waiting

i am a terrible waiter.  i don't like to wait in line...on the phone...or even for a friend.  i never order anything through a catalog because that would involve at least a few days of some serious waiting. do you remember the days of lay away? that about killed me as a kid.  i can remember finding the perfect pair of corduroys at gold circle only to have my mother whisk them off to the surly lady behind the lay away counter.  we'd plunk a whopping five dollars down and out the door we'd go. corduroy-less.   i like to go and shop and buy and bring home.  it's as simple as that.  i am an immediate gratification kind of girl.  uughh.  i realize how terribly unspiritual and desperately superficial that all sounds.  i know the drill: patience is a virture.  and in this regard, i am, admittedly, quite void of virtue. but here's the real deal,  i especially don't like waiting for answers. i was the pesky child always tugging at the arm of an adult.  i needed to know everything.  i still do.  i don't like waiting.  and yet, that is exactly what we are doing this weekend.  waiting.  yesterday, at 5:22 on friday afternoon, my breast surgeon's office called me. 

"mrs. mcnatt, we're sorry, but we haven't received the results back from your MRI." 
i had the MRI on thursday and thought it might be possible to know its findings by late friday.  but the answer was "no." 
so i asked the next question, "okay, well do you have the results from my biopsy receptor test? have those come back yet?" 
again, i was given a firm, "no." followed with a weak, "sorry."

i hung up the phone and stood there for a minute staring out my kitchen window.  i stood there wondering if this actually made my weekend better or worse.  i honestly couldn't decide.  in some ways i was frustrated.  i had been hoping to hear something.  well, the truth of the matter is, i was hoping to hear something good.  i was hoping to hear something positive and encouraging and wonderful and then i was hoping to go out into our weekend and enjoy it to the brink. to the hilt.   because these are big tests and there are big results coming.  there are results right this very moment sitting in someone's dark office.  there are films and papers stacked neatly in a metal bin on the corner of a serious desk.  i can see it.  i can imagine the quiet room and the scribbled notes and the sterile folder.  i can imagine the setting, but i never imagined myself waiting for this kind of information.  i've never waited on results like these.  never.  we are waiting to hear things about what else the MRI might show...we are waiting for more details about this cancer...and about its longterm characteristics.  some of what i hear will dictate the type of surgery needed.  some of it will dictate the type of post-surgery treatment.  some of it will go even beyond. it will go further, to places i cannot go today.   

i type and i shake.   oh, satan be gone!  stop your ugly attempts to meddle in my mind.  you want only to offer me hefty servings of doubt and fear.  and i push away the plate with both hands. i turn my face and i close my eyes...i will not look into your slippery darkness.  i will not.  i lean away and i hold on tight.  my knuckles sheer white and frantic.  the thump of my heart rings steadily in my ears.  i feel fear rise up and shoulders hunker down.  be gone, oh evil one.  i will not fall prey to your desperate desires.  because that is what you are...desperate.  you know i belong to a King. i am a child of God and you have no right over me.  you have no victory in me.  you have no power around me.  i am HIS.  and instead of hunkering down and hunching up it is time for me to rise and claim what is already mine.  victory.  my God is a lifter of heads. "But you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high." psalm 3:3.   His hand already on my trembling chin.  He holds my head steady.  He holds my arms firmly.  He whispers constantly into my listening ear, "be still daughter."


oh, seriously, can i never learn this lesson.   we waited an entire year for bella.  we had to relinquish control of her adoption time after time.  we had to fill out forms and send off checks and then know there was not one more cotton picking thing we could do to hurry it all up.  i really, truly thought i had learned this hard lesson of surrender-  the theme of be still.  but as i sit in the middle of this late saturday night, i see how much further i have yet to go. i still resist catalogs and lay away and lines.  i want my answers and i want a plan.  and of course i want it now.  i know we will be walking head on into battle soon. and my human-ness is desperate for a detailed map. a strategy.  i am done sleeping with the unknowns and the what-ifs...i am ready to move on. to move forward.  i am staring a monster in the face and all my 42 years of feisty-ness wants to fight.  hard.
  
