The Archives: If you click on the “Ken’s Books” tab at the top of the kenpierpont.com website you will see a “archives” drop-down menu. Here you will find almost 3000 posts, many of them stories for you to enjoy. If the writing encourages you, there is a lot there and it’s all free.
Stories from Bittersweet Farm: I’ve added a couple stories to the podcast. There is a lot here if you explore it.
Lois is on a two-week trip to Florida visiting Dan and Kate and keeping an eye on the boys while Kate gets some training for work, so it’s been quiet out on Bittersweet Farm. I’ve been puttering with clearing leaves and preparing ” ‘er the winter storms begin,” and getting in some beautiful autumn bike rides. This afternoon I will head to Chuk and CC’s to hang out with the kids for their church’s “end of October free candy giveaway thing and BBQ chicken slider after. Stay tuned for pics of adorable kids all amped up on sugar. It’s my day off today and it’s wet outside so I’m sipping coffee and writing to you. I’n Lois’s absence I’ve been thinking about God’s kindness to us an that stirred up a memory.
We Did It!
In August of 2020 the last of the children left our home and Lois and I completed 40 years of raising children to launch their own households. Now all of them are starting their own families here in Michigan and in Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, and Oregon. The last to leave home was Hope America, the baby. The the very last to pull away a few days after her wedding were Dan and Kate and their boys, heading back to New Mexico.
They pulled out onto the road and drove away. Lois and I stood together watching them drive away through an arch of trees. A warm emotion swept over me and I remembered driving away from the church in Ypsilanti with my young bride over 40 years earlier, just a couple rather clueless kids. Now there were stood after raising children for 40 years. It was quiet for a moment and we stared down the road after the car until it was small in the distance.
“We did it,” I said.
“We did it,” Lois repeated
“That was amazing,” I said, “It was. It really was,” Lois replied
“I love raising those kids,” I said. “I loved it.”
“So did I.”
“I would do it again, all eight of them,” I said, tears forming in my eyes.
“So would I,” said Lois.
Holding her and looking her in the eyes I said, “And I would do it with you.”
Not real comfortable with so much intimacy and emotion, she looked back for a split second and said, “Would you?” and turned and started toward the house.
Back in our little farmhouse we sat down on the loveseat together and I said, “Let’s pray and thank God for what he allowed us to do.”
“Go ahead,” she said.
I prayed and thanked God for four amazing decades of provision and protection and direction and love over ten people under one roof. She prayed, thanking God.
It was a moment I will always cherish.
During Hope and Tim’s wedding we erected a wooded cross on the north backline of our property (Dale, our son-in-law did it). We left it there and when I look out the fields north of our house I think of that weekend and the last of the children leaving and I thank God again for those years together.
We are in another season now and it is a good one, very good, but for forty years we raised four sons and four daughters together. Just two clueless, needy, sinners… and Jesus. As I often say, “We will never tire of telling the stories.”
Bittersweet Farm
October 31, 2022
This post truly stirred emotions in me as a mother, now a grandmother. You and Lois are fine examples of Christian parents who raised your family to also love Jesus. Now they are carrying on the legacy. My father used to say, “Children are an investment, and grandchildren are the dividends.” So true!