I’m THAT mom

Uncharted territory. That’s where I found myself last night as a mom. My firstborn boy was celebrating his 8th birthday, and my love and pride for him made me teary almost every time I looked at him. Because I’m that mom. The mom who cries in the car after the first day of school each year. The mom who sneaks into bed with them after they are asleep just to hear them breathing. The mom who leaves notes in their lunch boxes. The mom who takes too many pictures so I’ll have them to look at when I’m old. I’m that mom.

I’m also the mom who makes them hang up their own clothes. Take out the trash. Feed the dog. Say excuse me after they burp. Clean their things up every night before bed. Say I’m sorry when they owe one and say I forgive you when they can mean it.

And in all these ways that combine to make me the mom I am, I’m always the mom who wants the best for my child. I’m always the mom who loves my child. I’m always the mom who wants to make it better for my child. And in those ways, we find our commonality as moms. Because no matter the ways in which we express these fundamental truths, we all have them. We are all that mom.

But last night I couldn’t be the mom who makes it better. The mom who can jump into a crisis with a kiss and band-aide. The mom who can step into a fight between brothers and make it stop. The mom who can calm fears with a hug and encouraging word. The mom who can stop for ice-cream on the way home and make an unkind word from a kid on the playground a distant memory.

I’m used to having the ability to not only make it better, but to choose what is best for my child. To give him a head start and project a forecast for sunny skies. A possible slight chance for thunderstorms, but ones he will only see and not feel because obviously I’ll have an umbrella over him. And absolutely no chance for tornados. None. Ever. Because no one knows his little heart better than I do. What makes it happy. What breaks it. What scares it. And what makes it confident. Oh, except God.  As He, along with my family, keep reminding me.

All day I had avoided the mail box where I knew he had a letter in it with his teacher assignment for second grade. I avoided it because I already knew what it said, and I knew the forecast called for storms with a hundred percent chance of tears. And tears on his birthday weren’t anything I wanted him to feel. So I had my umbrella up all day. I had tried my best to change the forecast, but it was out of my control and I felt I had failed him as a mom. My umbrella was up, but the start of school was looming ahead and I knew he would have to walk in the rain.

We all take walks in the rain. We all get drenched and the sun always still shines the next day. Or the next week. But see, I’ve never had to see that happen to my child because I’ve been able to control his environment. I’ve been able to choose what is best for him, and if something wasn’t the best, I’ve been able to make it better. But not this.

We got home when it was already dark and he wanted to check the mail. He was eager after seeing all his friends at practice as to what teacher he had. Not because he cares about a teacher, but because he cares about his buddies. He is just like me. He would rather have four quarters than a hundred pennies when it comes to friends, and he was counting on a quarter. Just one. But I knew that even though there are boys he knows in that class, he didn’t have one of those quarters. And I knew, because his heart and response is so much like mine, that his confidence in a new year would be shaken and the feeling of disappointment would overwhelm him.

He immediately headed to the mailbox as we got out of the car. He found the letter, opened it, dropped it on the ground, and quietly walked away from me and down the sidewalk. I didn’t chastise him because I got it. It’s what I would have done. I slowly walked after him, and as I caught up to him I saw a little boy sitting in a strangers driveway, arms on his knees, head down, shoulders shaking, and sobbing. Deep sobs. It was his first feeling of such disappointment. And I found it matched my own. It was my first feeling of not being able to change his circumstances. I couldn’t sit next to him and kiss it and make it better. I couldn’t take him for ice cream. I couldn’t make it stop.

I sat beside him and couldn’t remember ever hearing this type of cry. It wasn’t because he was hurt. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t in trouble. He was devastated, and all the anticipation of a new year had been taken from him in an instant. It wasn’t the cry of a baby, it was the cry of a boy who understood the finality of the situation. Who understood I couldn’t make it better. Who knew this future was his and he would have to face it.

I almost didn’t know what to say. Partly because my umbrella was useless and I was accustomed to pulling a Mary Poppins. So as I sat down next to him I said, “Oh buddy, I remember when I was little and I would get so disappointed. And that’s such a hard feeling to have.” With those words he leaned over and laid his little head in my lap and just cried while I prayed over his year and we committed to trusting God.

Because as I rubbed his little head with tears streaming down my own face because I’m also the mom who doesn’t handle seeing my child feel that way, I knew God was telling me something. I felt His heart towards me and all of us when we go through trials and tribulations. When we go through our own Ecclesiastes. When He knows, in His sovereignty, that the sun will come out but all we can feel is the rain. You see, I know Wyatt will be okay. And even though he asked me if he could get a job so he could pay the principal every day to put him in another class, I know he will settle. He will find a penny and make him into a quarter because that’s how God works. It is how He has worked in my own life so I know it to be true. I know when God doesn’t change the forecast it’s because He is watering the soil for something more beautiful to grow.

But Wyatt doesn’t know that yet. This is a test of his faith. A test of his little heart. And it’s the first time as a mom where I have to see it tested. Where I have a visible reminder that he first belongs to God, and ultimately I can’t always make it better. He has to walk through some rain to glimpse the rainbow. But at the end of the year, my prayer is that he will remember the moment in the driveway and be able to say that He experienced the faithfulness of not my God or his dad’s God, but HIS God.

And I am confident that He will. I am also equally confident the first week of school will involve lots of ice-cream. Because I’m that mom.

Passing in the Night

When I was a little I remember visiting my great-grandma. I remember the swing on her porch, the strange looking bath tub, and the doll she always gave me to play with. I remember her wrinkled hands, her piercing eyes, and how she could recite the alphabet backwards. And I remember how she gave me prunes and I pretended to like them because I knew she wanted to make me happy. And I wanted to make her happy, too.

My great-grandpa was bed ridden for as long as I can remember. And when she couldn’t take care of him anymore, she moved to the nursing home to be with him. I remember going to visit her for the first time in this old looking building, statues of angels everywhere, bronzed hands, and the strange smell. I had a pit in my stomach, but when we went to see her she was sitting on her bed against the wall. She was dressed in her slacks and smiled, showing us her room before taking us to see great-grandpa. She seemed the same, and I was relieved.

My great-grandpa always frightened me. Parkinson’s Disease had taken a toll on his body, his wrists were always turned in and his neck always seemed to be stiff. His words always ran together but I had learned to understand them. I saw pictures of them together, and wondered at the handsome young man next to his young bride. I always felt sad for that young guy who was trapped in the bed and whom I fed ice cream to because his hands were too unsteady. I tried to think of his young face when I would hug him goodbye because I knew it wasn’t his fault that he scared me. And I knew it wasn’t fair to him to shy away because inside, he was still the same person.

I don’t remember how much time passed in that nursing home but I do have enough memories there to make me love my mother for always going to visit them and taking me. For not forgetting them. But one day, mom and I were holding hands looking for my great-grandma. We couldn’t find her in the area they said she would be. And then my mom froze and I could tell she became upset. And then I saw her, but it didn’t look like her. She was in a wheel chair, her hair was slicked back and in a wild pony tail of sorts. She was stooped over, her face crooked as if she couldn’t hold it upright. And I was scared of her because it wasn’t her anymore. We tried to visit with her and she wouldn’t talk to us. She wasn’t herself, and looking back I don’t remember if it was a gradual decline of health or not. I just know as a little girl, it seemed she suddenly became like those other women in the nursing home who didn’t understand. A light had gone out and my mom cried the entire way home.

Not long after that day, her and my great- grandpa moved with the nursing home to its new location and were able to share a room. She had stopped talking and wouldn’t always open her eyes, but sometimes when my mom would go and talk with my great- grandpa I would stay on the other side of the room with her and I would catch her looking at me. And one time, she even said the alphabet backwards when I asked and I felt like I had won the lottery.

But other times, when my mom would stay longer, I would slip out of the room and go to a common area. I would see the old ladies smile at me, arms outstretched trying to hug me. And when I sat, the able bodied ones would begin to hover around and talk to me. I would see the mentally unstable ones yelling for help, over and over, when there was nothing they needed help with. And I always felt a sadness that reached the depths of my soul as I came to realize how lonely they were. How dependent they were. And how, just as my great-grandparents, they would die there.

But I believe it was during those visits that I began to love the elderly. That I began to respect them and recognize the span of the life they had lived. From a dashing eighteen-year-old bride to a ninety-year-old woman. And today, wrinkled hands with matching ones on a face is one of the most beautiful, most intriguing sights to behold. Because even though they look so different from the pictures they proudly show, they are the same person. My great-grandpa taught me that.

My own Grandma has been gone for five years and was never in a nursing home. Her light went out suddenly, her decline rapid after she had surgery as a thriving eighty-four-year old who still lived at home and had us over for dinner. My oldest was just two when she died, but he remembers her enough to have a fondness of wrinkled hands and isn’t scared by them. He sees the soul more brightly than the body, and I love that she gave him that gift. It is that fondness that led to our discussion of wanting to meet someone like my Grandma, but someone that may not have anyone. So I began to make calls to nursing homes, asking who the lonely ones were that still had enough light for three little boys to love on them. The answer is too many. There are too many whose light still shines brightly but whose spirits have grown dim from loneliness.

When I think about wanting to surround my boys with greatness, I don’t want them to sit down with the rich or the famous. I want them to go a nursing home and sit down with someone who can give them the ability to see beyond themselves. Who can tell them stories that give them a sense of the generations. Who can impart wisdom that has been tried and found true. Who can help them understand that who we are isn’t defined by how we look. Who can give them a sense of gratitude for the things we feel entitled to, or that we forget to be thankful for. And that the things we enjoy were fought for or earned by so many who paved the road we travel on every day.

 

So I took them to the place I once went and when I passed through the doors with my three boys, the same ones I opened thirty years ago to visit my great-grandparents, the wheelchairs started slowly rolling towards us. And in that moment, I realized that those on their way out and on their way in need one another. Their lights, one growing weak and the other growing strong, need to pass in the night and help guide one another’s way. The old need love to feel valued and the young need to learn to become valuable by giving it. And in that exchange, indescribable beauty is found.

And today, as I looked at my little boys and Kat, a beautiful ninety-four year old whose light shines brightly and whose smile isn’t a day over twenty-four, I witnessed that beauty. I witnessed the circle of life, realizing as they hugged how it served both of them to feel needed instead of to need. And as they beamed at one another, literally beaming, I could have cried buckets of tears for the good it did all of our hearts.

Some of the richest places in the world are the ones we pass without noticing. They are the places full of people who are no longer recognized. They are full of stories that will be forgotten unless they are heard. They are full of history that should be passed down. They are full of women, who just like me, poured their hearts and souls into their children. They are full of grace, bravery, spirit, adventure, sacrifice, and beauty. We live our life looking forward, but we understand it looking back and there is much understanding that can be gained from those that sit quietly and reflect upon a lifetime worth of memories. There is so much that needs to be heard in order to never be forgotten. Because it shouldn’t.