my darling friend, beverly, shared this passage with me just after my diagnosis.  just after we wept together. beverly is one month ahead down this ugly cancer road. she is well into the battle.  "on your feet, Daughter of Zion! be threshed of chaff, be refined of dross. I'm remaking you into a people invincible..."  (micah 10:13).  she has texted me this verse or said it to me several times since my knowing.  beverly knows the taste of battle fire. she is there. she is already in it.  she knows it is not time to sit down and rest.  it is time to rise up. to be all in. she knows it is time to be "on your feet, Daughter of Zion!"  


but this weekend we wait.  this weekend we rest.  this weekend we do our very best to Be Still - truly a funny thought in our household of seven. monday will come. our results will return.  the plan will be clear.  but this weekend we wait.  psalm 27:14 says to "wait for the Lord, be brave and courageous and wait for the Lord."    we all know the actual battle will take courage and bravery.  that's clear. that's more than obvious. but i love this psalm because david understood... he understood the challenge of the pre-battle.  he understood how hard it would be before charging out.  sometimes we need to be brave while we wait.  honestly, i get that.  put me up on a battle horse and let me run ...but please don't leave me alone in the silence of my thoughts and my quiet.  

but it is saturday night and i sit here in the Be Still.   and even in this planless, answerless weekend, somehow i know God is working.  He is using it.  the weekend will end.  tomorrow will come.   don't be mistaken, the battle is brewing.  there will be a time of charging out ...all guns blazing (gloriously, i do hope)...and without doubt i will hear the strong voice of my Lord signaling, "on your feet, Daughter of Zion! on your feet."

abide

i stood in my son's room folding grey t-shirts.   laundry.   sweet smelling warmth.  fold.  crease.  smooth.  stack.  clean heat held in tired hands.   i am not a woman who especially loves laundry.  perhaps it is the overflow...or maybe it is the constant flow.  i am sure it is in the never done.  the never ending.  and in the always coming.  i mean i turn my back for a quick moment...just long enough to plop a toddler in a tub or throw a roast in the oven and the pile grows large.  staggering.  who are all these people wearing all this clothing?  it seems we have seventy not seven living under our roof.  my machines are big and highly efficient...even digital.  but they are always, always running.  the only time they seem to pause with quiet  is when there are multiple showers going.  other than that...they could run without ceasing and we'd still have something dirty stashed somewhere.  and, i have to confess,  i am not gifted in this area.  really. truly.  i don't do laundry, i attack laundry.  i have been known to throw great, big heaps of foul smelling clothing into the mouth of this steel machine with no regard for color or fabric.  appalling, i know.  i also have been seen taking those same prodigious loads out of the cavernous heat and leaving them in wicker baskets for days....or just piling it all on my bed until night comes and then flinging the great mass recklessly to the floor at the tired midnight hour.  shocking.  i am sorry.  but this happens in my home.  i have no tender touch when it comes to this monumental-always-mulitplying-task.  i launder our clothes in desperate fashion:  scoop.  shove.  bang.  dump.  and then, of course, sometimes, on occasion, even fling.

i am not without laundry role models.  my mother is one of them.  she is a woman without an ipod or a laptop, but whose backyard has always boasted a clothes line.  i have watched this woman attach pillowcases with wooden pins in the dead of  an ohio winter.  i am sure at the top of her favorite things list are bed sheets dried in sunshine.  i have even wondered if there is no greater joy for my mother.  i feel accomplished when, on occasion, i throw in a downy fabric sheet.  it doesn't come close to the sunny smell of my mother's bedding however.  i have found this, at times, inefficient and frustrating.    there were evenings when i'd return from a long day of school and basketball practice only to find my sheets flapping out in the moonlight.  as a 16 year old i wasn't concerned much with the sun-basked fragrance, i only wanted a bed to climb into.   my mother was right to care about this though.  i want to be that way soon.  i want to hang sheets in the georgia sun and take pleasure from the sharp creases stacked inside  brown wicker.   this practice speaks of time.  it speaks of dedication to the ordinary. to the simple.  it is taking time to do something right.  to do it well.

