I am coming to you live from one of my favorite spots in the world. A view that delights my eyes to no end is right before me. I am in Minnesota. At the lake as we call it. Even now I am distracted by the quiet waters and the rocking my body seems to be doing even though I am now back on solid ground.
People approach summer in many different ways. I heard of lake people growing up. We might have even visited a few lakes, each equipped with its own lake people, but they were foreign to me. Oppositely, Austin grew up a lake person. His grandparents owned a home on this very lake (three doors down from us) for the better part of his childhood and teen years. But as the grandkids started getting busy with college, relationships, careers, marriages and eventually children of their own, his grandparents decided to sell the house.
Austin would reminisce about his time at the lake with a mischievous wonder in his eyes- as if they suddenly held years of delicious secrets. I swear his eyes get summer-lake bluer somehow when he talks of those memories. Austin is many things, but one we don’t credit him for nearly enough is the fantastic storyteller he is (if you don’t believe me, ask about his Will Smith story.) So, from our early dating days, thanks to Mr. Storyteller, I became spellbound when he spoke of the lake.
We spent much of our early married life in the Chicago area and Santa Barbara- two wonderful places to be in the summertime. To be fair, Santa Barbara is a wonderful place to be literally any time. In those days we didn’t have many dreams of becoming lake people because we loved summer where we lived and had no desire to escape.
But then we moved to Austin. (Moment of sweaty silence).
I feel the need to say how much I love Austin (the city.) We have lived in Texas longer than any other state in our decade and a half of marriage and we could not possibly love it more, really. (Okay, the heat makes you want to die, but besides that, we love it. Honest.)
Somewhere around 2020, I started praying ‘impossible’ prayers. I have done this for most of my life with God. I like to think He gets a kick out of his girl Kristin- who has very little power, influence or control over anything- asking her big God for big things. I am usually way off in my asks, but the asking in itself has increased my faith dramatically. Situated somewhere between the sticky note that read, “Covid- end it Jesus” and the one asking if He would help the women in my life who wanted to be moms become mothers, was an impossible prayer that said, “Property by water.” I wasn’t specific, or especially eloquent. I just voiced my heart’s desire. That next year, we were signing papers with Austin’s parents to purchase an 110 year old lake house steps away from the one Austin grew up going to. I often say that prayer was something God answered about three decades early. I still can’t believe it.
Listen. I am not a name it, claim it gal. I do not use words resembling ‘genie’ to describe our God. I am under the impression that He can do whatever he pleases. He does. And He will. But sometimes, I believe it pleases our good and gracious Father God to give good gifts to his children. I can almost see Him with a look in his eyes resembling the one I know so well in Austin, rubbing his holy hands together, in gleeful anticipation of the good thing awaiting us up ahead in our story.
I picture Him with Austin the first time he went fishing with his grandfather at this lake, weaving together a new love in his body and heart.
I picture Him with me as a young child growing up in the glory of midwest summers, weaving a love for silky grass, huge green trees, and the simple way of life that slows and steadies me in a familiar way here.
I picture Him bringing me to Austin and Austin to me. Two delightfully dumb late teens without a speck of an idea what life had for them, and how they’d both be lake people one day.
I picture Him with us as we canoed out from a rental home on this same lake in 2020, and how we prayed we could come back here for many years- somehow, some way.
I picture Him with the guests we have here, mysteriously unlocking the good and right things in them that only He knows and only He can do simply because there is space, beauty and time.
And now, I picture Him with our kids, as the mischievous wonder has been passed down to them. Each becoming a little more alive, a little more themselves, within the most impossibly familiar backdrop.
These days, when I think of the lake I think of peace and I think of grace. The peace is palpable. We probably owe it to the one-two punch of God’s glorious creation and Mama Stock’s unmatched gift of interior design. Peace bleeds from this place, in a when-I-arrive-I-didn’t-know-how-tired-I-was-until-I-felt-the-space-enough-to-relax kind of way. And grace. Amazing grace greets me here. The grace to be here, the grace to grow here, the grace to share it, the grace to hold it loosely, the grace of God to give such gifts. It’s like grace has a taste here. One that you want to keep sipping, keep gulping actually, because you’re freshly aware that it’s good and doesn’t run out.
Until August,
xoxo
I’m going to use my usual learning, reading, praying, up to section to smother you with midwest lake love through photos. No matter how or what you are doing this summer, it is my prayer you taste grace, you feel peace palpably, and you start praying some impossible prayers.
