I arrived yesterday in the city where my daughter lives. (She just had her baby—-2 weeks early!) I flew all night, to get there looking like this:

(No, that is not a mini bra—-it’s an eye mask.)

The day I arrived, I went for a walk in the neighborhood I was staying in—-about a mile from my daughter’s. I passed an old man fixing his fence. He needed someone to push on the other end of the fence. I stopped, and provided the anchor and pressure he needed.

We talked for an hour outside, (me keeping my distance). He was lonely. His wife was in the hospital. He wanted to show me all of his fruit trees. He shuffled around his huge yard, his pants hanging by drooping suspenders. I learned his life story.

The highlight came in the garage when he pointed to a massive red motorcycle. “Wanna go for a spin?” he asked, eyes lighting up. “She’ll go 0 - 100 in 6 seconds flat!” He looks at me with naked glee.

He can barely walk. Surely he’s joking?

“I just took it out an hour ago!” he added, seeing my hesitancy.

“Oh, that sounds like so much fun, but sorry, no thank you.” I tried to sound disappointed.

Racing a red motorcycle through suburban streets with an octogenarian wasn’t on my agenda this trip.

I am here to help my daughter and son-in-law with their new baby. The baby that makes me a first time grandmum. They are both professors, now navigating a baby and college teaching. And the birth was rough. But I cannot come near yet. I have flown 2500 miles through the night to be here, and I cannot do the only thing I want to do: hug my daughter. Hold this baby. I’m in quarantine, of course.

Most of us are needy right now. Frustrated. Struggling. And maybe we wonder why we’re not handling the lockdown better. Why aren’t we rejoicing in our trials, as the apostle Paul urges us to do? We’re still grieving a mother, a lost job, the kids at home, a cancelled vacation, a sick brother, the uncertain future. Then, on top of it, we feel guilty that we’re not emotionally and spiritually “victorious.”

I feel it too. But as I watched my first child cradling her first child (from 10 feet away) I marveled. The only thing this being can do right now is——need. He needs to sleep, to nurse, to touch, to be warm, to be held, to be comforted. That’s all he has right now.

Maybe that’s some of us right now. That’s all we’ve got—our need.

But we have more than that. And my new grandson has more as well. He has a mother and a father whose only thought and joy now is to warm him. To prepare a place for him to sleep. To feed him. To hold him. To sing to him. To love him all through the day and night.

He has only to receive it. To rest in it.

We have a father like this too. He holds us. He feeds us. He delights in us. He sings over us. We are his joy. Even when all we can do is cry. And need.

After two days of life, because of his need, my grandson is already learning: he can trust the arms that hold him.

So can we.

Please share with us: What signs of life and hope are you seeing around you now?

(((((Everyone! Thank you for posting and sharing the book and class last week! What an awesome response! The winners of Your Story Matters are: *Lander Bethel *Lindsey Hulstrom *Debbie Madden *Debra Gohn *Sandy Thornton))))