A Worthy Life

afraid

What do I tell the daughter who lies awake afraid that death might visit while she sleeps?

That death never visits little girls?

Do I tell her this one little lie that will help her sleep even while my mother attends the funeral of a 3 year old whose afternoon nap was his gateway to heaven?

What do I tell my girl who thinks every tiny ache and growing pain might be indicative of some greater disease?

That cancers and tumors and severe maladies can be kept at bay with just the right concoction of vitamins, exercise, and sunshine?

Do I assuage her fears by assuring her that those things can't and won't touch her, not while God and I are standing guard?

What do I tell the boy whose spelling words stop him cold, frozen in the certainty that he is dumb and stupid and none of his dreams will come true?

Do I tell him that he is the smartest boy ever and that nothing can thwart his future ambitions, that the sky is the limits and that, yes, you can be an NBA player and preacher and engineer and more?

That he is the master of his fate and captain of his soul and nothing can touch you as long as you persevere hard enough and long enough?

Do I sugarcoat their fears with a extra dusting of denial and shallow faith that says good people never suffer long?

Or, do I share the truth?

The truth that says our days are numbered, that God alone knows the length of them. That yes, He stands guard and He sees and knows even the pain and frustration.

But that the presence of pain and trials of life doesn't equate to the absence of God.

Whatever comes, He knows and He is here, He will be there.

Yes, this and more:

"When I am afraid, I will trust in You."

In 5 minutes, with Lisa Jo.

look at me now

Look.

Look, mama.

Do you see me?

Look, mama. Look at my eyes. Though all my body will grow tall and wide, these will remain just as they are today.

Memorize them.

You will not always see them below your own. One day I may grow above you and will want to look into your own.

Then I'll say, "Hello, from way up here, dear mama!"

It's my desire that one day you will look up to me. That you will be proud of who I have become, the beginnings of that becoming begun under your watchful eye.

I want to learn from you, mimic the love and gentleness and patience that I see in you.

Because one day, mama, I will be grown, off on a life all my own.

And I know, I really do, that you will still want me to see you.

See you through those latter years, see you through the lonely years. See you through injury and illness, and whatever may come.

And I'll do it, mama. I'll be there for you.

Because, today, you were here for me.

You saw me through my maturing years so you better believe that I'll be with you in your mature years.

I'm memorizing your eyes today so that I'll know just how love looks. Not just what it looks like, but how it looks straight through this outer shell and into the heart of who I am.

I'll need to learn this from you now so I'll know how to me with you later on.

Hello, from down here, dear mama!

I love these days of looking up to you.

In 5 Minutes, what was on my heart today.

focus

Focus is never done in isolation.

It comes part and parcel with slowing down and taking time.

It is not a vague exercise or an offhand way of being. It is a complete quieting of your being so that, in the silence, life might speak.

Today my whirlwind of gift shopping with my four chimpanzees was interrupted with a quiet question:

"Could you use a compliment today?"

I turned to see an employee watching me carefully and she offered me this, "You could pass for their older sister."

Her kindness quieted my spirit and her eyes welcomed me in to an instant intimacy. I thanked her and somehow, by singular divine appointment, she began to pour forth her life story of a past when her home was filled with it's own rambunctious inhabitants.

A journey from the east, a marriage, a family. The death of her son in a tragic car accident at 17. Another child's subsequent nervous breakdowns. Marital separation. A desire to let go and live on.

Through all her suffering and lost, she continued to believe that God has a time and place for us each to live and die. Her Islamic roots had taught her that much. I agreed and explained that my beliefs were the same though mine were gleaned from a different book and from an embrace of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

With tears in her eyes, she nodded with agreement and said, "I have always said that if anyone were ever to ask of me what time of history I could live in, it would be in the days of Jesus. What he went through... I would throw myself at his feet and give myself in place of him for the death that he died."

We talked faith and family for what seemed like hours. (My daughter estimated 2 hours had gone by though in reality it must have been no more than 20 minutes.) Because a kind soul had focused in on me and mine today, I was able to focus in on the heart of a beautiful woman.

After repeated attempts by both of us to quit the conversation and continue with the tasks at hand, we finally did. But I don't think either of us were quite finished.

Someday, hopefully quite soon, we plan on meeting again to continue our conversation. I hope our time together continues to yield the fruit of a blossoming friendship.

Planted today by a woman who took the time to notice me.

Joining in again (finally!) at 5 Minutes Friday.

i am mama

Until last night, I had almost forgotten how necessary I am.

Finding myself in a week full of insecurities about my lack of academic credentials and my long list of professional disqualifications to fight on the front lines of injustice, my role in this world seemed so very small.

My wake-up call came right before lights out. We were transitioning one man child from snuggles in mama's bed to a full night's sleep in his when his belly erupted in fits and bursts.

Bent over toilet, rinsing soiled sheets where no muddy fingers or wrinkled toes would ever touch, I realized this was a uniquely mother skill. Without pausing to think or ask about the hows and wheres of taking care, I just moved in the rhythm of mother.

Hours earlier, I had extended an impromptu invitation for my youngest's inaugural sleepover and I helped foster friendship for a lonely daughter.

Pulling kids from under beds retreating from their world to sulk, I had breathed confidence and possibility back into deflated hearts.

Listening through insulated walls for the rise and fall of congested chests, I am mama with superhero powers.

Bending low to rest her head on mine, patiently I teach the crunching of numbers so there is no punching of walls.

Good mothers have these skill sets, but these are not set skills.

The learning curve is exponential, on-the-job training an ever constant education. They are no more intrinsic than they are limiting; they are strengths and gifts sought out and applied to young hearts and lives, the continual birthing of life metamorphosing into beauty and strength within the bosom of a mother.