so there i was standing quietly in my son's basement bedroom over a basket of what he wears:  school uniforms, athletic shorts and an impressive pile of grey t-shirts.   all of his hangers adult sized now.  his t-shirts no longer tiny.  i have been folding this boys' clothing for almost 14 years.   long gone the baby blue.  long gone the trains and trucks.   oh my...as a mother i held these boy-teen items and realized how thankful i was to be standing right here.  right now...simply holding.  and something changed.  i carefully creased each t-shirt.  folded each short.  matched corners and ends.  smoothed. tucked. my piles were a work of art.  there would be no flinging today.  i was privileged to stand in my boys' room and hold dryer warm cotton.  i was privileged. this week i have found myself in the middle of these kinds of moments.  they have happened in the laundry room and at the dinner table.  they have occurred at bath time and bed time.  when my health became questionable, the eyes of my  heart became clearer.  all these things...all these common, everyday, ordinary things...all these tasks and chores and have-to-dos became so quickly precious.  they became gifts -  metamorphosing from tasks to treasures.  i know there may be a day when i will have to lean on others to wash and wipe and fold.  there may be a day when my hands cannot do what needs doing.  even if it be,  just for a while.  i'll be honest, it worries me.  i have laid awake at night wondering how a family with five children will survive a period of time without a fully functioning mother.   i don't mean to get ahead of the game, but if you had five children you'd have to wonder too.  trust me on this.  as i was adding the final shirt to the pile, i noticed a word in red across the grey shoulder of my son's shirt.  abide.

abide.  it was the t-shirt on top of the pile.   a t-shirt tyler had gotten at a youth retreat last year.  abide.  i read the word, but thought of the phrase, "abide in me."  i could almost hear my name attached.  "abide in me, jody."  abide in me for the laundry and the lunches.  abide in me for the washing of windows and hands and countertops.  abide in me for the scrubbing of faces and feet and floors.  abide.  abide in me jody.  abide.  dwell.  stay.  connect.  "i am the vine you are the branches;  he who abides in me and i in him, he bears much fruit.  apart from me you can do nothing." (john 15:5)  nothing.  it sunk in.  nothing.   everything i have already done...been doing...it is from Him.  it is All From Him.    this is not about the cancer.  this is about the living.  the daily breath He has been providing all along.  i have been fooling myself in believing  my hands capable and controlling.  Every Thing has always been from Him and Every Thing will always be from Him.  we think ourselves too able.  that is it.  at least that is it for me.   when life is good and health is full i whirl around in a cloud of my own capability...but it is foolishness.   each and every breath is decided by the Creator and Sustainer of all.  He gives and He takes away...and Blessed be His name.  this may not strike a peaceful chord for you right now.  but it does for me.  i have spent some considerable time this week worried about the day when i will have to be dependent...when my children will have to be dependent...i just haven't been able to remove that from my weakness.  i have worried.  but then i folded the final grey t-shirt and i read the word in red, abide.  in the taking time with my laundry, i found a word from my Jesus, a reminder in this most ordinary task.  i found a much needed directive and a crucial instruction.  abide.

this words reminds me of  an old hymn -  like circa 1847 old.  written by a man named henry francis lyte.  he wrote this while he lay dying of tuberculosis.  now, i hesitate to even  put that information in this post.  i, want to be clear here....in no way do i think myself dying.  i am living with breast cancer.  and i am fighting it.   i may take advantage of the situation and lay around blogging....but i am certainly not going to be writing ancient hymns on death beds.  nonetheless, these 19th century lyrics connect with me even in my 2011,  and i wanted to share:

Abide With Me 

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see;

O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;

But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,

Familiar, condescending, patient, free.

Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,

But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,

Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—

Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;

And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,

Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,

On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.

What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?

Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?

Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;

Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.

Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?

I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;

Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.

Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;

In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

and that's it.  abiding with Christ in health and in the not so good health.  abiding in Christ in the ordinary and in the extraordinary.  how in need i was of that reminder.  how thankful i am for that remembering.   it is not easy, but can i believe it might be good to consider how incapable my hands are.  i'll be honest,  it makes me uncomfortable.  but i want to abide.  i know in all of this i will need to abide.  whether or not i ever hang sheets in the sunshine is yet to be seen,  but in the meantime, i will abide.  abide.

carry us Lord

Lord, let my tyler's sleep be sweet tonight.  a mother's prayer.  a silent chant as i finally fell asleep in the midnight hour.  it would be tyler's last night of not-knowing.  tyler has spent the past few days on a class trip.  he has been on an island off the coast of georgia exploring the wonders of marine biology.  on an island--protected.  i am sure much of it has been heaven for my teen-boy-explorer.  

