Little Children...

I feel heavy lately.  So much going on.  So much hurt and loss and pain.  So much grief still weighing down on my soul that any other little thing that falls on it threatens to drag it down to the pit.  It's a tough world out there.

I was gone the bulk of the day yesterday and did not see the tragic events in Oklahoma unfold on television.  This morning, as I sipped my coffee, it all came down on me.  Tornados can be measured on a scale for earthly and physical damage, but the toll it takes on the people in that small town cannot be quantified.  The parents who have lost their child.  The teachers who shielded the lives of their students.  The children who lived through the terrifying experience.  The responders who are still hard at work in hopes of recovering all of those who are missing.  The lives of all these people will never be the same.

I turned on my Kindle this morning to do my chronological reading of the New Testament.  I haven't been reading much of my Bible lately.  I haven't read much in the copy of Jesus Calling that my sweet mama gave me.  I haven't been tapping into anything spiritually edifying.  Truth is, I just feel numb.  I don't feel much of anything at all.  I am settling into a life without my mother, and it still hurts too much, and I just don't want to feel any of it.  And then I see the pain unfolding on the morning news, the faces of those just beginning their own grief, and I hear that whisper... Keep looking for Me.  I am here.

This is what I read this morning:

People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them.  When Jesus saw this, he was indignant.  He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."  And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.  {Mark 10:13-16}

My mind immediately went to a Bible I had when I was little.  On the front or somewhere in it was a picture of Jesus with a herd of children at His feet.  Of course, it was some mainstream caucasian Jesus with a rainbow of ethnicity around Him.  But that's not how I pictured it this morning.  I pictured a more realistic Jesus, skin weathered by the sun, long unkept hair, holes still in his hands, and children all around Him, bloodied and battered by that storm.  They were closest to Him, but I was there, too, battered by the difficulties of this world.  Resigning myself of ever trying to make any sense of this place we live in, of its losses and hurts, of its imperfections.  Still clinging on to His love for me, though it makes no sense either.  Still believing that there is Hope in Him, that He one day will take us all into His arms and bless us just as He did those children in the Scripture above.

You see, children so blindly believe most anything.  They don't need all the reasons and proof and science and fact that adults need.  They accept love and forgiveness with ease.  They let go of mistakes and hurt in an instant.  They live unbridled by pride and self righteousness.  And that's how we should be.  It's much harder to live that way when the weight of the earth bears down on us year after year.

Jesus opened his arms to a host of souls yesterday in that tornado, the number of which is still unknown.  Many we know were children.  It's the same Jesus that opened His arms up for my mother in April, 2012.  It's the same Jesus that will open His arms for me one day and for you reading my words right now.  He is the same yesterday, today, forever.  So whatever your burden may be today, take it to His feet.  Give your tears to Him.  Tell Him about it.  He waits with open arms adequate to carry the load of what you may be carrying in your heart.

Mother's Day...

I remember Scott closing the door behind him as he walked out of the master bedroom of our cozy garden home.  I could hear a little noise outside the door, mumblings from and almost one year old and a little rattling here and there.  When the door opened, little David came teetering through with a tiny box and a card and a smile as broad as his face.

He climbed up on the bed and gave me my first Mother's Day gift.  I opened the card first, and Scott had helped David scribble his name on the inside.  And then I opened the little box to find a gold heart with diamonds all the way around it.

It was a moment I will cherish for my entire life.

There's nothing like being a mom.  It's indescribable.  It's joy and pain and laughter and tears and hope and worry all wrapped up in a big package.  Sometimes I feel like someone has picked up the package and shaken it so hard that all the emotions are spinning out of control.  Sometimes I am quiet and still inside of my package enjoying and treasuring every moment.

What makes being a mom so incredible to me is the hope that one day my children will look at me and feel about me the way I felt about my mom.  That I am their voice of reason, their soft place, their constant source of unconditional love in this world.  If my children feel that way about me, my joy will be complete.  What more can any woman ask than their flesh and blood feeling that way about her?  I can think of nothing better.

This day... Mother's Day... they say set aside to recognize the one who gave us life... it will never be the same.  But she lives on through me.  She breathes in my motherhood as I work toward being the kind of mom she was.  Patient.  Wise.  Timeless.  Tireless in loving me.

I love you, sweet Mama!  We will be together again one day!

Lazarus...

I feel as though I've hit the pause button and am merely hovering about through life right now.  I'm not reading my Bible much, my prayer life is stale, and I am emotionally numb.  I am tired of grief.  It's exhausting and all encompassing, and my mind never takes a break from it except when I sleep.  And even some nights I dream of her so there's really no break.

This morning, I purposed to read some in my chronological Bible.  There are a million things I need to be doing, but I made myself pick it up where I had last left off... at the story of Lazarus.

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."  When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.  "Where have you laid him?" he asked.  "Come and see, Lord," they replied.  Jesus wept.  