As the boys and I left today, I couldn’t help but wonder what our world be like without all the beautiful, wrinkled faces in the richest, forgotten, and loneliest places in the world. And especially what mine would be like without the wrinkled hands of my Grandma who I would give anything to hold again.

‘Twas the Night Before Break

‘Twas the night before break

And all through the town,

The moms were rejoicing

And wine did abound.

 

Visions of car pool

And getting out the door,

Diffusing fights before seven

Would be no more.

 

Packing lunch at breakfast

The uniform shirt that’s dirty.

Just get in the car anyway

We have to make it by 8:30.

 

Sign this and send that

And that library book.

Deposit money for lunches

And the spirit store nook.

 

Did you read your chapter?

And what spelling list are we on?

I just washed all your uniforms

How are they already gone?

 

The campus where internet speed

Surely goes to die.

We can browse insta from home

Instead of the car pool line.

 

Break comes when we need it

And is loyal every year

No alarm clocks or schedules

Just time to hold dear.

 

Twas the night before break

And all through the town,

Not a sad mom there was

Not one could be found.

What If

If I stare at the door long enough, would it make her appear?
If it is only in my mind, would the moment be any less dear?
Would I still be near tears at the end of this day,
If her gentle hug and sweet voice was a minute away?
When people are gone they just cease to exist.
There begins a heavy rain with no warning mist.
So here I am at the end of my day and my rope,
Wishing that staring at the door would give me hope.

To Be a Good Inkeeper

Christmas. The season that in many ways unites us. And because we feel this sense of togetherness, rich in tradition, we open our homes more. The Christmas tree in the window invites others to look as they pass by. To picture a cozy living room, stockings hung, and a family enjoying one another. And as I drive on neighborhood streets, I love that all these absolute strangers are doing these days in a similar manner. The tradition brings commonality among us where there may have been none before. And as we pass by strangers picking out their tree or shopping for those they love, we find ourselves opening our hearts more. We smile at one another in that knowing way. The way that says, “this is my life right now, too.” We say Merry Christmas as we pass by, when before the Holidays there would have been silence. At Christmas, we know what to say to strangers because Christmas is for us and them. It is for everyone. They won’t think we are invasive by offering a greeting. The extroverts are justified in their enthusiasm as the introverts overcome insecurities and each offer a kind word. And mostly, it is returned as we walk to our car feeling included and more a part of this world that sometimes makes us feel so isolated from one another. Because we usually pass by others with no insight into their day or month. They pass us in the parking lot or in their car on the street and we have no idea where they are going or coming from. And we don’t really care. But at Christmas we know. Or we think we know. They are in the same hustle and bustle as we are. We know there are trees and lights. Gifts and wrapping. And of course they must be listening to Christmas music in their car. And somehow, some magical how, the world looks less lonely because even though we all hold separate celebrations, they all unite to make Christmas a treasured season, rich in tradition. The tradition of opening our homes and our hearts. Of being a good innkeeper.

I’ve always loved Christmas because there is a tangible thrill of hope in the air. Because of how it unifies even strangers. But it isn’t Christmas or the season that makes bells jingle or snow glisten. It is Christ. The King. It isn’t a holiday that brings people together again, it is the holy day. Only the impact of such a day, the day our Savior was born, could cause people to open their homes and hearts, year after year. And maybe not everyone gives gifts to symbolize the one God gave us. And maybe not everyone reads the Christmas story in the Bible the day after reading “The Night Before Christmas,” but it still happens. The birth of Christ is celebrated in a way that fairy tales are made of except better, because it’s what Bible stories are made of which makes them true. And it’s the truth that gives us the thrill of hope. That creates Christmas magic in the air. Except it isn’t magic, it’s miraculous and that is even better.

The miracle of Christmas is how the gift of God’s son continues giving. It breathes new life into weary souls. And it brings saving grace to our sinful ones. Christ is born daily into the hearts of those he was born to die for and to those who make room for Him. I opened the door to my heart and invited Jesus in many years ago, but as Christmas approaches I know I’m still learning. I’m learning how to open my home and my heart to Him every day. To be a good innkeeper.

I almost can’t comprehend how we are asked the same question, thousands of years later, that was asked the night before Christmas. Do you have room for Jesus? A place for him to be born? I can see the innkeeper looking at the traveling pair, a woman heavy with child. Traces of regret in his eyes as he realizes he has no guest room available. Possibly wanting to give them priority but not at the risk of upsetting anyone who was already staying there. He looks at them, then diverts his eyes while he thinks of a solution. Something within this innkeeper didn’t want to say no, something compelled him to search for an answer. And he found one. I wonder if he was nervous as he proposed the solution to Mary and Joseph. Or if he was surprised by how they accepted his offering of the stable as a suitable alternative. But I identify with the innkeeper more than anyone in the Christmas story because He too, like me, knew he must make room for Jesus. And it is so fitting of my often selfish and sinful heart that Jesus was born in a stable. Next to animals and dirt and manure. A manger as a bed. It reminds me every Christmas that God doesn’t care about the condition of where His son is born, just that room is made for His birth. And there. Right there is my thrill of hope. I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to even look like I am. I just have to make room because the rest is exactly why He was born. To be a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

As I put my nativity out this season, I became lost in thought when I looked at the stable because I always hear the knock. And then the question. “Have you made room?” So many days it is easy to say there wasn’t time. There wasn’t a place. And so many days I shut the door instead of making room. So as I set Mary and Joseph in the stable and the wise men kneeling just outside, the lump in my throat began to form because I needn’t travel from afar to worship the King. I simply need to look within. And when I do there is a longing to see the miraculous in Christmas instead of the magic. To see the holy day instead of the holiday. And even more, for my own little boys to grasp the meaning of why this is the most wonderful time of the year. Because I want us to be good innkeepers. To open our homes and hearts to Christ and others not just once a year, but every day. Even if on the incredibly hard ones all we have to offer is a stable.

 

The Memory of Before

If I say five years it sounds better than saying half a decade. But no matter how I phrase it, the fact remains. The number of minutes, hours, and days are the same. The amount of life lived without her is the same. Except nothing was the same after that day because her life made such a difference that in its absence everything changed. A distinct before and after was marked in the lives of those who loved and were loved by her. And I’m blessed enough to have had my life divided when hers ended. I have a before and after and the before leaves me wanting in the way those who have grieved will understand. The ache different than the rest because it’s one that can’t be satisfied. I can’t save enough money. I can’t buy a fast enough car. I can’t just be more patient. It just is over, our time together, except in memory. The memory of before. Oh, how I love before.

Nostalgic in nature, reminiscing comes easily. Fall and winter are the seasons of memories for me. As the cold moves in and the leaves change and fall to the ground, I recall moments that drop into my soul. The rituals surrounding these seasons evoke a sentimental response. Fires crackling, bundling under blankets, gathering around a table to show thanksgiving, decorating a tree, snow falling from the sky, and the traditions of the cooler seasons beckon me to long for those with whom I shared them with. Whom I drew warmth from. Because these two seasons are those of togetherness. More inside than out. More family than friends. More faith than fear. And the not being together threatens the warmth of the fire from being felt.

But slowly, there have been more added around the table. Around the fire. She would have loved them. Adored them. And with their coming her leaving seemed more natural. After her death I feared the day when it wasn’t strongly felt. When it didn’t knock me over. But at half a decade I’m here. I’m standing. My face is not dry but my knees are not wobbly. The sweet has arrived before the bitter. I miss her in the way a summer breeze feels across your face rather than the slap of a cold, blustery wind. I feared the day when the grief would calm. When life without her would seem normal. But how was I to know that the subsiding grief would only allow me to feel her presence more strongly? To enjoy the breeze rather than try and protect myself from the harsh wind. 

Five years. Five years since I’ve held her hand and heard her voice. I miss her more than I thought I would. But I feel her more than I knew was possible. And as fall continues and will submit to winter, I’ll remember. I’ll see her at the table. I’ll hang her ornament on my tree. I’ll feel her warmth by the fire and I’ll snuggle under her old, worn quilt with my sweet boys.

Yes, winter must be cold for those with no warm memories. But how blessed am I to have had enough with my Grandma to last me a lifetime. 

   
    
   

Grandma, I love you truly, truly dear. 

Am I Enough

It was a quiet whisper that stirred my soul as I sat outside and watched the dusk turn to dark. Savoring the quiet and the warmth of these nights before summer fades to fall. And there, in that still moment, He was with me, whispering, “Am I enough?”

As darkness began to overtake, I thought about the moments when He was enough. When I wasn’t sure if He would be, wasn’t sure what tomorrow held, and wasn’t sure of anything. Even of Him. I remember years of the dark, of knocking and seeking, believing light was on the other side of that unopened door. But the door remained closed and my heart remained discouraged until I realized the answer isn’t always in the opening, but in the knocking. In my faith to continue pursuing Him because with every knock, one after the other, my heart was believing He was my Healer. He was my Deliverer. He was my Redeemer. And sometimes He doesn’t transform us in the day, but in the night. And as it came to be one evening, I was standing on the same side of that door, about ready to knock and seek entry, seek a way out of my situation when I realized it. My situation hadn’t changed but I had. Like the woman who reached out to touch Jesus’ garment, it was my faith that had made me well. I was healed. I was delivered. I was redeemed. In the midst of my mess, I was no longer one.

So there, in the stillness of the night as I reflected on His question, my soul answered, “Yes.” But the whisper continued. He kept asking and I kept searching for more answers. And there in the silence, that old hymn made its way to my mind and I began to softly sing,

 “I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;

Every hour I need Thee;

Oh, bless me now, my Savior,

I come to Thee.”

Every hour. I began contemplating those words, thinking of the desperation that they ignite, imagining this sung by someone in their hour of need, their hour of urgency, their hour of pain. Reflecting on those times in my own life when my need for God became greater than my need for anything. Anyone.

It was there that revelation was met with conviction. Repentance. Like a punch in the gut, I realized the depth of His question. “Am I enough?

How does it happen that on the mountaintops in life I forget how desperately I needed Him during the climb out of the valley? How does it happen that my need for Him, my pursuit of Him, alters with my situations and circumstances?

Because it doesn’t. It shouldn’t. I need Him every hour. Desperately. He is the giver and sustainer of life. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He is the Prince of Peace and Lord of Lords. He is the Shepherd who guides me and the one who provides for me. He is my all in all, whether I acknowledge it or not.

With teary eyes and a heavy heart I repented. Material things, things of this world that make me feel content, happy, and fulfilled, they can’t be allowed to take away my need for a Savior. The desperation of the weary knocking in the dark must not stop at the breaking of the dawn. Because I still need Him. Every hour. Because there is no end to the depths and discoveries of who He is and without continually going into the deep, I remain shallow.

There was the question. “Am I enough?” But I understood His prodding now. Am I enough not in the dark, but in the day? Am I enough when you are on the mountain top and not in the valley? Am I enough that you still seek me first?

It’s a slippery slope to crisis, casual, and circumstantial Christianity. To seek the things of this world that promise to bring happiness. The accumulation of stuff we won’t ever see in eternity. The investment of time in things that don’t matter. And then we lose our joy in the pursuit of a happiness high. It was happening, and He was being my Savior, saving me from slipping by asking that one question.

