Celebrating Grace

I’m celebrating Grace this month.

Specifically, high school senior graduates Grace times three: Gracie Miller, oldest daughter of our dear, dear friends Simon and Amy Miller, who graduates from Kellogg High School; Grace Schram, oldest daughter of my amazing oldest niece Jenn (Roberts) Schram, and her husband David, and a graduate of Vernonia High in Oregon; and Gabriela Grace, or GG, only daughter of my youngest brother David and his wife Michele, who graduates from Eagle High School in Meridian.

Each one has a special place in our hearts this spring, and Carol and I enjoy looking ahead to what the Creator has in store for each one of these very special, creative young women as they move on to a new time in their lives. But graduation can also be a time to look back, and without any attempt to prioritize any one Grace above the other, Gabriela Grace is the only one whose arrival prompted me to take up my pen for some poetry.

In keeping with GG’s Italian heritage (her mother Michele is a Damiano, a well-known Silver Valley name), I turned to the Italian or Petrarchan form of the sonnet 18 years ago when our planned opportunity to meet her was forestalled, briefly, by some health issues. At the time, the sonnet ended up being as much prayer as it was poetry. Today, it serves as a reminder for me of all the Grace the Creator has brought into my life. 

Gabriela Grace

Deferred by chance, our time to meet postponed,

A doubt arises whether Fate shall send

My heart the pleasure of your hand to tend;

If I shall see your eyes on me alone,

And marvel at such wondrous features owned

Not by an angel who to earth doth bend,

Or shaped by a spell a fairy princess lends

Rough mortals who seek to change a heart of stone.

Oh, cherub child, I know who formed thy face

Before the time when e’en my doubts were born.

Eternal plans have shaped our time to meet

Redoubling faith where doubt leaves not a trace.

The Fates and Chance rule not this blessed morn,

Since God above stands o’er thy form so sweet.

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Here’s your chance to boast! Give a shout out to the grads or the schools you want to honor. Let us celebrate this moment of graduation along with you this year.

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