Heart Psalm

Dear Heavenly Father,

Sometimes, you don't seem so real to me.

Sometimes.

Sometimes, life sits like a rock in my belly.

Sometimes.

Sometimes, fear overrides faith and the future looks blah.

Sometimes.

But that is no way to live.

My heart wasn't created for fear, or for rocks, or for fiction.

So I will come to your gates with Thanksgiving.

Even when I can't see you, I will praise your name.

God of the universe, who loved me enough to allow me to taste your burden

To see how love feels when swallowed whole.

Father God, I praise your name,

God, I praise your name.  

Tucked In

Most of the time these days, I go to bed before my husband.  I can fall asleep with all the lights on, underneath a pile of clothes on my bed, with books and cell phone arrayed around me.  This doesn't bother me at all and never has.

Sometimes I sleep right through my husband coming to bed, and sometimes I wake up.  But the best times are the times that I waver between dreams and wakefulness . . . because those are the times I get to spy a little on his unwatched heart.

He will pick up my cell phone and books and put them on the bedside table.  He (sometimes) will move the clothes, depending on my particular arrangement. Then he will pull a blanket up to my chin and kiss me goodnight.

And I get to go back to sleep, all tucked in with love.

Valued Beyond Measure

On a weekend visit home from college, I turned onto our little dirt driveway from the main road.  It had been a long drive, a long day, a long year.

And then I saw it.

Along the cow pasture fence that led up to our house, yellow flagging tape was draped purposefully, in celebratory fashion.  Our driveway is a quarter of a mile long, and the flagging tape welcomed me all the way home.  At the end, I found my dad hastily tying off the last of it.  He had a goofy smile on his face, sweat popping up on his forehead underneath his hat from his hurried display of love.  

He had a million other things to do, but this bold act of extravagance wasn't lost on me.  Did I mention that yellow is my favorite color?

I am so thankful for a father who would never hesitate to break the alabaster vase for me. 

Lost Sleep

Can I tell you one of the things that keeps me up at night?

It's embarrassing, it's often prompted by Facebook, it's prominent when I'm overtired, and it's real:

I'm worried that I'm not going to matter.  

That I will live my life and dream my dreams and have grand visions, and at the end of the day . . . I'm only going to have done very normal things.

And there is this imaginary crowd in my head that is going to say,

"She had so much potential, but . . ."

"If only she'd made that decision differently, then . . . "

"I always knew she'd never do it . . ."

When I am less tired, less comparison-oriented, less focused on me, I realize that this "crowd" is bent on making me the unhappiest person on the planet.  Because all those voices that tell me that I'm not going to matter . . . what do they know?

What if my limits are like guardrails from God . . . directing me into the path of grace, pointing me toward my purpose?

This past year has been one of the most challenging of my life.  I had two babies under two at the start of it.  My work had seen better days.  My thank yous were six months behind, at least.  I'm not going to list the rest of the issues.  Suffice to say, it hasn't been pretty.

This past year has also been one of the most beautiful of my life.  People have been phenomenally good to me.  Unsolicited grace has decorated my days.  Effort, my lifelong idol, has been replaced by something far superior.

And I have these two amazing little boys and their devoted father reminding me day in and day out of gifts, blessings, love.

And it is all so normal.  So blessedly normal.

What if significance isn't so much what we do but how we perceive? Experience?  Share?  Accompany?  Acknowledge?

Witness?

What I have witnessed this year has been extraordinary.

Significant.

Divine.

Normal.

Thank you, all of you, who have blessed me with eyes to see. 

Sweet Joy and Loving Kindness

A birthday message to my boys:  Collin, age 3; Connor, age 1

My dear, sweet, silly, and above all precious boys,

Happy Birthday to you both!  I planned to set aside a day every year to write to you individually before your birthday, but it hasn’t worked out exactly as I planned.  I won’t make excuses.  I also won’t dwell on the undone, because I have learned that God has a way of orchestrating EVERYTHING, even the flops and delays and not-good-enoughs, for his glory.

It just so happens that today is two days before Easter (yes Collin – it is your birthday cake that is in the oven today), and my message for you both this year is an Easter message.

My children, I will let you in on a secret.  Life is like a series of Easters.   You will have seasons of triumph, seasons of betrayal, seasons where the very hands of God wash your feet, seasons of cross-bearing, and seasons where God and his promises seem fraudulent, false, dead, crucified.  There will be moments when it seems that the darkness has won.

My darling boys, we are all human, and your emotions will tempt you to believe that the season you are in is the only season.  But it is not.  Because always, always there is the resurrection.

When you are tempted not to believe this, look around.  Nature, the seasons, our life spans, the birthing process . . . everything is designed to reflect this truth.  Resurrection is printed on your soul’s DNA.  

So when you make decisions, my children, make them with this truth in mind:  the resurrection is real.  Joy will come in the morning.  New mercies await around each corner.  Love can be beaten and nailed to the cross, but in the end, it will triumph.  

What does this mean? YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ACHIEVING YOUR OWN HAPPINESS.  Don’t be fooled – you will never sustain any lasting contentment based on your efforts.  You are simply responsible for beholding the resurrection with eyes and hearts wide open, witnesses to grace, recipients of love.   If you do this, joy will find you.  Loving kindness will find you.  Purpose and peace will find you.   

And your heart will be glad.

What bigger prayer could I have for your lives?  What bigger hope?  

When the darkness descends, keep your eyes open.  

Hope is on the way.

I love you, my children, always and forever.

Mama

Connor's Song

It has been 365 days
 -  Plus a few -
Since you were unwrapped
From my tight, stretched tummy.

