A Yellow Stroke

She paints her toenails, while I read aloud.  A rare moment with just my oldest girl.  I pause, to help pick out the perfect color--red is too dark, that purple too glittery, so we settle on the watermelon shade--and I broach the subject.  "Ya know, Kelty, we probably won't be here for the next dance recital, since we'll be moving.  Do you still want to take lessons?"  And the painting of the nails is forgotten in a passionate declaration: "I don't want to move to Thailand!  They won't even have ballet there!"  And I pause, and I am sad.  Because I know that what she says just might be true.  Life will be different this time next year, and a dance recital with a sparkly outfit may just not be in the cards.    Maybe ballet lessons will be one of the losses my six-year-old is asked to lay on the altar of her mom and dad's obedience and leading.  But, maybe not.  And I take a deep breath and say, "Well, honey, we're just gonna pray and ask God to provide ballet lessons for you, even in Thailand."  A small asking in the grand scheme of life, but a huge faith-step my daughter is being required to make right now.  And we move on, back to painting nails and reading, but I am left still thinking about that little interaction on my bedroom floor.   

And I am reminded that in moving, and in life, there is usually a stroke of darker hue next to the stroke of lighter color in any art worth noticing.  Because life is not all good or all bad at any one moment.  It's a mix-up of the hard and the glorious, a tangle of loss and adventure all in the same breath.  And its the tones of gray and black that force the bright yellows and pure whites to be much more beautiful than they would be on a canvas all their own.  Somehow the contrast is a deeply good thing.

But here's to praying that my six-year-old gets a yellow stroke instead of a black one in this particular area of one of her loves . . .  I am a mother, after all.