With a bit of desperation I began to softly sing that song again, with full recognition of who He is to who I am. I need Thee every hour. Every hour. In the dark and in the dawn. In the loss and in the gain. In the climb and in the descent. Because my need of Him doesn’t alter or change. Ever. Only my recognition of it does.

I got up to go inside with a greater understanding of not only my need of my Savior, but His wanting of me. All of me. For me to make Him enough, even when in the world I have plenty. To be as desperate for Him in the dawn as I am in the dark. Because that is when I make Him enough. And He is.

” I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;

No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

Refrain:

I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;

Every hour I need Thee;

Oh, bless me now, my Savior,

I come to Thee.

I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby;

Temptations lose their pow’r when Thou art nigh.

I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain;

Come quickly and abide, or life is vain.

I need Thee every hour; teach me Thy will;

And Thy rich promises in me fulfill.

I need Thee every hour, most Holy One;

Oh, make me Thine indeed, Thou blessed Son.”

The Sound of Thunder

What if the sound of thunder is the saints clapping their hands?

What if the bolt of lightening is when they fall and hit their knees?

What if the swirling wind is when they dance around His throne?

What if the pouring rain is the outpouring of their souls?

What if I join the saints in praise when a storm invades my world?

What if I find Him in the clouds when I stop looking for the sun?

What if I see the storm from heaven even as I sit on earth?

What if I clap and kneel and dance and pour out my soul like rain?

Then I join the sound of the saints because peace is won through praise.

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

 

I can’t look at this picture without crying. And for someone who doesn’t cry, I’ve completely made up for it in one day. But if anyone can bring me to tears, it’s Ms. Mary. The first teacher I entrusted my first child with, the first teacher who won my trust, my child’s, and consequently our hearts. Around our house, Ms. Mary is like an honorary family member. I feel like when her name is mentioned, the sun comes out and our smiles linger because we don’t have a single bad memory of her. I don’t even think that’s possible. And this year, Ms. Mary had my second boy who is just a year behind my first. They are different in their expressions and alike only at their core. But it didn’t matter. As it turns out, Ms. Mary’s magic doesn’t just work on quiet, sensitive, and shy kids. It also works on loud, enthusiastic, and expressive ones. Shocking. I knew teacher was her disguise for wonder woman all along. I so called it.

We were a few months into school when I was getting dinner ready one night and Eli walked in and asked, “Oh sweet mommy, what are you making for dinner?” I immediately recognized Ms. Mary in his voice because even when they aren’t being sweet in certain moments, that’s still the adjective she uses to describe her class. Because no matter the moment or the behavior, her tone remains the same. Her speech remains the same. And in that, she is absolutely an example of God’s love to those kids. To my kid. Because God doesn’t love conditionally. His description of us is based on our potential not our shortcomings. And I smiled as Eli called me “sweet mommy,” that evening, which is now something he often does, because I knew he was getting it. He was learning from her. And even though I want Eli to know his letters, be able to write them, and put the sounds together to make a word, I’m much more interested that he learns to make the words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart acceptable to the Lord. And I love Ms. Mary because I feel we are kindred in this desire and because above all, this is what she teaches.

When Eli mimics her speech and tone, he is mimicking Christ because of her example. Because she is Christlike. So as I tried to hold back the tears when I hugged her goodbye, no wonder I massively failed. There is absolutely nothing more I could ask for in a teacher because she has shown Christ, in word and deed, to both of my boys now. And they are better for it. I am better for it. And I know the Kingdom of God is.

What in the world am I going to do next year without her in my life? Can someone please enroll me in PreK?

Most Blessed #momsofboys

Sometimes they stop, turn around, and fling their arms around us without warning. Sometimes they stick out their tongue as they walk by, do a little karate kick, and wave their invisible light saber. Sometimes they fall and get hurt, and in the seconds when they aren’t invincible, look at us with tears in their eyes waiting for us to make it better. And we do. Sometimes they reach for our hand with their sticky fingers and the bigger they grow the more this melts our hearts because their hands are still smaller than ours. For now. Sometimes they pray for us at night and refer to us as the best mommy in the world when they thank Jesus we are theirs as we silently pray to do it better tomorrow. Sometimes they look at us and dissolve in giggles, and the sound is as magical as Christmas, bringing life and joy to our souls. Sometimes they hand us something gross because they think we are a Kleenex, but we take it anyway because we are everything to them in their world. Even a Kleenex. Sometimes, when they are in a room full of other kids and see us walk in, their faces light up because finding our face is like finding home. Sometimes they pick us weeds and hand us a bouquet of them and we put them in water and love them more than roses. Sometimes they say poop and pee more in one week than they have actually gone, and later that evening we find ourselves calling our husbands a poopy diarrhea head and question our sanity. Sometimes they test every ounce of our patience and we go to bed at the end of the day wondering how we can do it again until the sight of their tousled hair as they sleep reminds us of God’s perfect love. Sometimes in their invincible, superhero, light saber, ninja play they scare us, and we must trust in the God who created them as we shake our heads after asking them to settle down. Again. Sometimes they randomly tell us they love us, that we are the prettiest, wonderfulest, sweetest, and best mommy in the whole world and it moves our hearts to tears.

But all the time, in the midst of the many sometimes, we are Mothers.

We are living the part of our lives we most dreamt about. It is here. It is now. It is exhilaration. It is exhaustion. It is love. It is learning. It is faith. It is fear. But above all, it is adventure because they take us on a new one every day. And if we make room in our days for their adventures and put ours aside but for a moment, we will be in for the ride of our lives. Probably on a spaceship with a ninja who uses a light saber to beat the bad guys while scoring a touchdown.

So buckle up, because we are #momsofboys. And we are most blessed.

they hold my heart

A Home That’s Just A House

While we are in the process of putting our home up for sale, I have found myself looking down the hall from my bedroom, picturing the first steps of my last two little boys. Picturing the first time I saw my oldest boy push his little brother on a riding toy, catching my first glimpse of how wonderful their lives were going to be as brothers. I saw the soccer field, with the doors at the end of the hall serving as goals. I saw a football field, where the little tosses of a toddler have turned into accurate spirals. And even though we haven’t sold this house yet, I know I’m going to miss this hallway. That hall made our house a home. And even though I begrudged never being able to hang more pictures because we gave that long walkway to the boys, I’m so glad we did.

Tonight my mom texted me and told me they finally had an offer on my Grandma’s house. It has been sitting empty for a little while, but it was there when I needed to remember her without going to her grave. It gave me a structure and a street address that I could still call Grandma’s house even though she hasn’t lived in it for four years. The thought of someone else occupying it, of not being able to call it her house because it belonged to someone else, overwhelmed my emotions. After the house is sold, there is no tangible place to hold all my memories. There is no bedroom where we sat together on her bed and talked about life for hours. There is no living room where we cheered on our favorite football team every Saturday. There is no window above the kitchen sink that I can picture her looking out of while washing dishes, watching for birds. There is no front door that I remember her opening, that I can picture her standing at with a warm smile and embrace. Because that home will just become a house. A house where my yesterday’s live and where some of my favorite conversations and most memorable moments took place.

I’m comforted by tangible things that make people feel closer than they are. That deceptively coax my emotions and make four years ago feel like yesterday. Because in those seconds where my head hasn’t quite caught up with my heart, I’m so full of life. The life of those in the past colliding with those in the present is glorious. Generations of glorious. But even though hearts aren’t made to forget, they are made to forge ahead. The hallways of life in which we walk are always changing because at the end of the hall, there is a door. And such is life, the opening and closing of doors that lead to another hallway that leads to another door. Earth itself is a home that’s just a house. And as so many doors are shutting right now, I feel my head saying forge ahead but my heart wanting to linger. And somewhere, in the middle of life’s ever changing course, I’m reminded that life is meant to be full of doors that close. That serve as a reminder that this earth really isn’t meant for stability and if home is where the heart is, then that place isn’t found on earth. It will only be found in heaven. The place with a one way entrance where everything remains. And for someone like me who struggles with revolving doors, I imagine my soul will find great rest there.

But tonight my heart wants to linger on my hallway. The nights it seemed so long when I walked down it at 3AM with a newborn. The nights it seemed so short as I noticed how quickly my 6-year-old made it to his room at the end. And tonight, as I look down it and see three doors, each leading me to a precious little boy, eyes closed and hair tussled, I see that hall differently. I see my Grandma’s home differently, smaller in one way and yet larger than life in another. Because both of them, as I say goodbye to each, will fit in my heart. And the home that’s just a house will now reside on Memory Lane, where I’m sure to visit often because no matter the location, it will always be my Grandma’s.

Our Someones

We all have our someones.

Our someone we come home to at the end of the day. Who has seen our best and our worst and still sleeps beside us night after night. Who makes us believe that tomorrow really is a new day, and the sun will come out again.

Our someones who drain us of energy, of time, of patience, and of our very self. And yet, those same someones give us more love in that exchange than our minds are capable of understanding, our words capable of explaining, and our hearts capable of containing.

Our someones who remind us of who we are. Not our evolved selves, but the windows down, music up on a pretty day self. Our someones who take their shoes off, sit on our couches, and laugh and cry with us over all the moments that somehow turned into years. Moments that somehow modified us good or bad, right or wrong. The someones who love our before and after version, no questions asked and no judgement declared.

Our someones who raised us, who taught us right from wrong but never loved us based on our decisions. Our someones who went without so we could have more, do more, and be more. Our someones who bandaged our knees and dried our tears and whose kisses and lullabies made everything better. Our someones who made our lives into something we are grateful to have.

Our someones who we can’t call anymore. Who are out of reach because the only time heaven reaches earth is when we dream about them. When we see someone that looks like them from behind and in that split second, forget they are gone. When we walk into a room that smells like them, like we just missed them but really, we have missed them for months, for years.

Our One. Our One who gave us all our someones. All the someones that have given meaning to our lives and enough memories to touch our hearts and smile at the recollection. Our One who never leaves or forsakes us in the best of times and in the worst of times. Our One whose mercies are new every morning, whose grace is sufficient, and whose very name is love. The One out of which everything else becomes and is sustained.

And tonight, I’m thankful for my someones. And most, yes most thankful for the One whose plan included me, a path, and all the meetings of others I have had on it.

Thank you for being someone. Because you are. We all are.

With my Soul

I hate not knowing. It’s the truth. I want to know what tomorrow holds, I want to know what that look you just gave me meant, and I want to know every single one of my Christmas presents. Still. And I’m thirty-three. Oh, and I also want to tell you all of yours because I am so excited for you. (I fear my boys are going to figure this out soon and use it against me.)

Surprises give me anxiety. Major anxiety. When my husband texts me and says “Hey, plan some time to talk tonight” I immediately begin a full on panic. I need to know the topics he wants to discuss so I’m prepared. I text him back and tell him this and I get a “?” followed by a “I just thought we could make it a point to connect since we have been so busy.” Oh. So I overreacted. Again. My bad. I text something cool and cavalier back like, “Totes. That’s cool, yo.” Hoping my mixture of valley girl and gangster will distract him from my (over)reaction.