The world needs us, the world needs mothers such as you and me. Growing wee ones by our professions of love, we offer into world the fruit of our profession...

We are, I am...mama.

Joining here today, in 5 minutes writing on what comes to heart and mind when I consider Identity.

a reflecting pool

While her siblings skateboarded down hills and climbed up trees, she sat here quietly, lost in a world all her own. I'm not sure what drew her, the beauty of the water or the stillness that invited her in. She sat there a long time, not fretting about what was going on around her or what she might be missing out on.

This was her moment, this was her peace, this was where she recharged and reflected.

My reflecting pool is often here, when I take the time to look up at a screen that soon fills with letters tapped in coming to life before me. I get lost in the blank page, it's bare beauty beckoning me to sit for a while, to reflect and then to write.

The thoughts that swirl, the questions that weigh, the joys that I live...they all empty themselves here at my reflecting pool. Once thoughts become words and cares become expressed they are somehow easier to carry, easier to understand.

And the joys, oh the joys! The moments and the faces that spiral together through my days become the DNA of my life. I won't forget them, they are cherished here.

Here, the place where I reflect...out loud.

In 5 Minutes, on Friday.

ache

Upon my pillow, the ache overflows it's banks and pours unhindered down my cheeks. The day, all of it, was too much as now perceived in the fatigue of the evening.

This mama heart feels too much, fears too many, and, in the moments of weakness and weariness, trusts too little.

For the hearts and souls under my tutelage, how will I win them? What words, what masterful plan can break through the stubbornness in theirs to trust the love in mine? How can I prove that all that I do, all that I ask of them is but momentary ache for the sake of forever joy and eternal peace?

I remember how my own father, tortured in the moment, would tell me that giving the consequence as means of instruction often hurt him as much, if not more, than it did me. I never believed it then, doubting that this imposition to what I wanted, this punishment that prevented me from continuing in my own way, could ever hurt another as much as it was ruining my young life.

Today I believe him, a belief forged from steps walked in this parenthood way. Words I believe but never use when correcting my own children.

How could they ever know the brokenness of a mother's heart when they are yet only child? How could they see the future the way that I have lived it and swallowed the bitter end of the choices I once made?

Their innocence blinds them to the cost of their rebellion, it is my love that must gently and patiently open their eyes to the reward of obedience.

This task is heavy, the consequence and reward life-altering. It is too much for them to know now all that I do, too much for me to try it alone.

Tears remained but for the night and sweet joy came in the morning. Opening my eyes to see what my God had for me, I found this truth...

"the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich enough for the need of all who invoke Him" (Rom 10:12)

Rich salve for the anguish of a mother's heart.

Joining (late) here.

delight

Of all my children, you are the one who needs me the most. You are the one who wants me desperately near and available every second.

And yet, even in those moments of closest proximity, you are the one most likely to push away, to build a wall, to refuse to talk about what is troubling you.

Yet again at the closing of every day, it is you, bone tired in sheets all around, who begs for my kisses, who must share a prayer.

This week it became clear to me that those God has surrounded me with - husband, children, family, friends - often wink of His great love for me, how each serves as a personification of the eternal, undeserved grace and love God extends to me.

I see His wink in you too, my precious Eden, but even more that twinkle in my Father's eye when I roll my eyes heavenward in desperate demand for some help learning how just to love you so.

He knows just what He put in you, a little of me at that age with my love for folly and penchant for trouble. In you I see so much of me, so many of the same struggles I wrestled with at your age and I recognize the strong desire to do what is right even when all the while choosing what is wrong.

Look in that mirror, baby girl. It is you and me.

You while still in the struggle.

Me always by your side as a promise that God does grant victory and that He will use those eternal ingredients He gifted deep inside of you to make something beautiful of you, more precious some day because of the refining He is doing in you, and in me, today.

You are heaven's delight and so too are you mine.

Joining with Embracing the Camera and Five Minute Fridays.

real

They are the ones who see the real me, the everyday mama me.

The wake up puffy face, let's-text-this-picture-to-our-auntie scary face me.

They don't read my words here; they read my lips, my what-I-really-do rather than "what I aspire to do".

They know only a little of my impact outside of our home, little of my role as anything other than mother.

If mama is strong and patient and persevering and hopeful and grateful and respectful, so go my mini-mes.

Where I flounder and waste and resent and blame and fake, there are my students studying their teacher, wondering if this is to be learned or avoided.

If I gain all, and diminish and dismiss and defer my responsibility to show love, to give love, to teach His love, I have lost the truth of who I was created to be right now in this place on this planet to these four.

It's time to get real.

with 5 Minute Fridays...

tender hearts

Her heart is warm, her smile gracious, always inviting you in, asking you to freeze this moment in time and remember her. She longs to please, her countenance sensitive to her mother's tone. I long to build her up, assure her that she is loved just as she is so that no fragility of heart remains, only a place where tenderness makes it's home.

This discovery was hers, a remnant of once warmer days, newly clothed in icy waters. The beauty here was that the past still serves us in this our present; what once dressed and imbued our dinnertime salads now awakens us to the allure that still blossoms even in winter's harsh grasp.

Her words, a love letter weeks too early for the yearly holiday, came right on time to a mama who just this afternoon balanced precariously on the edge between firm teacher and fiery preacher. She knew nothing of my need to write today for 5 minutes, nothing of the word that spoke the challenge. Just as she tries her best, so I try mine. As her words bring sweet reward to my weary feet, so I trust my example provokes hers to follow where Jesus' trod.