but back at home we have been staring into the ugly face of a breast cancer diagnosis.  we have resisted any exploration. in fact, it feels as if we have all just shut down to any further discovery.  tuesday's news was enough.  for a while.   

but today tyler comes home.  i wake in the early dark knowing i will have to look into the eyes of my strong, young man and attempt to explain something i can't really explain.  after sharing it with sarah, connor and then emily, i have spent all my sadness.  it is not the kind of news any mother wants to share with her children.  there is no way to dress it up nicely or spin it out kindly.  it hurts.  from the first utterance of the word it slices. rips. tears.  the children know too much.  we have heard too much in our day and time.  i can attempt to assure them of best cast scenario, but we are shaken to our core.  we rattle.  i can see the rattling of my already told-children in these past two days.  

they have all slept with me in these nights since knowing.  we can't be close enough.  Oh Lord, thank you for children who want to run to my arms and bury heads in my lap.  thank you for children who want to make me things, make me laugh, make me okay.  they are the worst part of this and the best part.  i have hated the telling and the knowing and the fearing, but am so thankful for the healing and the comforting and the distracting of my children.  they have already pushed me beyond breast cancer in just these two days. even if just for a moment. they have reminded me they still need lunches and band-aids and baths.  they will keep me going in this journey.  this journey for which i didn't sign up.  this journey which i never once imagined.  this journey which requires my entire family to travel.  this journey...

so today i look at my list of things to accomplish and i must add the telling of tyler.  i wanted to be thinking about easter eggs and pastel colored baskets.  but this Good Friday afternoon i will sit my son down with news which will cloak him hard in heaviness.  this boy.  this soon-to-be-man will want to carry it for me.  i know him.  he is a carrier.  he is my son who seeing me with arms full of laundry insists on taking the load from me.  he is a boy who has said over and over, "here mom, let me do that for you."  that trash emptying. that hole digging.  that firewood getting.  that chair moving.  that little sister toting.  that carrying.  he carries.  he is tender like no other teen boy i've met.  a boy with a strong spirit, but soft heart.  i have nothing to do with this.  it is how he came.  God dropped him into our laps 13 years ago and though he has my green-blue eyes, he came with his very own tender heart.  he is a comforter.  a peacemaker. a laugh-bringer.  a joy-digger.  a gentler.  a steadier.  a smoother of wrinkles.   

but he is also a rather smart kid.  he will know immediately this is not an easy load.  he will know he cannot whisk this yoke from his mother's shoulders.  he will know he cannot move this mountain. he will know soon that his arms, like mine, are just not able.  

oh Lord.  you know today i will tell him.  you already know the conversation and the concern and the comfort.  you already know the reaction and the response and resistance.   precious Jesus, will you provide the strength in the telling and the strength in the hearing and the strength in the journeying...the carrying.   Jesus will you carry tyler?  all of us.   he is a carrier.  but he, today, like the rest of us, will learn to be carried.  held.   we never knew in all our blessing how very much we would need to be carried.

today, all of us will know. 

Lord, our arms are weak.  our legs give out.  our hearts beat in fear.   

mouths taste the bitter.  breath catches.  

minds wander.  thoughts spin. voices quiver.  eyes tear.   hands shake.  dread rises.   doubts simmer.  

but you, Lord, you Lord, you Lord...

you carry.  

when we can't.  you can.  

and Lord? we can't.

would you...

carry us Lord.  

carry us. 

carry.  

Lord.

 "it was our weaknesses he carried; 
it was our sorrows that weighed him down."  ~ isaiah 53:4

 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,

 and you will find rest for your souls.

