It’s been a week of writing!  It has been challenging to do this every day, but it has been so good to share some of the tent poles that have made up my life.  My prayer is that it encourages you to look at the big and small things in your life and be so thankful for all that you have come through.  God is so good and so faithful!

The home I live in today is about 5 miles from the first house I lived in as a baby.  It was the first house my parents every owned.  We moved around a lot before the summer before 8th grade, but the first house and the last house my parents owned were the ones I felt the most freedom and safety in.  The house as in a neighborhood in the Northwest part of Detroit.  There were a lot of kids and we had the freedom to roam.  We rode bikes for blocks and when it was raining we would roller skate in our unfinished basement for hours listening to music.  When we were a little older, my friend and I would ride our bikes up to Little Caesars and get crazy crusts and a drink.  Sometimes we would get pizza.  I thought it was so cool that I got to ride my bike to a restaurant and eat with my friend without my parents.

Because I live so close to my first home, I often drive past the old neighborhood and the Little Caesars.  Last month I finally realized the restaurant was only a block from my house, but back then it felt much further.  Maybe it was because I felt like it was such a big deal.  I can’t imagine sending my boys on their bikes to a restaurant.  Truth be told they still ride tricycles, but still.  I have a hard time letting them walk to grandma’s alone and we live on a low traffic, dead end street, three houses away!

I think about what that freedom did for me in those younger days.   I felt like my parents trusted me and it made me want to keep their trust.  It gave me confidence.  It was also so much fun and I’m so thankful for those memories of cruising the neighborhood and roller skating in my red roller skates to Amy Grant in my basement.  It has really challenged me to cautiously give some more freedom to my boys.