Inspirational stories of God's love and grace...

Long after her husband and sons had gone to bed, Caroline was too restless to sleep. She sat at the worn oak kitchen table and worked on her latest stained glass project, which she planned to hang in the living room window. All evening she had been unable to forget her phone conversation with her older sister, Susan. Now, as she cut out a thin piece of sea green glass, she replayed in her head Susan’s latest round of advice.

“Since Ben and Alex are off at school now, you don’t have to feel guilty if you get a job,” she had said. An ad executive, Susan had returned to work a year after the birth of her one child. “You could do graphic design again.”

“I’m busy here,” Caroline had replied, cleaning up the kitchen as they talked.

“I know. You help Brad in the fields, grow your garden, volunteer at church, keep the dirt out of the house, help the boys with their homework. But you’re allowed to have your own work, too. Something that’s yours.”

“The farm and my family are mine. So is my church. And I like my work.” Caroline filled a pot with soapy water and wondered why it was so easy for Susan to exasperate her.

“But what about being a painter?” Susan asked. “Your professors all said how talented you were. You dreamed your art would hang in museums and touch people’s lives–”

“And then I met Brad,” Caroline interrupted. “How many times have we had this discussion? I know you never understood why I gave up life in the city to live on a farm, but you don’t need to understand.” She looked at the ears of corn ready to be cooked tomorrow. Susan still did not see how much work farming involved – how much effort it took to get one ear of corn from seed to table.

“I’m not trying to make you mad,” Susan said. “But I know how talented you are. I’m afraid someday you’ll look around and wonder what happened to your dreams.”

At that point the conversation had moved on to new recipes and car troubles. But now, hours later, Caroline could not forget Susan’s words. She looked down at her tools. Back when she was an art student, she certainly had never imagined that her artistic aspirations would take the form of a window knickknack. Maybe that was why she had been more ambitious with this project, her most complex since first trying stained glass six months ago. It was an original design, with several small sections that were tricky to cut and solder. But she was determined to bring to life her vision of a sun-kissed kite billowing in the sky.

The fact was, she told herself as she ground down the edge of a piece of amethyst-colored glass, Susan’s concerns were the same ones that sometimes troubled Caroline herself. Nine days out of ten she was happy, working hard around the house and on the land to make a good home for those she loved. She praised God for the indignant clucks of her laying hens, for the smudge of sun lighting the horizon as she made breakfast, for the ache of her muscles after a hard day of harvesting. But on that tenth day, she would look at the pile of dirty boots in the mud room or the crease in Brad’s forehead as he worried over seed prices and wish that she could find room in her life to make art again.

Sighing, she worried over a corner of the kite where the foil would not stick. "I have no regrets, God," she prayed. "But why did you make me dream of being an artist if I cannot be one?"

She finished the kite that night, left it to cool, and did not look at it again until three days later. She was rushing around the house trying to find a gift to bring to Mrs. Aaberg, a housebound member of their church to whom Caroline delivered a tape of the Sunday services each week. She always brought the elderly woman an extra treat, such as muffins or a scented candle, but today she had been so busy with a leaky pipe in the cellar that she had forgotten about the visit until the last minute. When she saw the kite, she decided it would have to do as today’s gift – she had just enough time to clean the glass and attach a wire hanger.

As always, Mrs. Aaberg's house was scrupulously tidy and smelled of ginger. Sitting on the sturdy tapestry sofa while the other woman rested in her wheelchair, Caroline talked about her boys’ latest adventures, but Mrs. Aaberg did not take her usual pleasure in hearing the news. Her face was paler today, more lined, as if time were pressing down on her a little harder.

“I have something different for you today – something I made,” Caroline said. She took out the kite and held it up to a window, really seeing it in its finished form for the first time. The greens and purples and blues shimmered. Its angles suggested the arch of fabric and twist of a tail in the wind, as if the kite gloried in its freedom.

Mrs. Aaberg’s eyes teared up. “How did you know?” she whispered. Her hand reached out to the kite, and Caroline gave it to her. “My sister died this week, out in Phoenix. We used to love flying kites as little girls. I was feeling as if everyone I grew up with was gone. It means so much to me, to see this. It’s beautiful.” She looked at Caroline with a gentle smile spreading across her face.

Later, driving home, Caroline impulsively pulled the car over to the side of the road. She stepped out into a fallow field, the achingly blue midwestern sky arcing down around her. "Thank you, God," she prayed. "You did not want me to bury my dreams. It just took me a while to realize I was living them all along." She thought about all God had helped her create: the shouts of two boys playing with their dog, a row of canned peaches, the light in her husband’s eyes when he saw her at the end of a long day, and a kite of glass that had comforted a friend. I am the artist I always dreamed of being. Caroline smiled. She decided to make Brad and the boys an extra special dinner. Then she would call Susan and tell her about the glass kite.