  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

~ matthew 11:28-30

reaching arms

bella does this funny little thing when she sleeps.  she constantly reaches out with one arm.  she is reaching for me.  even in deep slumber her hand pats across the bed in tender search of her mama.  she wants to know i am there.  we've had her in our arms, and occasionally sleeping in our bed, for 9 months now.  but i just last week realized why she is doing this....i was thinking back to her bed in the orphanage.  i stood beside it that day we visited last july.  the room was set up with  about 26 beds and every two cribs were attached.   she had spent two years sharing a small wall of rails with another child and i am certain bella and her tiny bedfellow reached through the bars of their separate cribs for one another. they reached out for warmth.  they reached for connection.  they reached for comfort.

i understand that reaching.   last night i went to sleep and felt myself reaching through rails.  reaching all the long, long night.  reaching for comfort.  reaching for warmth.  reaching for my Jesus.  yesterday i was diagnosed with breast cancer.  i sat under the clean blue sky and the front yard tree of my friend's home and i listened to a doctor say, "unfortunately..."  i heard little else after that first word..."unfortunately."  from that moment i have felt myself falling.  falling deep and fast and dark.  my hands came out quickly.  i was all hands and arms and limbs flailing.  attempting to brace myself for the smack of concrete.  trying hard to stop the hurt of hit.  catch myself.  clutch up the wind knocked out of my chest.  put it back.  fill it up.  hold it close.  but i couldn't.  no matter how hard i have tried in these past 12 hours of my diagnosis, i know only one thing this morning:  my arms are not able.  they aren't long enough or strong enough or even soft enough to hold. stop. cradle.

and so i reach.

i will not pretend in this news to be calm or in control.  for there is no calm and nothing about it feels controlled.  i will not pretend to embrace this awful.  i don't.   right now i want to, instead,  put down my legs and run.  run fast away from the news and the decisions and the horror.  i want to run from the plan and the next step and the one-day-at-a-time talk.  i want to flee from the telling:  telling of mother,  sisters.  oh, dear Lord, the heart-wrenching telling of children.  i don't want to share this news i want to fling it down and smash it with my angry heel. i want to obliterate the screaming word which has seemingly seared the flesh and fabric of my future. i want to run fast and then curl up in this blanket of  breath-snatching fear and close up everything inside.  but i cannot.

and so i reach.

i reach with arms weak and scared. dangling.  useless, except for the reaching.  i know what i walk into is beyond me. beyond my strength.  there will be no arm wrestling winner in this contest.   this morning i have strength enough only for feeble reaching.  that is it.  that is all.   i have walked from room to room already before the sun's waking.  i can find no answer in its silence.  i have touched things:  walls.  coffee pot. wool blanket.  countertop.  a window pane.   my searching hands feeling their way wishing to uncover how this all happened. willing to scrape off layers of disbelief.  knowing i will find nothing.  no sense of peace and no thing secure in any hard object.

and yet i reach.

oh Lord, it is the hem of your garment for which my fingers long to feel.  The Hem.  like the bleeding woman of the bible, "when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, 'if i just touch his clothes, i will be healed'...."then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.  He said to her, 'daughter, your faith has healed you.  go in peace and be freed from your suffering.'"  (mark 5).  i don't bleed, but i tremble.  oh, how i tremble this april day.  and i reach for his cloak even now this first morning in my knowing.  i clutch. i am certain it is the only place worthy of my grasping.  there is nothing else.  no doctor.  no report. no plan.  no percentage.  nothing to replace the hem of my God's garment.

and so i reach, arms trembling, for my Master, Savior, Healer, Holder.

i can't begin to know why.  my fear and disbelief and even my outrage blind me from any answers.  there is no sense.  i have five children.  they need me well.  healthy.  whole.  why Lord?   satan is dancing wildly at this sad girls' questioning... wondering, pleading, crying.   his hands clap in great rejoicing at the suffering and doubting which might very well run rampant in my home today.  tomorrow.   i am sure of it.  and this morning as i sit with my unkowns and my what-ifs i can almost see his demon-party at my window.  i can feel the heat of his merry-making.  and i am scared.

and then i reach for the devotional on the table nearby. Jesus Calling.   the devotional which i have spent time in daily now for over a month. knowing not else what to do or what to think or even how to breathe...i flip open to my morning routine and i read: 

i may very well be weak in my reaching. my arms nothing more than frail bones blowing weightless in heavy wind, but my father...my cloak-wearing-hem-healing-father...My Father Holds Me. this has nothing to do with my strength. this has little to do with my limbs. My Father Holds me tightly by my right hand and pulls me close, whispering soft into my trembling ears, "I am here, child.  I am here. I am here."

and He reaches for me.

