Expectant loneliness

Depression coming storming through the door today and takes me off guard. It's been so, so long. I am tossed by it's waves and struggle to keep hold to the Father's hand as the tide grips me tight and pulls me away. I miss the women I just met, wish I had friends like that in real life. Two long evenings this week, Aaron's been out late on call, and we are ships passing in the shadows of dawn and the dark of the cold night. I have a weekend alone to daunt me.

As He so often does, it is with a song He whispers comfort in my longing ear, head resting helpless on the hard wooden side of my swing, my eyes full of tears, and the quiet of country stifling in it's loneliness. So many times during this life, I've run from that ever-present sense of the God who fills all the spaces and places. Today I close eyes to squeeze tears down cheeks and breath a quiet thank you to the God who never leaves and ever loves and lavishes.

She's a sparkle in her Father's eye

kind of like the moon tonight

she's destined for divinity

His portion is His purity

and a glance His way comes across her face

He sheds a tear, oh oh

amazing grace how sweet the sound

amazing love oh she's been found

a sparkle in her Father's crown

holy love come raining down come storming in,

be jealous found

come violent love

come stormy seas

sweep fear away and you shall be

a sparkle in the Father's crown

and even if he had ninety nine

stayed at home and stayed in line

he would not be satisfied

He would still go out to find

the one who's always on His mind

and bring her back, arms opened wide

~Jamie's Song, Kristene Mueller~

Mistakes

The sun sets unbelievably pink and lavender, sets on a day filled with mistakes, brings the darkness that has filled my heart all day into the world, night always to be weathered before it pulls up day. Two of my best friends hover on the edge of divorce, and I am there to pray and love and accept. But I flee that sorrow-filled room, back to the warm arms of the husband who still loves me, whom I still love. My son acts up all day and finally goads me to explosion in the evening, ironically the evening I write about how I want to parent. It grates. I flee his constant tears and whine and I am on the porch swing with the black cloud of self-reproach stealing from the sunsets glory.

I want to be so much farther on the trajectory of Christian life, so much further from that old sin that I've supposedly died to because Christ lives in me. It's not dead yet. I'm still trying to pack down the grave site of my sin, pack it in so it can't reach an arm up through the dirt to grab my ankle anymore. Sin's bony claw reaches through, now and then, and I am in the grip of an old way of living that I thought I buried years ago when I lost my voice after cancer surgery. But no, I can raise my voice, I can stamp my foot in frustration, I can wither the child lost in temper tantrum with a look, hard and fierce, from my brown eyes.

And so my heart breaks a little on that porch swing. I am so disappointed in self. This steals from Christ all over again...the pity party that follows my fall keeping my attention focused on self instead of the Cross. Ugh. I throw off the despair like an unwanted moth-eaten sweater, and try to shrug on Grace. 

The darkness is gone. The sun is up. The Son is out. But the Son isn't finished. One surprise still awaits them. "Suddenly, Jesus met them and said, "Greetings". The women came up to him, took hold of the feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Don't be afraid. Go and tell my followers to go on to Galilee and they will see me there'" . The God of surprises strikes again. It's as if he said, "I can't wait any longer. They came this far to see me; I'm going to drop in on them." God dies that for the faithful. Just when the womb gets too old for babies, Sarai gets pregnant. Just when the failure is too great for grace, David is pardoned. And just when the road is too dark for Mary and Mary, the angel glows and the Savior shows and the two women will never be the same. The lesson? Three words. Don't give up. Is the trail dark? Don't sit. Is the road long? Don't stop. Is the night black? Don't quit. God is watching. For all you know right at this moment he may be telling the angel to move the stone. The check may be in the mail. The apology may be in the making. The job contract may be on the desk. Don't quit. For if you do, you may miss the anwer to your prayers. God still sends angels. And God still moves stones. ~Max Lucado, "He Still Moves Stones"

One of those shipwrecked friends sends a prayer in letters to me, and I pray them with her. Lord, I'm broken....I boldly claim your promise that you will not break a broken reed. I'm broken. Please send me help. Help to heal my broken heart, help not to become bitter, help in finding a job wit benefits, help to caring for my son, help to find the right council for the divorce, ;;;to "forgive those who trespass against us....". Lord I need a legion of your angels to surround me, I desperately need your protection, your love, your grace, your mercy, your healing -physically and spiritually. Please Lord....hurry....Amen.

O come, Lord Jesus, and rescue us from these lives rotting around us. Rescue us from the power of sin, teach us to lean hard into your Grace. Live Grace. Before I die, might I live Grace?

What shall I do with you, my love

What shall I do with you?

