he says defensively. I decide there are worse things to wear to church. It's all the same to the three-year-old and he won't remember anyway.

We slow down for some construction. It seems that someone has decided to smooth some of the bumps on this road. A yellow butterfly catches my eye and then we are gone. We pass a field of mesquite trees. (Can mesquite trees be a forest?) Their scraggly limbs meander up, topped by feathery leaves that hang down.

We arrive to the highway and are almost to the church. Two exits down and a few more fields and we will be there. It is about 25 minutes from start to finish. We drive this every week. Sometimes more than once. We've lived here five years. It never gets old. Everytime I find some new detail. Everytime I think how good Heavenly Father is to me.