"with a mighty hand and outstretched arm; His love endures forever.  ~ psalms 136:12 

a street with no name

i grew up on a street with no name. this bothered my poetic sense as a child. i had friends living pleasantly on mulberry lane and ivy hill road, but i grew up on east 171st street in a dark brown duplex. even that number seemed too large. perhaps had it been 3rd avenue or 2nd street it may have felt slightly better. a tad more poetic at least.  perhaps.  i love names, not numbers. this was clear by middle school math. numbers and i had little in common. since those years in my brown duplex i have lived on streets with more picturesque names such as lakeview lane and sunset drive.  currently, we reside on buttercup trace.  buttercup was almost a deal breaker for my husband though. rick is a big man with a big voice. hearing him audibly lay claim to 815 buttercup trace has brought a touch of amusement to just a few individuals, not least of all, his wife.

but back to the duplex on our number-named street. my grandparents lived downstairs and my family of six lived in close quarters upstairs.  eight of us sharing one roof, one driveway, one back door.  i found this arrangement of too many kids and too few bathrooms failing miserably in my often imagined perfect-family-fairytale.   most of my friends visited their grandmothers for sunday pot roast and potatoes and then promptly returned to their single family dwellings. but this wasn’t our case. i grew up with what felt at times a second set of parents breathing beneath my floor boards. as a young teen one set seemed plenty. there were moments of frustration. i remember my grandfather waiting up for me. i can still see him standing under the bug-zapping bulb of our front porch watching me cross the street from kathy tramte’s house. it was okay when I was 7 and afraid of the menacing shrubs shadowing our front path. but at 14, when my first boyfriend walked me home from his ballgame, i can assure you i felt entirely different about grandpa’s observant perch on the front porch.

growing up, it was grandpa who walked out of the house and into the rowdy street’s kick-the-can game or hide-and-go-seek fun. he came to check on us. always. i could count on it. all of the neighborhood kids could. he knew their names and he knew their parents and there was something in this knowing. when front porch sleepover parties formed it was grandpa’s flashlight which swept over our ghost stories and our girl-giggles and our bags of doritos. it was his strong voice through the dark asking if we were okay and reminding us to be careful. as a child i heard only the overprotective and ever-watching worry in his words . i didn’t understand it and i didn’t always appreciate it. i wished often to be less protected. less watched. less known.

that was long ago. the house on a nameless street bears the most vivid memories of my childhood but it seems a different life as i now raise my own brood on buttercup. one warm evening recently i sat on my back deck and felt the taste of summer’s coming. i sat in filtered twilight gazing out at the acre of woods behind my brick home on its cul-de-sac-ed street. and the summer memories of childhood’s season seeped out of my mother veins. i was startled at my nostalgia for that brown duplex and the barefooted gang of reckless kids running rampant on 171st.  i found myself missing the grandparents living only a floor below … longing for a grandfather who knew every kid on the block. i was sad for how close they were and yet how far i had kept them in my most childish years.  how could i so carelessly take for granted a grandfather who loved me enough to come out for a thousand street crossings and a hundred neighborhood games? he was there watching. he was there listening. he was there loving.

my grandfather died the year i went off to college. but to this day, almost 25 years later, it is easy for me to see his tall frame bent over a pot of hardy marigolds on our small square of patio. he tended these plants with careful passion. summer nights this big boned man stood in the yard watering our tiny patch of city grass. i wondered why as a child. i just assumed he was once again planting himself near our teen-girl whisperings. watching. listening. spying. but now i know.  i, too, stand in my yard. i stand in my sprawling sprinkler-privileged yard and water thirsty spots on our georgia lawn. the steady streams of water in summer night-dusk ease the day’s tension and try-ings out of my mother-heavy shoulders. i breathe. i sigh with the day’s quiet closing.  i replenish my own brittle soul in the pulsing flow. and i watch and i listen and i spy. sometimes children happen across my evening quenching. and sometimes it is the white starflowers in their smoky glow. and sometimes it is the birds settling into their evening perch. but i feel close to my grandfather at this time. i only wish for the chance to tell him.

