the heart of texas

August 3, 2011 A.D.

tonight is the night.  my last night at home. my last night as a kid (sort of...).  i have, for the first time ever, packed up (or thrown away) all of my possessions and tomorrow i will drive away from my favorite street in the world to a foreign land called virginia.  my room is almost completely empty with the exception of those lingering picture frames and beanie babies stashed in the shelves refusing to budge from their home of 14 years.  

my family at the li and ed's engagement party in my beloved front yard

this evening i walked my street at my favorite time of day. dusk.  when God turns the dimmer switch slowly and quietly to night.  He doesn’t rush this process, especially in the summer, and that is just the way i like it.  the Texas sky should never be rushed.  my quiet street beckoned me forth as it always does to share in the magic of this routine transformation. but there is nothing routine about it.  the texas sky refuses to wear the same outfit every night.  thus i shall refer to it as “her” hence forth.  she gives the eyes a 360 degree feast with a different flavor and texture at every turn of the head.  and as i enjoyed my dessert for the evening, i reflected on what texas means to me.  

an Easter Sunday sunset. i watched so many texas sunsets from this spot

i realized that i learned to breathe in texas.  i learned to walk, talk, play and most of all, to love, here.  nestled safely in the endless summer days under the unfathomable summer clouds so large and fluffy that they often cannot be taken in at one look.  i realized that my heart literally beat for the first time under the texas sky.  and it has grown in the warm embrace of Christ, my family and my home these 26 years of my existence.  and so i will always have a texas heart.  

i started tearing up at this realization and i hoped that one day i would be able to bring my babies here to this precious texas street and show them where our Heavenly Father taught their mama about His Love.  i’ll never forget one afternoon this summer as i was walking my house sitting charge (a little puppy called “sky”- a little too appropriate if you ask me) down my beloved street, i looked at my sky-and that’s the gloriousness of the texas sky-you don’t have to look up to see it, she completely surrounds you in her beauty.  it had thunderstormed for the first (and apparently last) time this summer the night before and it was stunning to behold.  the truest sky blue that could be fathomed with the whitest and broadest paint brush clouds streaked across.  this sucker was ridiculous. very distinctly and unexpectedly i heard God whisper to my heart “this is the life I want to give you”.  really? He wants to give me that beautiful of a life? for no other reason than He Loves me? and i thought “okay, God, show me”.  and He is. and He will continue to. because He is faithful. as surely as the coming of the dawn. or the ethereal texas dusk.  

the patented dehan Easter Sunday picture.

as i lay on my driveway in my texas flag shorts tonight, watching the stars arrive, and absorbing the remnants of the suns work for the day that lingered on the gravel, i was so grateful.  my soul magnified the Lord.  the light of the moon shone brightly and so the gravel i lay upon and the blanket of stars that covered me, twinkled.  and as i looked up at the stars that i know best, they seemed to shine at me in agreement that they too like it best nestled deep in the heart of texas. i will miss those stars so much.  they are the stars that i looked at on an uncommonly freezing Christmas Eve night a few years ago, when my sister and i got home from the Christmas vigil mass, parked in the driveway and took in the dazzling scene around us.  she said something i’ll never forget: “those are the same stars that shone the night Jesus was born”.  that observation blew me away then and it still blows me away.  and i know this means that the stars are the same stars everywhere, but they shine differently in texas, and no one will convince me otherwise (cue rousing round of singing “the stars at night shine big and bright clap clap clap clap deep in the heart of texas” here).  



texas will always be my home and i am unspeakably grateful to our Father for this gift.  i will forever love her bluebonnets, her mild winters, her long and perfect spring and fall weather, the salt lick barbeque and the summer heat that is ever dependable as a topic of mutual complaint for every texas citizen.  


God bless the place where my heart learned to beat for Him. where my siblings, my parents and i became a whole family.  

i told you they were patented.  this one is Easter, too.  but here we are spilling out Easter joy everywhere

where i went to college and found my first true friends in this life.  where i fell in love with Christ and His Church.  

ale, my ecuadorian bean

fousins

the youngins at the engagement party. i love being a youngin and i'll be one as long as possible

familia 

my dear friend alyssa came for thanksgiving one year and we owned the turkey trot...or at least china did

we heart highschool musical.  deal with it.

crackin' china up on Christmas day. the usual.

li's bridal par-tay

how does Easter do it? oh yeah. i think i know.

trishelisa.  always gettin the job done

oh happy day. a wedding at my favorite chapel.  

dancing with bubba. i highly recommend it.

dancing with momma and dad.  also highly recommend it. 

loving on sophia in texas in utero.  doesn't get much better. 

ale enjoying Easter and texas beauty with me

just a fewish pictures that encapsulate texas love for me.


so, God bless every bit of this beautiful state. and watch out yankees, the texans are coming to show y’all what you’re missing.  

i’ll rest on a pillow of bluebonnets under a blanket made of stars (shout out to emily) one more time tonight to the slow rhythm of a texas heart beat.  *sigh*. home.

peace of Christ be with you this glorious texas night.