From the Heart – Ronny Keller Michel

“Mama, there are two things that we need to talk about,” Lauren said as we sat down to dinner at Sicily’s.

“Okay, Lars,” I sighed. “Give it to me.”

With as much seriousness as a 14 year old can possess, she began, “I’d like to get another hole pierced in my ears. That way, I can always wear my diamond earrings in one hole and a trendy earring in the second hole.”

“Lauren,” I interrupted. “You don’t have diamond earrings.”

“I know,” she said, “That’s the second thing we need to discuss.”

“No. If God wanted you to have two holes in each ear, He would have given you to a mother who would have allowed it.”

I stared down, almost too tired to eat my pizza. It had been a long week. It was the end of school and time to send 24 students on to second grade. It was a week in which I welcomed home my niece who survived a tragic accident and said goodbye to a friend who had not. I wanted nothing more than to go to bed and put a blanket over my head so that I could silence my thoughts.

However, with Lauren in my life, I’m not allowed to hide for long. Although she had challenges of her own in the past week, her response was to keep going, while I just wanted to collapse. Lauren lives her life full speed ahead. She is always in forward motion, sometimes fast forward, but rarely, unlike her mother, does she hit the rewind button. And that’s good. Regardless of what happens, life goes on, and it should.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

The future lies before us, ready to be lived, and it is full of hope. In it lies new challenges to be met, new victories to be won, new people to reach, but unfortunately for Lauren, no new piercings.