For your loyalty to Me is like the morning clouds,;

Like the dew that goes away so early.;

What shall I do with you, my love?

You keep bringing Me sacrifices

To ease your mind, 

 But it's your heart that I want.

Hasn't it been a long road

With disappointments,

Chasing after lovers

That just throw you away?

And are you done fighting now?

All the love it takes to lighten you,

Shame was never meant to be your portion.

Though these sins are red as scarlet,

I will wash them white in My mercy.

~Kristene Mueller, Mercy~

The mountains never-ending

The last of the maples shine gold on the backdrop of the rusty oaks and their gray maple sisters, bare now of the leaves of scarlet, stripped by the winds. A blue jay fans his wings of evening sky and black over the gray quiet before the rain. The world is silent and still. The hill facing me a mountain on this valley landscape. I wear her words tattooed on my t-shirt No, my hands cannot reach it, my mind can't comprehend it, but my soul is going to get there one day. I've been climbing my whole life, and I'm only at the bottom of the mountain.

My parents were good parents, are good parents. But oh, the mistakes we all make on the weary road of mothering, the ways we bend children to our own image of children, the way we knock self out of their little souls and fill it with should be and must be instead of I am.

Last year, I pushed my children up each doorstep, their fear in the dark palpable, but the draw to Halloween candy beating it's bass drum through their little bodies. A year earlier, I couldn't take them trick-or-treating because Amy was hovering between life and death in the hospital. This year, they run pell-mell, us chasing after them between houses. The fear is gone and they are free spirits, football players among the ghosts and goblins, dancing in the dark night. My eight year old is suddenly rocketing into her "tween" years, body developing, little wise mind carried on shoulders heavy for her child's frame.

I say it to them, sometimes. Calm yourself down. You aren't allowed to [fill in the blank]. I mount a sign above their bedroom door: Thou shalt not whine. It's not in the commandments, but I'm pretty sure it can be extrapolated by the suggestion of a verse - one of my favorites - that says pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones. I try desperately to walk the tightrope. Teach them self-control, but let them be who they are. Let them stay in their skin, oh please Lord, for many years to come. Caleb will stop his wailing to whimper, "I'm so sad, Mama". I can't stop his sadness, but I can affirm it in my fierce hug. Oh, that he did not already know that life is sad. That life hurts. That people wound you and people leave you. Might I pass on to him that Jesus never leaves, nor forsakes, nor asks us to package up our burdens in stoic faces, but rather asks that we hand them, covered in tears as they come, over to Him to tend to!

Another mountain of motherhood waves hello from across the valley, years of three tween and teen girls coming, as they grow up like weeds around my trunk.

My own words haunt me. I am glad for cancer. Cancer taught me to enjoy this day, and look forward with jubilee to the next. Oh, but the haunt of the possible ending, the way things will go if they don't go how we want them to. Can you live without your mother, ever? Isn't it a world of pain and emptiness you're left in as you stand by her grave, whatever age you are when that grave becomes reality?

And so it is, my thoughts roiling in the quiet countryside, as I watch dragonfly nymphs huddle in a transparent gray swarm of cloud, yearning for warmth as my children yearn for my warmth. I hug knees to chest, and breathe out the ache settled deep in my chest. Lord, help me help them to be themselves, yet ever less of human and ever more of divine. In Your goodness, Lord, bless this little family shipwrecked on the shores of heartache, bind us and keep us and make us whole.

I go to the riverbed, shoes on the shore 

I’m shaking a little bit, hardly know what for 

Oh, and the water’s cloudy as the sky 

I’m looking for answers in the riverbed of life 

I’m panning for gold, I’m panning for gold 

Until I have all my heart can hold

I go to the pages handed down and worn 

I’m hearing the sages with the Truth on their tongues 

Sifting beauty from the layers of ash

I’m tracing the universe with my fingers in the sand 

It’s there in the city, where the nations converge 

It’s in the graffiti and the shapes of the earth 

Choir lofts and kitchens, where voices ring loud 

Reflections of grace, shining glory over doubt 

I’m panning for gold, I’m panning for gold 

Until I have all my heart can hold 

I’m panning for gold, I’m panning for gold 

Take all I can hold

Becoming

Bald doesn't seem becoming. It's ugly, raw nakedness.

Yet becoming bald is where Jesus shows up again, larger than life, looking on the inside instead of out.

With "flat Brandie" - another cancer patient who couldn't attend Relevant.

He sees and knows, the Potter ever at His wheel, shaping this life into what I'm meant to be becoming.

With Michelle, an online friend finally met in real life.

He crafted the round head, and counted every hair upon it eons ago. 

Before His mercy seat, He touches me quietly and whispers, "You. My beautiful bride."