I used to watch shows or movies with some thrill to them. Ones that had moments where you can’t decide if you should cover your eyes or keep watching. You don’t know if the bad guy is going to get caught, or if it is even him coming around the dark corner as the creepy music ensues. But alas, no creepy movies for me now because I literally dissolve into tears. Suspense makes me bust out the ugly cry and if I have to fast forward HGTV because sometimes the suspense is just too much, then we know I have a problem. I want to get to the end. Quickly. And often, the ending is more important to me than the plot because no Mr. 9th grade teacher, the ending doesn’t always justify the means. So, if you haven’t pegged me by now, then yes. I watch hallmark movies and I love them. The hallmark channel. The place where endings are always happy. And when they aren’t, that one time, I was pissed.

So, I confess I’m an overly anxious person who wants happy endings so badly I (sometimes) (ok, most of the time) read the last chapter of books when I get to know the characters, just to be sure it will be a good investment of time. Just to make sure they live happily ever after. Oh, and Nicholas Sparks? Off limits unless I just need a catharsis. Someone needs to send him a happy message in a bottle.

I don’t know why this has gotten worse over the years, this need to not be surprised and this desire to be prepared. I remember growing up and even through college, I studied for answers. Literally. Except math where numbers and my brain simultaneously go into a black hole and die. But studying, knowing, passing tests, acquiring knowledge, it was part of the great plan. The expectations for becoming an adult. There were a million questions out there and my responsibility was to uncover the answers, retain them, get a few diplomas, and know those answers in preparation for the real world.

And then, just like that, I was in the real world. I was the adult. Even one that still embraced intense theatrical moments without bursting into tears. My life was pretty chill. I graduated with my masters in counseling and was embarking. How exciting. I had worked hard to have all the answers. Magma Cum Laude baby, all the way until the end.

Magna Cum Laude. It is funny how the one answer that wasn’t acceptable in college was the only one I could often come up with after. Because what I quickly and painfully became aware of was that the answers on paper, the answers in theory, the responses I was taught, they weren’t working. They weren’t practical. Standardized tests don’t work in the real world because experiences can’t be standardized. Perhaps that was my first self-taught lesson as an adult in my new post college, career beginning stage. That an answer of “I don’t know” to a question didn’t mean you had failed to find the answer, it could simply mean that there was none to be found.

It came within the first month that I was working in my dream job as a high school counselor. I was assigned to a group of kids who struggled. Struggled in every way. This was my ministry, and I set out to help them. To give them answers. But they asked questions I had never heard. “Why did my moms boyfriend shoot her in front of me and leave me to watch her die?” “Why did my parents choose drugs and end up in prison over choosing me?” “Why did my uncle rape my little sister?”

Silence. Tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.” Where was the fast forward button? Where was the last page in their story? Even if I could know, would it be a happy ending? Sure, I talked with these kids. I poured my heart and soul into giving them any insight I could, any hope that I could. But at the end of the day, I often walked to my car with “I don’t know.”

And the I don’t knows of life just started bugging me. Overwhelming me. The intense struggles, so real before me, stopped being entertaining. I had watched movies believing they were over dramatized fiction until I grew up and realized those horrors were not dramatic. They happen. Every day. Except vampires. I think. (Yes, that was sarcasm)

And then I had children. These beautiful, wonderful, gifts from God who I want nothing but the best for. And then the I don’t knows of life became terrifying. So I try and prepare for everything. Type A and OCD working together at its finest, just try and throw me a curve ball. I dare you. But please don’t, I hate surprises.

As a mother I am daily reminded that my boys belong to God. I do not know and can’t control the ending to their story. God gave them a pen and hopefully I can supply them with enough ink to author their own adventures. But they write the words because they will make choices independently of me. Gasp. And when my first-day-of school-kindergartner told me I could just drop him off in carpool and not walk him in, I knew he had enough ink to write all his kindergarten adventures. But yes, I walked him in anyway, letting him lead the way. There were pictures to be taken, people. Instagram would have been highly disappointed in me if I had not.

I had this Oprah moment while I was watching HGTV. (Fine. I like Oprah even though she is a flip-flopper. She may or may not have redeemed herself in joining with Starbucks to make my favorite Chai drink.) So, HGTV. Jen Hatmaker and family were on, renovating their house. (If you haven’t read 7, Go. Buy. Now.) They previewed their little boy seeing his new room for the first time and I couldn’t wait to see that happy part. I was ready to fast forward through the rats in the attic, my jealousy over her extremely handy-man husband, and some of the step-by-steps so I could totally share in that awesome moment. And yes, I’m an involved TV watcher. (My DVR list is like my diary) But something in me drew a parallel and said I needed to allow and enjoy the progression of life, to enjoy the journey without fast forwarding to the destination. So I saw the dead rats. And survived the eye rolls from my husband as I exclaimed, “you should try that.”

Point being, I’m learning to live in the middle part of my life which, for me, is the mom part. Also known as the slight shaking of head when no one is around, “I don’t know” part. And I’m learning that it is okay. I’m learning that I’m not ultimately in control of happy or sad endings. I’m learning to enjoy the journey. I’m learning that faith doesn’t grow in the absence of fear, but in its presence. I’m learning that the unknown is to trust what milk is to a baby. I’m learning that just as God designed motherhood for our babies to draw near to us for a season, He also designed it for us to draw near to Him. Because when I’m not near, I’m far. Period.

Yes, I will probably, almost assuredly, always hate surprises. The not knowing. I will probably, most assuredly, always be a thinker and a planner. But I most definitely don’t need to be anxious, to live in anxiety, fear over the unknown. Because I have learned that to be okay with the “I don’t know” is also to say, “It is well with my soul.”

I very much wish I could have written happy endings for all those kids I counseled that deserved nothing less. Sometimes I wish I could write a hallmark ending for each of my own boys. But since I can’t, and because all I can do is have faith and trust, I’m grateful that I’m not responsible for giving them a million answers to unlock some secret formula for that perfect ending. I just have to teach them one. Jesus.

If I can be successful in giving my boys that answer, of showing it to them, I can be confident that they won’t get lost in the “I don’t know” moments of their lives, but rather be able to say, “Even so, it is well with my soul.”

A song for my boys

To Be A Mother

The stick.  I buy it.  I nervously pee on it.  Something as simple and disgusting as pee on a stick is about to tell me whether my life is going to dramatically change or not.  I don’t even know what the change will bring.  I can’t even fathom the emotions associated with it.  The journey I am about to begin.  I have heard stories, I have been a child at one time, but I still have no understanding of what it means to be a mother.  I have expectations of the known I anticipate, and I have anxiety about the rest I know will only come with experience.  And in the three minutes I stare at the stick, I wait.

I double check the stick.  It can’t be right.  I compare the box with the stick, I triple check.  I buy a few more. I can’t be confident in telling anyone unless I know.  Really, it is a process of acceptance.  The first test was right, I’m just in denial because I’m either too excited or too scared.  When things are too good to be true, I doubt them and question them.  And that stick, it tells me something that is too good to be true.  It promises a future I dreamt about as a girl, playing house and dressing my baby dolls.  It promises me a future I dreamt about when I said yes to the man of my dreams.  All that promise, a little pee, and the journey begins.

Pregnancy changes me.  My clothes become tight.  Things get bigger and my body begins to take on a new shape.  I’m no longer an individual because I have another person inside of me.  I think of them every day.  I dream of what that face will look like in a few months.  My thoughts begin to be about someone else more than they are about myself.  I become consumed by the life I sustain.  I become enraptured in the fairy tales and the nursery rhymes at the first kick I feel. My heart swells when my husband puts his hand on my belly and finally feels the dream I’m carrying and shares the moments of miracles. And that is what pregnancy is, moment after moment of the miraculous. And trips to the bathroom for reasons that change with each trimester.

I will never forget my first birth.  I had heard stories.  I had read books.  I had even gone to classes.  But I had this nagging feeling that being intellectually prepared had little to do with giving birth.  And I was right.  I was about to meet and hold my son for the first time.  I was going to behold his face, and I wondered at that moment.  I marveled at the impending and inevitable moment as it drew closer and closer.  Everything I had read took a backseat to the emotions I was feeling because giving birth wasn’t about knowledge, it was about experience.  And I had zero.  I had no experience bringing a human into the world which only reinforced that I had none in raising one after they were born.  I was going to be a new mom.  And then, just like that, I became one.

My heart was outside my body.  They put this tiny little boy on my chest.  The moments of miracles had created this perfect child, and he was mine.  He was a part of me.  He was the best part of me.  They took him away from me and as I laid there, turning my head to follow his every movement, the strangest thing happened.  My heart followed.  I put my hand on my chest, my pulse racing and easily detectable after going through labor, and I knew it had changed.  It was broken because he was born with a piece of it.  A piece I knew, the second I held him, I would never get back.  As tears streamed down my face I remember saying, “How can I already love him this much?” And I gave God my first broken hallelujah.

And what I have learned three pregnancies, births, and boys later, is that motherhood is full of them.  Daily.  At the end of the day, whether it was a one of tears or triumphs, exhaustion or excitement, messes or milestones, I tuck them in with the same amount of love no matter what it held.   I pray for them, kiss their sweet faces, and already anticipate seeing them when they wake up tomorrow. And tomorrow, as I watch my boys go about their day, the strangest thing will happen.  My heart will follow them because each of them still holds a piece of it. And as I collapse in my own bed after I have turned off the last light and wiped the last crumb off the counter, I still wonder, “How can I love them this much?”

Yes, I understand what it means to be a mother now. It is full of anticipation and anxiety, no matter how much experience I have had. It is being given something by God that really is too good to be true, and humbly doing my best with such undeserved blessings.  It is to never stop thinking of another more than myself, because I am consumed with the lives I sustain. It is moment after moment of the miraculous, of taking part in the gift of life and turning those moments into memories.  It is about being broken, surrendering the pieces of my heart that have taken on the faces of my children to God. Daily.  Because it is in my brokenness as a mom that I am made beautiful.  And in my broken hallelujahs at the end of the day, He draws near.

 

Mother’s Day 2014
#myboysmyheart

 

Eli James

Wyatt Harrison

Ms. Mary

There are a lot of papers to go through at the end of each school day.  I love looking through Wyatt’s folder because I catch a glimpse of his day.  A little snapshot of what his class talked about, what they learned, and how they are progressing in their writing of letters and numbers or recognizing certain patterns.  And always, as I transfer those papers to a big binder I have for him, organized by the month, I exhale.  I’m so thankful for his teacher.

To say I am thankful for her really isn’t adequate.  My oldest son, Wyatt, struggles in new environments.  The confidence he exudes at home is quickly replaced by a shy boy who I often don’t recognize except in my own memories of being a child.  Each morning as we pray on the way to school, I try and fill his little heart with courage. With confidence.  With pride for being God’s best. And with every situation he will face that day, whether it be answering a question out loud or being brave enough to walk up to a group of kids and begin playing without being invited, I pray there is enough courage to last until I pick him up at 2:45.

