Two little boys, like tin soldiers abandoned on the dusty road, and two little dogs bounding at their feet, one white, one brown. A wheat field to the east, smoldering in the dusk, and swaths of curing canola to the west. Above: blue ripening to rose-gold, in every direction, unhindered by mountain or forest. And a farm, autumn spinning its wreath of trees into a golden crown.

My home. 

My last glimpse was one I clung to until the last moment. I suppose I feared that in letting go I would lose what I found during my time away from the island—no, not found, but rediscovered. Surrounded by the people who know me and love me best—my mother, father, siblings, and husband—I rediscovered freedom.

I think it is easy to become an island when you live on an island. The world is smaller here, the horizon closer, more mysteries unveiled than not. And yet the sky above is infinite, as it is anywhere else. Discouraged by the boundaries enclosing me, I ceased glancing up to drink of the pure air pouring down from Heaven; my eyes slipped from God’s face. And when you begin to believe there is nothing more to discover outside yourself, your gaze will turn inward, like a wounded rabbit crawling into its warren, where the world is safe and dry but utterly dark.

Big skies. Timidly at first, I poked my head from my hole and peered out. When I saw my family beneath those big skies, delighting in the blue, the breeze, the sunlight washing over them, I realized they were safe, happy—and free. And I could be too. Not strong enough on my own, their love assured me that surrendering my fear would not hurt.

No matter where God places us on this earth—no matter whether my husband, our baby, and I are called to live on an island or not—I know that so long as I look up, I will always find my freedom.

Unexpected little face at the window of my womb. Our muffin, our raspberry, a blue egg in our nest. I had hoped you would come sooner than later but dared not hope too hard—and here you are. Our island child.

I’ve written about you before, dreamed about you. I’ve seen your blue eyes, cradled your body, maybe even heard your name. But there was a time when I would have laughed had I been told you’d come into being among patchwork fields and sleepy villages, on a faraway island set like a ruby in the eastern sea. And yet you could not have been otherwise. Here is where your father came into being, here is where my heart joined to his, and here is where you, a seed gently poked into the russet earth, will unfurl your first leaves.

How I wish you could know what I myself knew as a child: the cabin hidden among evergreens, a refuge overlooking a cool, green lake where the loon cries; or the yellow farmhouse, warm and safe above a cow-studded pasture and a murky creek. You will never taste my Grandma’s saskatoon pancakes or ride in my Grandpa’s tractor—but I know you will make your own memories, sweet and bright, as I did. I pray the pattern of leaves and twigs and berries will be imprinted on your heart as surely as it was on mine.

And I pray your father’s passion for Truth will burn in you like a golden light, defying the darkness. We cannot protect you from every evil, but we can prepare you to face it. No matter how weak we may be, we promise to love you, small one, and by our love may you too come to know and love Love Himself, He who is why we are. You’ll discover beauty and goodness in this world, but remember that such wonder-filled momentsare fleeting hints of what is to come. Yes, never forget that this world is indeed your home, but it is not Home.

Together, with your father and I and whoever else may join our nest, we will grow and we will become what we are created to be: a family, journeying toward reunion with our Family in Heaven.

O world, you do not know how wonderful a family truly is, because you do not know what a family truly is.

Have you ever felt your mother’s fingers comb through your hair, or your father’s arms lift you onto his shoulders? Have you ever walked barefoot through a field with your sisters or raced through the garden with your brothers? I have. I remember grinning with delight to see my parents appear at the schoolroom door to whisk me away, when other children groaned and spurned their parents’ affection. I remember stealing back my wailing brother from an old woman’s arms and soothing him as only I could. And when no other girl in the crowd seemed to understand my heart, I knew my sisters would—I knew that every late-night talk in the moonlit darkness would weave us three tighter, like a braid, and strengthen us for tomorrow, no matter our squabbles of today.

Love is flexible; it is not limited to laughter and embraces and kisses. Changing diapers and folding laundry, serving rather than dictating, biting your tongue rather than lashing out, and even rising up to be bold with the truth when you’d rather avoid confrontation—a family will stretch your heart to fit more than just yourself. No matter that I’ve grown up and moved far, far away from them, today my heart yet carries a mother and father, two sisters, and five brothers. Even when their weaknesses (or mine) threaten to shrivel my heart, they never succeed, because I know what a family is, and I know that if we but cling to the goodness in each other, we will only become greater.

For a family is the forge in which gold emerges.

A rainbow in the sprinkler’s mist, and I am happy.

Our garden is small, planted in an old flowerbed. Not every seed that we meticulously pushed into the soil decided to show its newborn face, but what did is flourishing. My plump little children. I remember hunkering down in Grandma’s garden and crunching away on carrots, rooting for strawberries in the tangled patch, and spilling peas into my mouth. Food was simple but good—and so it always can be. I am particularly enthralled with the cabbages; there is enough to supply us with sauerkraut all year long. Call me an old woman, a baba, and I will grin and nod.