A gift -
Surprisingly fair and red and blond
So unlike your
Dark-skinned brother.

The Sandal's wedding song
played over the surgeon's
Pandora station
As you were plucked from inside me
And taken to be weighed and
baby-tortured in your first few
oxygen-breathing moments.

What went through my mind?
Thoughts of joy and exhaustion and
Tingly-pain,
Mingled with randomness:
That is a good song.
I'm glad he was born to that.

The next few days were full of
Morphine and marveling
My heart over-saturated
Tired
Processing
A veteran mother,
but a rookie again
to you and your cries,
wants, needs.

In the tradition of all new mothers,
the thought-question-challenge
slipped in and out, out and in
as I fingered your hands,
cradled your head,
traced your nose:
Am I up to this task?

365 days later
 - Plus a few -
The question still hangs
And, will, always, I think.
A good question:
One that reminds me of
My mission,
My limits,
My dependency on the divine.

I could write
For a year and some days
About this tension:
the impossible task
of raising a person
to be better than me -
isn't that every parent's dream?

But - just now
I hear you waking
Your tiny yawn,
Your sleepy stirring.

You jolt up - startled,
scared
But then you see me
Typing here on the floor.

Your face relaxes
As you settle back in
To dream a little more.
It's not that complicated,
You seem to say.

You are just glad
That the bed is soft,
Your belly is full,
And Mama is here.

Beautiful Mommy

Yesterday, I needed to calm my two year old down before supper, so we went to his room and sat on his bed. 

"Tell me a story," I said.

"O.K.!" he agreed, and launched into a tale.  I only remember the first three sentences, which went as follows:

"Once upon a time there was a girl.  And the girl's name was . . . p- p- p- MOMMY.  And Mommy was a beautiful girl . . ."

Doesn't your heart just melt?  I know mine did.  I mean, in the 34 months that this kid has been alive, I have:

• gone up and down 56 pounds - TWICE;
• felt the need to create a 48 hour rule --- as in, it's been 48 hours, you must now take a shower;
• have publicly "cracked a smile" multiple times because my ill fitting jeans can't stay up over my too tiny hiney and too big waist; and
• have gone WEEKS without makeup.

This may be acceptable in other parts of the world, but I live in the South.  Down here, we equate beautiful with made up and put together.  Woe to the new mother who confronts this standard . . . or at least this new mother.  I'm a hopeless, lost cause.

So, imagine my surprise when my two year old, with no coaching, called me beautiful.  He may not know the meaning of the word yet, but I don't really care that he doesn't know.  If he thinks me beautiful, then I am.  After all, don't I think MY mommy is beautiful?  Really - I do.  And not just when she is fixed up and on display at church or (because this is the South) the grocery store . . . but when she is tired at night after helping me for three weeks with my new baby, or when she is sipping her Gatorade while she cooks dinner for our family, or when she is watching Entertainment Tonight for her latest celeb gossip.

Do you know what makes my mom beautiful?  The fact that she is always actively loving me, even when I don't know it, even when she can't say it.  I know this now in a way that I didn't know it before I had two children of my own.  As I make my own mistakes along the way, she becomes more beautiful because I see just how hard it can be, and just how tenacious she is to love me 33 years long --- more than she loves herself.

So mommy, this one is for you.  Because once upon a time, there was a girl.  And her name was mommy.  And Mommy was a beautiful girl.

I love you!

Answered Prayer

About a year ago, I was walking my dog and pondering my plight as a non-property owning parent.  It had been a long Saturday, one in which my suddenly speedy one year old ran circles around and around and around the stairs.  We lived in a small rented condo with no yard, and my soon to be second born pressed too heavy on my bladder to make a park outing feasible for any length of time.

As my one year old giggled and galloped around the living room, I had cruelly condemned myself for failing to adequately provide for him.  My husband and I had given ourselves until the third trimester of my second pregnancy to find a suitable home for our little boys, and it was becoming clear that we were not going to meet our goal.  The condo was going to remain home sweet home.

My child, exhausted from his afternoon, was sleeping soundly when I ventured out for a walk.  As my dog and I meandered down the hill, I began to pray --- unsure why this God who professed to love me and my family would lead us into this situation with no back yard.  It wasn't a very good prayer because I interrupted it every few minutes to (1) rehash the life decisions that necessitated the condo; and (2) beat myself up for my lack of gratitude.

Suffocating from these toxic thoughts, I looked up at the night sky.  It was a beautiful, clear night --- one of those where every star in the heavens seemed to be visible.  I admired the starscape:  its vastness, its splendor, its timelessness.  In the stillness, I heard my soul breathe: 

Who owns the stars? 

And who owns the heavens?

Through these umprompted questions, it was suddenly evident how temporary my concept of property was.  Was the earth really mine to own anyway?  My life was so small . . . long after I was gone, whose property would my homestead be?

In that quiet moment, I realized that God was answering the prayer of my heart as opposed to the petitions of my lips.  Although I prayed for a home that I owned with a big backyard and lots of friendly neighbors, what my heart uttered was a plea for edification as a mother.  Please God, I subconsciously murmured, help me give my boys what they need. 

And in his perfect way, he did just that by reminding me of the insignificance of this thing I believed my children required.  My job as a mother, he seemed to say, was to cultivate in my children values of eternal worth. This home ownership hangup was a distractor.

Trust in me, I could hear him whisper to me, around me, over me.

It wasn't the answer I wanted, but it was the message I needed.  Thanks and glory to a God who ministers to my thirsty soul.