A lot of thought, tears, and prayer went into the choice of his school.  We chose a school that wasn’t practical for us.  On paper, we don’t fit in.  In my minivan during the car pool line, we don’t fit in.  I remember calling my husband the first day I picked up the boys and saying something like, “Babe, I’m pretty sure I’m going to need a BMW or a Mercedes.”  When I do see another minivan mom, we give one another a little nod.  We know.  It is the motorcycle club of private schools, and I’m pretty proud to be a part of it.  Because the sacrifice has been worth it, and I knew it would be from the first night at orientation when I met Wyatt’s teacher.

I sat in this little chair, the chair Wyatt was going to sit in during the school year, and listened.  Mrs. Bowersox.  “If you need me, here is my cell number on the board.  Go ahead and put it in your phone and text me your name so I can save it.”  Major points from the newbie on your right whose first baby is about to be gone all day. All communication with him would not be lost.  She was throwing me a lifeline, and I remember holding back tears the rest of orientation.  Car pool instructions.  Allergy friendly snacks.  I don’t know that I remembered a lot of details because my spirit instantly connected to hers and felt such relief.  I immediately knew my baby would not just be learning numbers and letters, but that he would be nurtured and loved.

And then, a few days later, we had another orientation.  I would take Wyatt to her classroom with just a few other kids so he could meet her, become familiar with his environment and routine, and have less nerves on the first day.  Or was it me who it helped to have fewer nerves?  In any case, it took Mrs. Bowersox, Ms. Mary as we were told to call her, about two minutes to assess Wyatt’s personality.  To know how to approach him and how to speak to him.  How to make him feel comfortable quickly while not pushing him beyond his comfort zone.  When I picked him up she praised him for his strengths, and in a short amount of time she had accurately described all the things I love so much about him.  His sensitivity.  His caring. His quiet strength. His sweetness. His smartness. Okay, so maybe that would describe how every mom thinks of her child, but there was something else there. Sincerity. She understood him.  And I could have cried.  Again.

So yes, Ms. Mary has a way of making me, a self-proclaimed non-cryer, bust out the ugly cry.  But the important thing is that I’ve been the only one to cry until now, when Wyatt tells me he doesn’t want another teacher next year. And really I can’t blame him.  Her voice is so sweet that it makes me want to go back to Pre-K.  It isn’t just what she says, but her tone.  Admittedly, I tried to find fault with it.  No one is that sweet.  No one really speaks that way all day long. “Sweet children, sit down. Okay, sweet children, let’s have two minutes of quiet time.”  Does she ever just get frustrated at the 14 five-year-olds in her class and snap, “SIT DOWN or BE QUIET.”  No.  No, she does not.  Even Wyatt agrees.  One day, on the way home from school after I had a three second conversation with her in the car pool line I asked him, “Do you think Ms. Mary ever yells?” He paused to think about it and answered,  “No, mommy.  Not even when she is mad.  Wait, do you think she gets mad, mommy?”  My answer? “No.” Because she isn’t just superwoman status to Wyatt, she is superwoman status to me.  In the three second conversations I have with her in the car pool line, I pull out feeling a little better about my day.  Because in her sweetness, there is an undeniable element of sincerity. And in all her goodness, there is an undeniable spirit of grace. And in her beauty, there is an undeniable reflection of Jesus.

Wyatt has grown this year.  And even more, he has truly enjoyed this year even with all the changes and challenges it represented.  He has learned calm in the face of change and confidence in the face of a challenge.  Early on I realized, as I prayed each morning for God to fill his heart with everything he would need to be comfortable during his day, that I wasn’t the only one praying. Ms. Mary was doing it as well. And not only was she praying, but she was pouring into him, filling his little heart with truths and uncovering all his treasures, making them visible to others.  So as the school year comes to an end, I am most grateful that he didn’t just learn in her class, he was loved in her class.  And that, that has made all the difference.

 

 

Kindred Spirits

Kindred Spirits.  I can look back and remember the moments when my spirit connected to another.  When we laughed at the same moments, and when we rolled our eyes at the same annoyances.  Amidst the many out there, we all find our few.  The few who will hold a place in our heart, who will get an investment in our time, and who we will share our stories with.  And I’m thankful for my few. As the saying goes, ‘Having a lot of friends means nothing to me.  I’d rather have four quarters than 100 pennies.’

Because what I have long learned is that most of the people that have come into my life are seasonal, even if we keep in touch and truly love one another.  For a moment in time we shared an interest.  We shared a dorm.  We shared a class. We shared a cause.  But when circumstances change, so does the friendship.  And that isn’t a bad thing.  In most cases, it isn’t even hurtful. There is a mutual love and respect for getting through the season together. Whether it was a harsh winter or a beautiful fall, bonds were formed and memories made.  And in the moment you say goodbye to your friend and to the season in which will only live in your yesterdays, you finally understand the phrase, ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow.’

I have also learned that most friendships are ‘for better or worse.’ Whether it be their worst, your worst, or both.  And if you have a friendship spanning over many years representing a multitude of memories and milestones, you know.  You know what your friend is really thinking when she smiles politely at her mother-in-law.  You know what she would really order if she weren’t on a diet.  You know the effort it took her not to cry that day.  You know.  And she knows.  And in the unsaid knowing, there is magic.  There is comfort. There is pride.  There is an undeniable sense of home found in one another.  A home where sweat pants are always in style, baby weight isn’t seen, first reactions can be spoken, and there aren’t conditions.  And in a world of conditions and if/then love, no wonder home is where the heart is.

And where matters of the heart are concerned, there is always a vulnerability to hurt. But sometimes, we misinterpret the hurt. We react in a fleshly, purposeful way to our pride being stung, our weaknesses being exposed, and our secrets being discovered.  We read in Proverbs that, ‘A friend loves at all times’ and rather than letting that be a guide to our responses, we make it a condition on how our friends make us feel.  And when we don’t feel loved anymore we think, “Ah, she wasn’t really my friend.”

And we would be wrong.  Very wrong.  I’ve grown up in church and have heard many teachings on friendships.  In Bible college, we often spoke of our friends as ‘iron sharpening iron.’  We borrowed that Proverb, and it always gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.  My friends made me better.  They made me smarter.  They challenged me.  It was all, well, very sweet.  But recently my fuzzy feeling was replaced with a clearer picture. When iron is sharpening iron in the literal sense, it isn’t gentle or sweet.  It is loud and fiery.  Sparks fly as the iron clashes, but in the process, they become sharpened.  I wondered, how many of us are misled in our friendships?  How many of us flatter instead of sharpen?  How many of us have an attitude of anger rather than appreciation when we are sharpened?  How many of us view the sparks as damaging rather than healing? How many of us saw sparks and began to run away from a friendship rather than towards it?

That isn’t to say, however, that some friendships aren’t ones we should turn and run from. There are times when things are not misinterpreted.  I recently ran away from a friendship of eighteen years because sometimes friends are not for all of time, but for the time being.  And when we try and bring certain friends into the new seasons of our life, they may hold us back and we may hold them back.  The greatest gift we can give one another is the freedom to follow the direction God is taking us, even if it isn’t the same.  Things like God, husbands, and family are more important and must be our first priority.  And unless we find friends with similar priorities, then taking those turns will be met with hurt, bitterness, and anger. And if a friend demands and expects to be more important than those things, then perhaps she was a time being friend like I discovered mine to be. And even though the initial discovery is hurtful, you find a freedom in not defending your priorities.  Because true kindred spirits have the same ones and lack no confidence in being placed under God and family.

There are often very legitimate reasons we get hurt in friendships and I would never try and belittle those. There are times when we see iron being sharpened that we should run the other way.  Quickly.  Because that knife they were sharpening? It was for your back. There are true stories of betrayal and backstabbing.  There are really people who aren’t as they seem, but seemed that way for many months and made a fool out of you.  There are really people who don’t want to be your friend except for what you can give them or how you can make them feel. And most of the time, if we look back, we can see warning signs that we ignored for reasons that are equally shameful.  We risk the betrayal because we have become dependent on that friend for meeting needs in our own life.  We were needed, wanted.

As humans, there is a desire in each of us to feel wanted and needed.  This is why women know there is such truth when a girlfriend says, ‘don’t marry him because you think you can change him.’  We know we like the underdog.  We see the potential in people more than we see the person they are in that moment.  And I love that about me.  I love that about you.  I love that, as women, God gave us a desire to nurture.  To bring someone into their God-given purpose.  But in a friendship, we too often let these emotions guide our decision to invest.  Because after a period of time, our desire to be needed and wanted will begin to fade.  We have been needed and wanted enough.  It will stop fulfilling us and instead begin to drain us.  The underdog story we so wanted to be a part of,  it will stop being written.  The betrayal we feared, the one-sided friendship, will be realized.  And it will be our own fault.  We chose the story of the underdog but in the end, we couldn’t fully commit. Because the key to any successful friendship is two individuals who give out of the excess of God meeting their needs, who are not trying to substitute a friend where God’s place should be in their lives. Or their spouse if they have one. And when this happens, expectations and priorities will be right.  And so will the give and take, the ebb and flow of the friendship. Where one is strong the other is weak and in that exchange, a friendship is born.  We learn to need one another while still depending on God.  We learn to show our humanity because to showcase strength in a friendship, we must also show weakness. Because a true kindred spirit loves you in both moments, appreciating the good and the bad that make you who you are. Accepting weaknesses without judgement and appreciating strengths without jealousy.

But the thing is, we have all had bad experiences.  We have all cried tears over a lost friend, or the disappointment in someone not turning out to be the friend we thought they were.  And it makes it hard to keep an open heart towards discovering new friendships, or to even think that the precious free time we are investing may turn into something priceless.  I’m guilty of such pessimism.  Of keeping people at arms length and not giving friendships the time and energy to grow. Perhaps I have watched Anne of Green Gables too many times and have unrealistic expectations. Or maybe it is because a few knives in my lifetime haven’t been used for sharpening purposes. Whatever the reason, I’m slowly learning and realizing that sometimes it is hard to find friends when you are searching for kindred spirits. But sometimes it is hard to find kindred spirits without first finding a friend. And kindred spirits, they are worth the finding because they are the friends that are not just meant for the time being, but for all of time. They are the friends with the same priorities.  They are the friends who show their humanity and aren’t afraid to love you in yours. They are the friends who you want to do life with because they sharpen you and make you a better wife, mother, and follower of Christ.  They are the faces you look at and feel at home enough to kick off your shoes and overstay visiting hours. Because we all have friends which is good because we all need them.  A friend we go out with when we are in the mood to have fun.  A friend we go out with when we want to have a deep conversation.  A friend we go out with when we just want our kids to play together.  But a kindred spirit, they are the friend you find everything in and that, well, it makes all the difference. And they are worth taking the risk of opening your eyes and heart to see them, because chances are God has already found them for you.