He saw Mary's grief, and He felt it in himself.  He grieved for the loss of his friend and for the pain his other friends were feeling.  He knows what it feels like to grieve.

He understands.

He lived.  He loved.  He lost.  He grieved.  He has overcome the world.  I needed that reminder this morning.

I like to think of myself as Mary right now.  I am still on my knees at His feet.  I've moved past the point of thinking I wish she were still alive.  I moved past being angry and questioning.  I moved on past the crying every day.  I am somewhere now on the timeline of grief, still on my knees, head down at His feet, begging each day for the strength to face the 24 hours ahead of me.  Begging for mercy on the hearts of those of us left behind struggling to make through without her.

And I know He knows the whole picture.  How each thing fits together perfectly and how it all ends.  And I know He hurts for us but rejoices with her.  And somehow, reading this story of Lazarus, comforts me this morning.  Makes me feel like everything really is okay.

Mama,

There's so much... so very, very much... going on that I wish I could talk to you about.  How I miss your voice of reason in my ear every day!

Last week marked a year without you.  Everyone is always saying, "Once that first year is out of the way, it gets easier."  But I don't think that's true.  Maybe the second Christmas and birthday without you won't be so painful, but what about the first time Madalyn goes shopping for a prom dress or the first time David gets his heart broken?  What about those firsts that will come long after the first year is over?  Those are the firsts when I will need you most, when I will miss you most, when I will long to hear your voice again.  No, I don't believe missing you will ever get easier.

I got a new cell phone, and I thought I would lose your message I had saved from so long ago.  But last night I discovered that it was still there.  Madalyn wanted to hear it, so I put it on speaker, and we relished the moment.  And then she said to keep it forever.

I think we are all doing okay.  We are all still learning how to be in this world without you, Mama.  Oh how things have changed.  I find myself so intolerant of things I was once so patient with, the trivial things of life.  I am not nearly as afraid to speak up for myself or my children.  What do I have to lose?  You showed me true courage, and so I am trying to embrace it.  I just know that my life is forever changed without you in it.

I find it hard to talk about my grief with anyone else but dad.  Truth is, I don't want to share it with anyone.  I hang on to it, this final connection to you.  A shrink would tell me that I must find a way to talk about how much I miss you, but I don't care.  I will do this my way, much like I do everything else.  You were like that, too.

I wonder what you're doing now.  Maybe you're tidying up and preparing a spot for all of us to join you.  Maybe you're planting some flowers.  I don't know.  I ask Jesus to give you a hug sometimes when I talk to him, and I believe that He honors my request.  I still see you in the birds.  I always will.

 I love you still and always will.

Forever your daughter...

Refinishing...

I have this little patio set that my grandmother gave me about eight years ago when she moved out of her home and into a retirement apartment.  I have no idea how old it is, but it's nice and heavy and really cute.  There's a little round table, two chairs, and a two-seater bench.  When she gave it to me, it was solid black, the typical color for wrought iron pieces.  But over the years of sitting in the sun, the paint had begun to bubble up a bit and crack and peel revealing the colors in layers below.

I had been considering refinishing it all for quite some time, and just this week I made the trip to my local Lowe's to pick up all the necessary supplies.  Paint stripper, rust neutralizer, primer, paint, drop cloths, steel wool.  I picked out a lovely teal shade of blue, and I was so excited to get started.  Until I actually did, and then I realized that I had a big mess on my hands.

There were thick layers upon layers of paint.  The first application of stripper only ate through the first coat of paint on most of the chair I began with, and so I realized I would need to apply more.  What I was left with was a gunky mess of old paint clinging to the lattice work of the seat and around the scroll work at the top.

Lord have mercy.

So I put a little muscle into it, and I began to scrape, scrape, scrape.  After quite a bit of time and sweat, I felt like I was getting somewhere and could actually see what must have been the original color.  Seemed like the piece of furniture had lost so much of its shape with all the coats of paint from over the years.  Where the iron work had been delicately formed into curves and had been forged together, layers of paint had settled making curves fatter and clean lines frumpy.  With a lot of hard work, each piece of furniture was looking more and more like what its maker had intended.

If you know me at all, you know where my mind is going...

I thought about my life, how I started out fresh and clean and void of residue and gunk.  And then we grow up, we start living our lives, we learn what is really out there, what really goes on.  We make mistakes, some big and some small.  We cover them up in layers of regret and pain and guilt and shame.  Things may look okay on the surface, but underneath is still that same old crap, and it's jumbled up the clean lines of who our Maker created us to be.

His Grace is like the stripping agent.  He pours His blood on us, and miracles happen, dissolving away years of disgrace and disgust.  With a little work, we become as close to our original self as possible, leaving behind mere faded scars of our past.