After a dismal winter, the island has been blessed with eager sunshine. I find myself frequently wandering away from my writing to gaze out the window, to sneak out and check on the vegetables, to stroll down the road between furrowed crops. Already, we’ve been to the sea too many times to remember: those vast peach-colored beaches, the dunes crested with swishing grass, and the water—shimmering, creamy on bare legs, bobbing with plum-colored jellyfish. Not long ago, I sat on a sandbar and laughed as the waves came rumbling over me, filling my face with salty bubbles. Driving home, I found myself smiling sleepily, my cheeks pink, my hair curled by the water and wind. I remembered those sun-soaked days at the lake of my childhood: digging pools in the sand, collecting snails, and chasing after multicolored butterflies as big as my hand—and then, as the sun set, running up through the evergreens and across the cool, green lawn to the cabin, my wet towel flapping behind me.

Today, with my beautiful friend, I scavenged for sea glass, lunched on mussels, paddle-boarded in a basin abounding with sea life (I held a blue starfish!), and swam under the silent regard of coastal windmills. Once again, my cheeks are pink, my hair curled, and my heart nearly full (soon my husband will be home, and then it will be overflowing).

I am tempted to cling to these days of consolation, to look beyond the present moment and grimace at the inevitable return of snow and ice. But I figure it’s better to learn now, while I’m young, that seasons are simply a part of life and always will be. Why waste energy fighting them? Furthermore, they are not something to resign myself to, but rather to embrace. After all, without winter (desolation), would summer be so sweet?

Not long ago, a man might spend his entire day in the woods, swinging an ax, his senses inundated by the smells and songs of a wild world. Or in a field, alone with his horses, tilling up the layers of deep, rich soil. Or he might find himself coasting toward the horizon, white sails rippling above his head as he sank his net into the depths and drew up silver fish. Life then was hard, often too hard, but there exists many a testimony from those who discovered profound beauty within their struggles. Call me a romantic, but then you would have to call the pioneers romantics as well.

They rose and slept to the rhythm of the sun, felt their hearts swell with pride to watch their cattle grow strong and fat or the garden burst with leaf and color, and delighted in gathering around the table to share stories at day’s end. They knew the stars and could find their way home even be they leagues out on the crystal sea. And they knew intimately the land they had broken; indeed, like husband and wife, blood was spilled that they may be united and bear fruit. Pain gave birth to beauty.

Today, we fear suffering; we’ve cut ourselves off from anything that may cause us discomfort. And thus we find ourselves in a cushioned, air-conditioned, sterilized, instant, pre-made, synthetic environment where we are rarely, if ever, challenged to draw on our deepest strength, to fight and win a battle for life itself. Consider the woods and fields, the mountains and sea: beauty thrives in an unfettered, even dangerous, environment. The woodcutter fought for life alongside the bear and bird and squirrel; the fisherman alongside the fish; the farmer alongside the weeds—and every man learned to surrender to the weather. No doubt it is daunting to embrace what we cannot always control, but only ask the pioneer and he will tell you it is worth it.

Naturally, not everyone was called to a skin-to-skin relationship with creation. Indeed, there existed many a philosopher, poet, and politician—but they too were connected to the beauty surrounding them, whether to muse on it, to write about it, or to defend it. Today is no different: not everyone is called to garden, and even fewer to till a field by horse-drawn plow. No, I do not argue that we should return to lanternlight and carriages and hand-pumped water—not if we can use our creative technology to strike a balance between life being too hard and life being too easy. The cold may kill a man’s body, but modernity may kill a man’s soul. Yes, it’s no wonder this generation is crying out, “Where is God? Where is He?”

We must rediscover beauty before we can find He who is Beauty.

But beauty is not only found within suffering. As children, were we not often spellbound by simplicity—a dandelion plucked to give to Mother? What did we see in that humble little weed? Or maybe the question is, What do we not see now? 

As we grow, stepping beyond our backyard into the Great Wide Open, we often become jaded—the bubble bursts and we realize that an evil witch dwells in the lovely land of Oz. Some begin searching for beauty in the cold, the grotesque, the indecent, as if childhood is mere illusion. But we cannot thrive in the heart of darkness; it is a void into which our cries echo for eternity. Like color, beauty is only present when light is present.

But even within the sphere of sunlight and starlight and moonlight and firelight, we can find ourselves crying out for more. We wonder how we can make the beauty last longer, how we can capture it and never let it go—rather than simply being and soaking it in. We’ve learned to be greedy, rather than grateful. We must remember what it was to be a child who lived solely in the moment . . .

Not long ago, a friend and I stepped barefoot into a meadow of lupins and searched for our favorites—whether magenta or pale pink or violet or cornflower blue or white-tipped. We gathered bouquets that overflowed our hands and our hearts. They wilted the next day but sweetened our lives while they lasted, and that was what mattered.

For many, beauty is not at their fingertips. While it is indeed possible to climb over the wall into a hidden garden and behold dewy roses growing rampant—need beauty be so elusive? Can it not be integrated into an ordinary day, as it once was? No wonder we grasp and cling when beauty shimmers its wings. Somehow, it has become a rare gem found by few, rather than the hearth by which every man, woman, and child can warm themselves. Every now and then I am struck deeply when I remember that this earth was given to us to be home, and yet many spend more time under a roof, suffocated by forests of concrete and steel, than among breezy cathedrals of trees where the soul is free to breathe.

Again, I do not argue that we should reject everything that is not of the old world. But we must awake and realize that the new world, for all its progress, may well be birthing the regress of human flourishing.