 

The Kids’ Table

This Thanksgiving marks the fourth one in which I’m an adult. Yes, I have three kids. Yes, I’m in my thirties. But being a grown up wasn’t decided by age. It wasn’t decided by marital status. It was decided by where you sat at Thanksgiving.

Growing up, there was clearly an adult table and a kids’ table. My cousins and I were always at the kids’ table, and as that table began to get crowded with second and third cousins growing up behind us, we were hopeful we would graduate. One year we knew, we just knew this would be the last of the cousins sitting alone together. Ostracized. We were teenagers, and the idea of moving to the grown up table where, with the reach of a hand, one could get a hot roll, was appealing. We had earned that right. We were ready.

There we were the next year. Looking more grown up than ever in our Doc Martins and Lucky jeans. We went in and looked at our table, eyeing how many seats were placed around it. The numbers didn’t add up. This was our year. We were moving up. But then she came up behind us, smiled, and took us to our “new table.” We had moved tables alright, but it wasn’t where we had thought. There, in the middle of the living room, was a card table set up with just the right number of chairs. The only thing we had graduated from was being allowed and trusted to eat over the carpet instead of tile now. And, to be fair, we were close enough to the grown up table that we could comment on conversations…..if we listened really closely.

And, however it came to be, there we were, in our late twenties, still sitting at the wobbly card table. The old and wobbly deceptively hidden under a freshly pressed table cloth. A table that I’m certain shouldn’t have been trusted to have food placed on it over any type of floor, much less carpet. And by now, it was a well known joke between us because the truth was, we were never going to graduate. We were never going to be adults. Because we were her babies. And she wanted us all together not because of our age, but because we were all hers. And because she loved to visit our wobbly table and have us all together in one place. Just as we were in her heart. Grandma’s babies.

A month after she died, Thanksgiving came all too quickly. It didn’t even feel like Thanksgiving without her presence and without the familiarity of “going to Grandma’s.” The new home that hosted it was lovely. It was bigger. But it was missing something. Our wobbly card table. We all did our best that Thanksgiving to smile. To remember her without crying. To swallow our food past the lump in our throats. I wonder if anyone really tasted the food that year. And as we went through the line and filled our plates, we each found a place to sit. I looked around at my cousins, scattered about at the different tables set up around the great room, and knew this was the year. This was the year we had all graduated to the adult table. And the lump in my throat made food impassable.

A week ago I went into what used to be her garage and saw that old, wobbly, card table leaning against the wall. It was covered in cobwebs, revealing how long it had sat there, unused, since her passing. And I could have kissed it for keeping us all sitting together, year after year. Because at some point, in our twenties, we discovered through our jokes that the kid table was the best seat in the world. We were caught between being children and being adults. We were caught in Grandma’s world. A world where adult responsibilities vanished, where someone looked at you with the same delight as they did when you were two, and a world where love had a name and it was Grandma.

Even though I will sit at the adult table this year while feeding my own little ones, a part of me will always miss past Thanksgivings. And I’ll always be thankful for that wobbly card table I had the privilege of sitting at for so many wonderful years. Years in which we existed in this world together. Years in which I was my Grandma’s baby.

 

Believing the Whisper

Sometimes I look into the eyes of my little boys and get lost. I get lost in the love, in the pride, and in the cuteness that melts my heart. When Wyatt tells me he wants to marry me when he grows up, I’m lost. When Eli tells me I’m the prettiest mommy in the whole world, I’m lost. When Crosby looks at me and says MaMa while extending his chubby little hands, I’m lost. I’m lost in those moments, in Never Never Land, and if only Tinker Bell and her fairy dust were real, I would be tempted to use it. To freeze these moments before they are only a memory. Because something inside me, when I look into their eyes, whispers “These are the best moments of your life.” And I believe that whisper.

I had a friend that would tell me how strangers always came up to her when she was out with her boys and would say things like, “I miss that stage.” Or, “you are in the best years of your life.” We can all relate to those comments from people when we are out with our kids, and we probably all respond differently. It frustrated her because in the hard parenting years, in the throes of sacrifice, sleep deprivation, and setting boundaries, the last thing she wanted to hear was a “you’ll really miss this” speech. While the stranger was having a moment in aisle three, she probably had a kid screaming in the cart and one rounding the corner to aisle four. A trip down memory lane with a stranger was too much when she was just surviving a trip to the grocery store.

Being a mom with three boys very close together, I always understood her point. I could understand how a strangers input might not be welcomed. The “you’re going to miss this” speech almost offensive when you are surviving the days and have little time to dwell on sentiment. But even though I understood, and to each their own, my response was always different. It must be my melancholy side. Or maybe better timing from said person. Because when a stranger approaches me and wistfully looks at my three boys, my heart swells in my chest. When they stop and tell me the stories of when their boys were young, I eagerly listen. Because one day all I will have are memories. And whether or not they have been behaving beautifully that day or have pushed the boundaries, my patience is extended as I see the tears fill the eyes of the mom whose son no longer fits in her lap, wants to be held, or needs her in the same way.

I know my boys will always need me. But their needs will change. Wyatt won’t need me to sing his lullaby every single night when he is twenty. Eli won’t need me to rub his head when he doesn’t feel well. Crosby won’t need me to hold his hand or pick him up when he approaches a step. And while it sounds freeing to a degree, the world of no diaper changing, meltdown interferences, and teeth brushing, their growing independence might make me feel lost. Lost in a world where yesterday’s sit brightly in my heart. Where my kisses were magic, where my ideas were the best, and my company was first choice.

I know my boys will always love me. I know the exchange of love since they were born has built a foundation for a lifelong relationship. And I know I will enjoy that relationship with each of them. I know it will have many different stages, be tested and found true, and that I’ll only love them more as time marches on. But I also know that I will miss these moments in time, no matter how spectacular the future ones are. The moments they all fit in my lap at the same time.

A few weeks ago I was out in the front yard playing football with my four and five-year-old while my one-year-old meandered about, enjoying the Fall day. A woman who was jogging slowed when she saw us playing, and stopped when she was in front of our house. She didn’t say anything. She had sunglasses on and ear buds in. After a little while, I approached her to ask if everything was okay. It was getting a little weird, stranger lurking-ish. And as I got closer, I saw the tears streaming down her face. She walked towards me and apologized, saying she had had been transported in time watching us all play. She had three boys who were in college now, but she fondly remembered the days I was living. She missed my daily routine. She envied the stage of life I was in, even as she spoke of the trials and hard times that came with raising three boys close in age. With all the sleep deprivation, sacrificing, and setting boundaries, she would trade me places. Because on the other side of child rearing, there is a secret most moms know and most agree with. They would do it again. Every single time. And not only was the rearing worth the family they created, it provided them with some of the best moments of their lives.

Today, when my little boy had a melt down because the line in his sock made his shoes uncomfortable, my patience didn’t start running out. It was pouring out. And yesterday, when I finally sat down for the first time and was deciding how to spend my alone time, my little boy got out of bed and needed to potty. Again. And tomorrow, when these common occurrences in my house happen and my pitcher of patience starts pouring out, I choose to believe the whisper that says, “these are the best moments of your life.”

Because soon, I won’t be needed to put on socks. That extra two minutes with him each morning won’t happen. And soon, I won’t be tucking in a little boy for the second time, getting to give that second kiss and pray that second time. Soon, the seasons of life will turn just as the changing of weather reminds us that time keeps moving. Nothing is the same today as it was yesterday, even though the routine and monotony of a mom to young kids suggests that it is. Because with each day, they are closer to the one where they are too big to pick up. Where they are too big to need all the books read to them. Where a quarter doesn’t make them feel rich. All I have to do is look at the laundry I fold each day to realize it. To see the smallest pair of jeans that my oldest used to wear. And watch the days turn into years.

I don’t know if I will one day be the stranger in the store that tells a young mom how fondly I remember the days I’m living now. But I do know that even when I’m in the midst of a bad day, I believe their secret. I believe I would do the hardest day over again twenty years from now just to hold them in my lap and kiss their chubby cheeks. And I do know that on those hard days, the days I spend in the trenches just trying to dodge the bullets, I’m going to believe that voice inside me that whispers, “these are the best moments of your life.” Because if I don’t believe it, I won’t be my best in those moments. And my boys, if you haven’t met them and know, deserve my best and more. They deserve a mom who gets lost in their eyes everyday.

 

as time goes by

 

Simply Magnificent

I was tabbing with a friend the other week.  Yes, tabbing.  It is the word I made up for all of these conversations I have with friends without actually speaking to them.  Gabbing meets texting. I couldn’t stand texting before I became a mom.  I had a friend that would always text me and I would think, “just pick up the phone and call me already!”  But not anymore. I have fully come to appreciate texting and all it has to offer as a means of communication in my current stage of life.  And in the world of motherhood, tabbing can be a way of connecting. It is always convenient because the response time can be fully tailored to what you have going on in that moment. You can pick up and leave off the conversation with no guilt. You aren’t in a place to be fully committed to a conversation, but at the same time you want the person to know you are thinking of them.  And as a mom, sometimes that thought from a friend is just the extra kindness I needed to put a smile on my face as I go and change the next poopy diaper.

This was the case with my friend that day.  I was thinking of her but with laundry going, a sick and clingy one-year-old to tend, and dinner to make for the other two boys, I couldn’t commit to more than a two minute conversation. And I couldn’t promise she could hear me over the baby whimpering on my shoulder.  But she was on my heart, so I grabbed my phone to send a text.  To make a connection and convey she was being thought about.  I asked her how she was, and she knew I wasn’t expecting a surface answer.  She went in a bit of a circle trying to express how she was feeling.  Maybe it was just a mood.  Maybe a little of life.  Maybe she needed some alone time.  And in the end, she said she really had no complaints.

I often hear this answer, but not often from her. And I often give this answer when someone asks how I am. “I’m good.  Maybe it is just the dreary weather. Or maybe I just need a night out.  Or maybe I just woke up in a mood.  But really, I have nothing to complain about.”  HUH?  First we say we are doing well, followed by odd explanations of our lack of wellness, and then we come around apologetic for feeling less than well.  Less than great.  Less than, dare I say it, perfect.

The most common explanation for being just a bit ‘off’ is this:  “I guess I’m just tired.”  And as I was reading the text from my friend that day, reading the things she was speculating could be the cause of her mood, I felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion from her.  She was tired from big efforts with little results.  She was tired of her sacrificial love being used selfishly.  She was tired of obedience with little understanding.  She was tired of the daily routine resting on her shoulders.  She was feeling the weight of it all.  And as I sat there, reading in-between the lines, I saw her sheer exhaustion. I felt it.

As I went about my day, her text bothered me.  Not in an annoying way, but in a way that it just wouldn’t stop coming to mind.  Over the next several days I prayed for her.  I pleaded with the Lord and asked how to pray for her.  Eventually it became just as much about what the Lord was trying to speak to me because just as I sensed she was feeling the weight on her shoulders, I had often felt the weight on mine.  The weight of being a good wife.  The weight of being a good mom.  The weight of being a good friend.  The weight of being a good representative of Christ. And I never knew how to describe it either.  That ‘mood.’

