In my teenage years I spent my fall weekends assisting my uncle in his work as a chimney sweep. I remember visiting one house in the woods on a frosty morning. When I slammed the truck door it echoed in the trees, and I breathed fresh cold air tinged with wood smoke. Tall conifers surrounded the little house, and I was enchanted. I thought, Oh, I would love to live in the woods like this!

I never actually planned to have a house in the woods. But here you see it.

You also see the morning sun flooding the trees and valley below. The mountains across the valley are invisible, washed away in the glorious light. You see our bedstead just as we left it that morning, the silly lampshades that never sit straight, the cat named Icky reclining in the windowsill. This is a Saturday morning and we’ve slept in a little, and talked, and laughed, and enjoyed each other’s company before the first child comes padding in wearing her feetie-jammies. In a little while I’ll thump down the stairs and start a fire, and Beautiful will throw pancakes on the griddle, and the day will begin, but for now it’s well to grab a camera and record how God brings to life the small unwhispered hopes of our childhood.