I don't think I am the only one who looks around me, in real life and in social media, and thinks, "Look at her... she did it all right.  Made the right choices, married the right person the first time, has the right number of kids and does everything so well."  I somehow think that just because I can't see what lies beneath her shiny finish that she must not have layers and layers of the same crap I do.  But she does.  And so does everyone else.  We are all covering up something.  It's in our nature.  Read about the first sin in the history of mankind... when we are ashamed of something, we do anything in our power to hide it.

In Christ, however, we need not be ashamed.  We need not apply thick coats of primer and paint to alter who we really are.  He knows what is underneath anyway.  We only do it to impress the others around us.  So I wonder what the world would look like if we all bathed ourselves in the blood of Christ, letting go of the past, letting Him strip us down to the bare rawness of the soul of our childhood, where is was safe to tell the truth and love freely with zero expectations?

I guess that is what heaven will really be like.  Until then, I will continue my scraping, both literally and figuratively.

Finding the words...

I've been struggling for words lately.  What normally flows from my heart to the tips of my fingers so easily has seemingly ceased.

It's April.

To most, it is April, the month of pollen, bright blooms, and the greening of trees and lawns.  But to me it's the month I lost my mother.  And it is hard to believe that April has already come back around.  How is it possible that she has been gone almost a year?  It feels like a day and decade all at the same time, and I still can't reconcile my emotions.

A year ago, on this date, we shared one last family gathering.  Easter.  It was a lovely day.  The sun was bright, and the kids were all so happy.  My mother was exhausted, her body already beginning to fail though we didn't know it yet.  It was one last day of togetherness before all things we ever knew to be normal would be forever changed.

I am beginning to realize that I will never be the same.  I am okay, but not the same.  It's as if I've gotten out a familiar jig saw puzzle to put it all together and one piece is missing.  Can't find it anywhere.  One would still be able to make out the picture, appreciate its beauty, but it can't ever be the same if it's not complete.  And that is how I feel exactly.

I feel my best when I am outside in my yard doing things she loved and that I never dreamed I would do.  Last week, I put out pine straw and planted a few things, laid rock in my backyard flower beds, pruned back some trees that had gone wild.  I felt close to her, so much like her in those moments.  I imagined how she would be so happy with what I had done, how she would have answered the questions I wished I could ask her.  I contemplated how strange this world seems without her, so different.

I am grateful for the changes in me that have come about since I lost her... not worrying about things that don't matter, being aware of what it is important in life, not taking anything for granted.  But what I give to have another day with her...

Spiritually, I am all over the place, much like the ups and downs of my emotions.  I open myself up to feel close to God sometimes, while other times I close my feelings off to protect myself from not feeling too much.  Some days I don't want to feel anything at all.  I just want to make it through the day with sanity in tact, so I float.  I know full well He has given me all I ever needed in every tiny moment, and I know He never lets go of me even on the days I don't want to feel anything.  His Love and Mercy are amazing.

In my devotional time this morning, I was directed to Hebrews 13:8.  "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."  How comforting to know.  Predictable.  Dependable.  Immovable.  The same.  The one and only thing in our ever-changing lives that remains the same.  And I cling to Him who never changes.

Ordinary days...

I look at people differently now.  As I go about my normal daily functions, I don't make assumptions about those I walk amongst.

A year ago today, I had my last real day with my mother.  We went shopping together, and it was a perfectly lovely day, as normal as one could possibly have with a mom who was still recovering from brain surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from her brain and liver functions steadily declining from the tumors in her life-sustaining organ.  Maybe to some we didn't seem normal, her looking a little odd, speech still slightly slurred, having to walk behind a cart to keep herself steady.  Us giggling a little more than usual, just giddy to be have the day with one another.

No one around us knew what a miracle that day was.  How could they?  How could they know how I had almost lost her to that tumor in her brain?  They would never believe the state she had been in just a few weeks before, unable to walk without aid and not having full use of her hand.  No one knew that she was a walking, talking, breathing miracle that day.  But I did.  And I drank it in.

I am still so thankful to have had that day.  Even more thankful that I documented it here in my little spot in the blogosphere.  Memories are so precious, and most of them are so ordinarily created that we don't stop to fully appreciate them.  For the most part, we don't even notice we are in the process of making a memory until the experience has long passed.

I look at people differently now.  I wonder who around me is creating that one last memory.  I wonder who around me is going about a normal day with someone they love completely unaware that it's their last ordinary day together.  I wonder.  I treat people differently.  I see more pain in eyes than I used to as I pass people in the aisle at Publix.  I catch glances more often, smile at more strangers.  I remember that day, and how ordinary it was, but how completely unique it will forever be in my mind.

Sharing God's love in midst of the ordinary.  A simple but genuine smile.  Patience with a stranger.  Unexpected kindness.  Making the cashier laugh as she rings up your ordinary purchase.  Remembering that we all wear our masks... and I will never know the stories hidden behind the faces of each person I meet as I carry out my own ordinary days.