A few days later, I was going through a stack of pictures that my one-year-old had taken out of a drawer and scattered about. I quickly came across a picture of myself and my friend. My friend that I’ve known through every stage of life, and whose face is endearing because of the memories it instantly recalls.  I’m proud to be her friend.  She is stunning.  She is the person that everyone wants to be friends with.  That everyone wants to be like because really, she mirrors our Savior so beautifully. The goodness in her person is undeniable and the gentleness in her soul makes her an instant treasure. And as I looked at her face I saw it.  I knew what was wrong.  I knew what to pray for.  I decoded the ‘mood.’  She wasn’t needing alone time.  She wasn’t tired.

She was weary.

Exhaustion is in the body.  Solitude is in the mind.  But weariness, weariness is in the soul.  And her soul was weary.  A soul that is surrendered completely to the Lord, a soul that sacrifices doing the easy thing to do the right thing, and a soul that gives love transparently but sometimes receives it filtered.  That soul was weary.  The one that was so well doing.

A Scripture immediately came to mind from Galations 6:9 which says,

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

This encouraged me.  God knew our souls would grow weary in well doing. He knew hers would. He encourages us not to grow weary and promises that for all the seeds planted, we will reap.  There will be a harvest.  But that harvest is contingent on one thing.  We must not faint. We are guaranteed to miss the harvest if we do. We must keep planting, even if doing it wearily, even when we see no growth, and even when our humanity causes us to doubt the harvest.

And how many of us are weary in our well doing?  How many of us are weary at the end of a day of kissing boo boo’s, changing diapers, teaching little ones right responses and correcting wrong ones, and drying as many dishes as tears on certain nights?  How many of us are weary when our coveted alone time didn’t happen because our husbands needed us at the end of an already long day?  How many of us wearily go about cooking dinner, playing with our children, keeping in touch with friends, volunteering at church, cleaning the house, and even staying in God’s Word and spending time with Him?

All of us.  All of us are sometimes weary. And most of us don’t realize it because we belittle our well doing and our planting until we become victim of the ‘mood.’  All of us, at certain and different times, feel as if we could faint.

When my oldest little boy was two, he fell and split his forehead open.  We rushed him to the emergency room.  The amount of blood was terrifying and as the doctor examined him, he looked at me and said, “If you feel faint, sit down and put your head down between your legs.”  And maybe, just maybe, when we feel the ‘mood,’ that should be our posture as well.  Sit down, bow our head, and surrender to the Lord.  Recognize we are weary past the bone and into our soul, and thank Him for the harvest He has promised. Because when we thank Him for the unseen, it grows our faith and our spiritual souls see a harvest that our weary ones do not.

When I pray for my friend now, I thank God for her well doing.  Her day after day well doing. The little, consistent well doings and the big, out of the ordinary ones.  And I thank God for her harvest, because I know it will be simply magnificent.  Just as she is.

Pain in a Blue Chair

When I was a high school counselor, I learned many things. I learned that playing rap music in my office made my students relax and open up more.  I learned not to be afraid of what I didn’t know.  I learned that judging by appearances is a grave mistake.  I learned that for everyone there is someone.  I learned that teachers save more lives than doctors.  I learned to appreciate the differences in us all.  I learned that my gut instinct is often correct. But perhaps the greatest thing I learned, the most important thing I learned, was about speaking to a persons pain.  Because before they were an OG or a problem in the school system, they were just a kid who was hurting.  A kid with self taught coping mechanisms because no one cared enough to speak to their pain.  To bandage their knee.  To make it better.

I was just a twenty-something white girl who went to private Christian schools through college.  What did I know about pain?  What did I know about the boy who had watched his little sister get raped by his uncle?  What did I know about the boy whose parents were in prison, leaving his resentful grandparents to raise him?  What did I know about the angry young girl who had watched her mother get shot to death?  What did I know about the girl who wore the same clothes every day, including flip flops in December?  I didn’t.  I didn’t know a thing.  So I listened, and I learned.

It was a typical day for me.  Calling DHS to report suspected child abuse and the next minute having a girl crying in my office, upset that her boyfriend broke up with her.  Or a boy who was angry because he didn’t make the basketball team. “Really? That is your biggest problem?  Don’t you realize there are actual problems going on around you?”

I began to think that my compassion for the tragic was wasted on the trivial. Until I realized it wasn’t.  I realized that a persons response to pain is directly related to how much of it they have felt and been exposed to in life.  So the girl who was crying in my office because her boyfriend kissed another girl and broke up with her, that girl was lucky.  Her lack of painful experiences had made that one really hurt. She wasn’t trying to be dramatic, she was genuinely experiencing pain in a way she had not before, and her hurt was evident.  But the boy who I called into my office to tell him that his mother had died in prison, the boy that did not shed a tear as I told him this news, that boy, he was not so lucky.  At fifteen years of age, he had experienced so much pain in life that it no longer affected his emotions.  He no longer felt hurt, because no one had ever made it better. In fifteen years.

And then I realized that the people who live in a state of happy, they respond to pain as if it is abnormal.  Their reaction to it betrays the normalcy of their life. But the people that live in a state of pain, they respond to happy in an abnormal way.  A way that betrays their hiding place from hurt.

Like the girl that I took shopping for warm clothes and a good pair of shoes.  I’ll never forget the look on her face as she tried on coats, or how her eyes watered with tears when she put on a pair of warm shoes in December to replace her flip flops. Or like the boy that stopped by every morning before class to say hi and say, “Thanks Ms. D.”  At fifteen, he had been arrested multiple times.  He was expelled from his last school because he assaulted a teacher, and students and teachers alike walked the long way around him.  But I knew.  I knew the height of his anger was only as real as the depth of his pain and so I asked him.  One day I went up to him, told him I was sorry for all the hurt he had been through in his life, and that I was ready to listen if he ever wanted to talk about it.  He cursed me and walked off.  But a few weeks later, that same boy walked into my office, sat down in the chair across from me, and told me his story.  And it still makes me cry.

The chair in my office was old and stained. It had a thin blue, padded seat with the same blue material on the armrests. And at the end of the day, after the halls were silent, I often looked at that chair and cursed the world.  A world where children are born to pay the consequences of their parents mistakes.  A world where children are born into an environment of such pain and death that they don’t even know how to respond to someone offering life. A world where many of these teenagers didn’t have a chance, not a single chance of having a happy normal childhood.  No, the chair wasn’t much to look at, but I loved that chair for all the life stories that were told in it. For all the tears absorbed by the armrest from the backs of hands used to wipe them away.  And sometimes, at the end of a long day, I sat in that chair and did the only thing I could do.  I cried. I cried because at twenty-five years old, I had learned something that many of my students learned before they could talk. That the world isn’t fair.  It isn’t fair at all. And that my normal by which I judged everything else to be abnormal was highly ideological, opening my eyes to a reality I had been sheltered from. That my accomplishments, though wonderful in their own right, looked small in comparison to that of a freshman who got up and went to school every day when no mom or dad told them to go.  When no mom or dad had ever told them anything of any consequence, except ones of hurt and belittlement.  Those students, the ones who had every excuse in the world to become nothing because they had been told and treated as if they were from the time they were little, those students who accepted responsibility for their choices when no one had ever accepted responsibility for them, they became my heroes.  And the ones who didn’t get up and go to class, the ones I picked up in the morning or ran outside to get as I watched them leave before second hour, they became my heart.  And the ones who cried because their best friend became best friends with someone else, they became my happy.  I was so happy that their normal had been my normal, and that they felt pain because they mostly lived absent from it.  Because I learned that pain can’t be measured.  It can only be felt. And if it is being felt, then it exists.  And if it exists, it must be acknowledged without judgment of right or wrong. And when it is acknowledged, it must be validated and never belittled.  Because the greatest lesson I learned is that if I didn’t validate their pain, they would never feel validated by me as a person.  And before I could speak into their lives, before I could speak to their pain, before they would listen to my words, before my words could have meaning, they had to feel validated.  Only then, would they let me attempt to make it better. And for my feeble attempts in the face of their fierce bravery in allowing me to try, those kids are forever my heroes, my heart, and my happy.

Just a Shirt

A shirt. All I wanted was a shirt.  Something that she had worn while she was alive. Something that smelled like love.  Something that I could wrap around me, knowing her arms had once been inside.  I looked inside the hospital room that was no longer filled with hope, but instead filled with memories.  I saw her, lifeless, but would not think about her in that way.  How can one that is larger than life be lost to it? I desperately scanned the room to see what was left of her.  I wanted something, maybe everything, but I would not cross into the room where her body lay still.  Her hand would be cold.  The hand that had rubbed my back, made me countless meals, held my children, dialed my number, written me letters, and held mine.  The one I held for three months, wet with my tears, begging God for more time.  But the time was up.  Like a loud alarm clock waking you from a peaceful and deep slumber, the fear of her death had become fact.  And all I wanted was a shirt. A shirt to hold and remember the hope, remember the love, and remember the sweetness of her soul.  It was hanging in the closet.  Damn those shirts that outlived her.  Who made a shirt so well that it would outlive the one who wore it?  But I wanted it still, like trying to freeze the sunset before the darkness overtakes.

I was too afraid to walk in the room.  How could I breathe the air that had supplied her with her last breath? How could my living body exist in the same space as her lifeless one? It was unnatural.  It wasn’t possible. This day was not possible and yet how did I fear it? How could time continue when it had planned to take her away and leave me lonelier than I knew possible? The shirt. Would it make me less lonely? Trembling from fear and sadness, I asked for someone to retrieve it.  Her eyes did not follow his movement. She did not see my tears. She would have wiped them away. If love had a fragrance, surely it was her scent.  I drank it in.  How long would it linger after she was gone? I sat down with the shirt but wasn’t she with me? I smelled her, she had often worn this shirt and sat next to me and taken my hand.  It muffled my cries. It dried my tears that night and many after. She lived on in the shirt now. I would take it home and walk out the doors she would never open.

Draped across my chair at home it was as if she had forgotten it.  I found a candy wrapper in the pocket and sighed. It had not been washed since she wore it.  I felt closer to her than ever.  On days the denial was less, I smelled the shirt and felt her love.  On days it was more, I would cast a haughty glare its way. A year passed and the denial was less. She had not come to get her shirt. She was never coming back.  Her smell was fading and one day, it just smelled like a shirt.  It wasn’t the only piece of her I had left.  It wasn’t a piece of her at all.  Damn you, shirt. In desperation I grabbed at your existence, hanging in a closet next to her body. Never to be worn as she left that place.  And now, never to bring her back or immortalize her sweet scent.  It wasn’t a magic link between life and death.  It wasn’t magic at all.  It was just a shirt.  So I hung it up in my closet, no longer to be seen every day draped across my chair.

Almost two years have passed since the shirt became mine, and sometimes when I see it I smile because it was silly to think a shirt could keep her physical presence close. But then I cry because I think I smell her scent, or perhaps it is my imagination or sheer determination willing her close again.  Whatever it may be, I have her shirt.  Even though I discovered that it isn’t magic, it is better. After all, it was my Grandma’s.

Stinky Little Boys

I was driving home last night when a song came on with the lyrics, “what once was dirty He made worthy.” I was undone, just overwhelmed by the Saviors love for me. That God so loved the world, He sent His one and only Son. It’s often lost on me because I grew up hearing it, but certain moments take my breath away and allow me to see a love that is a vision beyond the natural. A glimpse of the eternal love. But as this glimpse progressed along with the tears in my eyes, I suddenly saw the faces of my little boys. Their dirt streaked cheeks after playing outside. Their scraped knees after falling off their bikes. Their dirty baseball uniforms and smelly shoes. The dirt beneath their fingernails that constantly drives me crazy. I saw all this dirt. These dirty, stinky, little boys with mud between their toes and dirt in their hair. (Because of course they dump dirt on one another. Of course they do.) And I just felt this lump in my throat and swelling of my heart. Because those boys, they are my dirty but I can make them feel worthy by being Jesus to them. I don’t have to yell when they accidentally spill their cereal all over the counter and floor right when we are walking out the door to school. I don’t have to roll my eyes in frustration when I see them dumping dirt because maybe then I would hear them laughing. Because they are always laughing. I can fold their laundry with a little less dread because they are healthy and they romp around outside and use Creation in a way I think the Creator purposed it for. Don’t you think the God of the universe knew little boys would love the feeling of mud between their toes? And even little girls because well, I know I did. The point is, what is dirty I can make worthy by the way in which I respond. In which I love. How I communicate it. Because motherhood is a sum of sacrifices that create a beautiful, existing, powerful, eternal, and present love. Sigh. I remember the moment I saw the faces of each of my boys and surrendered to the force of love that is motherhood. And then those little babies began to crawl. Then without knowing it was the last time they would crawl they suddenly walked. They started using their legs to stand. And how I love them helps them stand strong. On that first day of school. At that birthday party where they didn’t know many people. And one day when they walk across a stage or into an interview and don’t need my hands, but still have my heart. All of our children learn to stand confidently because before we wiped their faces, we kissed their dirty cheek. So they learned. They felt. They saw. They are worthy. Just as they are. Because our sum of sacrifices can’t compare to the one sacrifice that our responses point them towards. Towards the God that so loved the world that He gave His only Son. I’m certain He flooded my soul and eyes tonight because He knows He can be strong in my weakness and He knows the importance of letting my children believe they are worth it. Worth all of it. Late nights. Sleepless nights. Sick nights. Spilled cereal. Lost shoes. Public meltdowns. Dirty diapers. Muddy footprints. ER visits. All of it. If I can just reflect Him.  And He, He washes feet. He invites sinners to His table. He bends down to heal the sick.  He embraces those that others turn their back on. Our God. He does those things. And motherhood if nothing else is a divine partnership with God. He takes what is dirty and makes it worthy and gives us dirty and teaches us how to be more like Him by making our kids feel worthy. And they are. Always.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Yellow Rising

As I pull out to make my way down the gravel drive that leads to a cattle gate, I stop. This land that once belonged to my Grandpa has long since missed the touch of his hand. Mending fences. Planting gardens. Trimming trees. Clearing brush. Without him taking care of it, it slowly fell into disrepair and it takes ones imagination to look across the acreage and see beauty. But, lucky for me, it just takes my memory. 

Just recently I’ve assumed the responsibility of going out there every day and trying to fill his boots as I feed and care for the horses he loved. Two of them. They are the beauty that draws me to that place, the warmth in winter, the soft eyes that want to trust, and the nuzzles that become meaningful. 

It is a cold and cloudy day. I’m sitting bundled in the barn watching them eat. Finished, they wander to and from me. My favorite dips his head as I reach up and rub the length of his face. Two cardinals play and then a third joins and though the branches have no leaves and the screens from the windows flap about in the wind reminding me of the disrepair that has befallen this place, I sense peace. The open sky. The sounds of nature. Hooves in dirt. Swooshing of tails and chirping of birds. The creak of the barn in the wind. All of this speaks to my soul. Stirs it as I wait. For the next nuzzle, the next cardinal, the next beautiful exchange or siting that awakens my soul.

I sing to the horses and again find myself singing hymns and thinking of my Grandma next to me. Standing in church. Our hands on the back of the pew in front of us and she puts hers over mine. Her vibrato distinguishes her as someone who has been singing for many years. As does the hymnal she does not need because the words are hidden in her heart. In these moments, peaceful in the barn, the past and present collide. It beckons me to a place of such contentment as I look forward through the lens of the past.

Leaving, I close the gate behind me and get in my car, sitting for awhile with my eyes on the horses. I take in all of God’s creation that reflects His thoughtfulness towards me. As I pull out to make my way down the gravel drive that leads to a cattle gate, I stop. I put the car in park. I have to get out and look more closely.

Yellow. Up from a pile of brown leaves on this property that hasn’t been beautiful in ten years, I see yellow. I see hope. I see life. I see Jesus.

Because no matter how run down I get. No matter how long I overlook what I shouldn’t. No matter how many fences aren’t mended. There He is. Ready to break through, to become visible, and to catch my eye with just enough color to cause pause. The unseen things will rise. Just as He did. 

Just as His mercies are new every morning, just as the sun rises with the dawn, just as Spring follows Winter, nothing is impossible for my God. The earth shouts and praises Him in the Spring, but it lies in preparation of that during the Winter.

I never knew of the little, yellow, forsythia shrubs existence and I wonder, what life has He planted in me? What lies beneath the surface? What is about to rise from my season of Winter? All I know is He is faithful. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And with that, I know because He is risen, because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Old things are made new. Beauty rises from ashes. These are the promises of my Savior to me. I see them all in the yellow and it touches my heart because Christ is the creator and sustainer of life. He makes all things beautiful. The seeds unseen become visible. His creation resembles His character. What a God I serve.

Spring was my Grandma’s favorite season. She cited it in her journal as such because she loved seeing signs of new life. Most importantly though, she said it is the season in which Christ rose from the dead.

Life taken so it could be given. Winter so there could be Spring. There is beauty under the pile of brown leaves. Pops of color waiting to rise. I see yellow and am confident that no matter my Winter, I will rise with Christ. I will break through.

And as I pulled away down the gravel drive I thought to myself, “Great is Thy faithfulness.” Morning by morning. Day by day. Season by season. It is a cloudy day today, but I saw yellow as vibrant as the sun. 

A friend forever

I have a friend who is saying goodbye to her best friend. The friend she probably has the most secrets with. The friend she has all the inside jokes with. The friend that knows her so well because they were friends before she was a wife and mom. The friend that loved her through her awkward stages and never loved her less for any of them. Those lifelong friends are few and far between. They are perfection and priceless. They are loyal and loving. They are comfortable and caring. They are honest and humorous. While new friends take the place of certain friendship aspects, the lifelong friends encompass them all. Because they defined the word friend. They are the standard in which you judge the future friends you bring into your home and into your heart. And she is saying goodbye to hers because life is unfair and for her friend, way too short.

For some reason, as I’ve looked at pictures of them when they were young, full braces and 80’s hair, I keep thinking about this friendship. I feel honored to have met this person, to be able to remember her in her final days. To be thankful she filled such a spot in my friends life. A spot of a lifetime. A spot God intended because as she gains heaven and loses earth, I know she has experienced the joy of a kindred spirit. Because I know my friend. How well she is at being a friend and how well she will walk beside her friend during the transition of homes. Home is where the heart is, and her friends heart is with the Lord. Both of theirs are. And so both of them will be okay. One immediately. The other eventually. Because my friend will have a before and after experience. Life before her best friend died, and life after.

Friendship is a gift. Its God ordained and its a high and holy calling to be able to speak into another life. To hold a place in their schedule. To hold a part in their life. To hold a piece of their heart. I’m so thankful God created relationships. That He created us to need one another. To work together. To each do our part to form the body of Christ. To each use our strengths but also not use our weaknesses against one another, but instead reach out a hand and pick one another up. Its a privilege to reach out hands and to see hearts connect. Its an honor to be able to use the word friend to describe someone and what they mean to you. There is so much beauty in that one word. There is so much depth. There is so much feeling. There is so much sentiment. There is so much meaning in the moments when they are shared with friends. There is so much that God intended when He created us to fellowship. There is just so much.

And for my friend, there can never be too much. I imagine she has said all the words one can say. Heartfelt words of thanks. Humorous words that recall memories. Words that hug the heart of her friend in the final days of her life. Words that make her understand she held meaning. She held significance. She made a difference.

And for all the friends that make all the difference in our days and in our lives, lets tell them. I do a poor job of being a friend sometimes. Or maybe a lot of the time.  I sometimes hurt the people I love the most and where there is hurt, good intentions don’t exist. But being sorry does. And changing does. And learning to love more like God does. So lets live friendship well, and lets remember the people like my friend, who is losing hers, and be thankful, so thankful, for our own. The ones that are tried and true, good and bad, ugly and pretty, movies and music, summer and winter, diets and donuts, laughter and tears, fights and forgiveness, Christmas and birthdays.  And while we aren’t promised tomorrow, we can all promise to be there for someone today. Especially the ones that are there in our ugly and pretty.

And to my sweet friend as she says goodbye, how beautiful that your soul has touched another and given them one of the greatest gifts in life. A friend forever.

Weekends at the Grands

The top 10 indicators your three-year-old has spent a long weekend with his grandparents.
1. Your child’s suitcase remains unpacked for days because he can’t emotionally grasp the fact that the weekend is really over. #itsnotoverifmysuitcaseispacked
2. Your child asks for a drink and you ask if he would like milk, water, or juice and he answers with, “I’ll just have coffee.” #juiceisforbabies
3. Your child sleeps until almost noon the next day because he is either completely worn out or completely depressed to be home. #maybeitsjustadream
4. Your child asks to have candy minutes before bed time and when you say no, he asks to call his grandparents. #callingallcandysupporters
5. Your child has lost all ability to be a functional sibling. Sharing, taking turns, and being the last to get their plate at lunch are simply not tolerated. #onlychildsyndrome
6. Your child wakes up and wants bacon, eggs, and pancakes for breakfast and looks at his cereal like it is totally beneath him. #hotbreakfastornobreakfast
7. Your child not only needs his usual lullaby at night, but also a story, a back rub, an arm rub, and preferably your bed. #moveovermommy
8. Your child looks at you expectantly when he does something deemed as extraordinarily cute or smart and when you don’t clap, hand out a prize, or stand on your head, he sulks.#whereismyaudiance
9. Your child looks at you like you have lost your mind when you tell him it is time for bed at 8:30. #idonthavenostinkinbedtime
10. Your child has a meltdown the first ten….ok twenty times you say NO. #ohthatsstillaword