my street may have been lacking in poetry, but i should have listened more to the music of my grandparents. my, church organist, grandmother would practice each evening a floor below and my grandfather a lover of hymns would sing in his great big baritone. what a picture they created for that little-big girl. a beautiful picture i couldn’t name and i most certainly took for granted. but today in my mid-life when I am most in need of music’s comfort it is my grandfather’s voice i hear…singing, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus there’s just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus…like the fragrance after a rain. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let the heavens and earth proclaim…kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there’s something about that name.”

and i know. i know that growing up on a street with no name and in a house with, what seemed, too many adults was somehow good.  how often God gives us things we resent and rebuke and even rebel against…but how often these are the very things which protect us and shape us and the very things to which we return. effortlessly. eagerly. quietly. these might be the things which sweep over us in our independence and the things which check on us in our self-proclaimed freedom…but they are the very things which are able to comfort and quiet us in our later felt restlessness. and whether they happen on perfectly named streets or not, they are ours.  my gratitude comes a little late. gone are those summer-porch evenings in ohio. but even in its tardiness, i feel the quench of something remembered. the glimpse of something beautiful. the whisper of something well named.

moonlight and holiness

i woke this morning before the sun.  in fact, i began my morning in moonlight.  that happens occasionally.   there were no birds chirping brightly and no sunlight streaming warmly.  but there was the moon - bright and warm through the sliver of shutter i had failed to secure.  as i lay deep in soft flannel i had little motivation for anything more than nestling down deeper. further. softer. safer.  i didn't ask to be pierced by the hard stare of this glaring crescent just outside my window.  i didn't desire to be pricked with its celestial whiteness. its heat.  that was for the midnight.  the moon had no business taunting me out of bed at this early hour.  the moon is for sleep-heavy children.  it is for lovers and dreamers.  it is not meant for my morning start in quiet.  it had been given no cordial invitation to sit with me and my coffee and my solitude. certainly not my sleep.   i closed my eyes to it.  i closed my mind to it.  sleep.  there was sleep to continue.  there was sleep to complete.  but it was not so.  i had failed to secure the shutter.


there have been other prickings.  other moments of exposure.  other moments when i left a crack in the covering of my soul.  so often we are careful. careful to keep things closed up, buttoned up and picked up.   we draw the shade.  we fasten the latch.  we pull the curtain.  tight.  tighter. tightly.  we tell ourselves it is for our protection.  we assure ourselves it is in our best interest.  we pass it off with words like self-preserving and self-defending. we assign it lingo.  we attribute position.  we convince ourselves that vulnerability brings too great a cost.  and it does.  of course it does. we are protectors.  there aren't many of us journeying toward a wound.  we see the approach of something sharp and we change our course.  turn.  run.  flee.  we have learned it from our time in childhood.  that stove is hot!  don't touch!  no touch!   and so we learn to be careful.  we travel with caution.  we dream delicately. we skate the surface of our living, glossy and impenetrable appearing.


but what if we have to be burned?  what if we have to taste tears of pain and disappointment and even,  sorrow?  can that hot-white piercing of moonlight be good for us?  you already know my answer.  i am not pretending to like it.  i don't.  i already confessed my instinct to nestle down deeper into the soft flannel comfort of numb.  i would rather not see my dirty layers and dusty soul exposed for what they are.  with pricking and piercing comes tearing and torn.   i am not always ready for that kind of abrupt exposure.  i am hardly ever prepared for that kind of pain.  but it comes.  i cannot stop the moonlight.  i cannot secure the shutter always.  forever.  i may desire to languish deeply in comfort, but my God desires to work even more deeply in me.  His work in me is more than moonlight through the haphazardness of loose shutter.  there is no mistake in His piercing.  no accident in His pursuit.  He wants me.  all of me.  He wants the deepest recess of my heart.  it belongs to Him.  and no matter how much i yearn to pad it with the cooling items of ease, He will expose it.  there is light to be shed.  there is dirt to be seen. and there is healing to be had.


with our layers peeled back we are left feeling wide-open.  cleft and bare. and in this wide-open God proves tender and merciful.  ever-gentle.  there is a sweetness even when it tastes of sorrow. even when mixed with tears. sweet-bitter. hard-good.


because that is it.  He doesn't work randomly.  He doesn't pierce without purpose.  there is a plan. and it is holy and i hardly ever know it.  at times i can't even begin to guess.   i try.  i fail.  but i cannot.  i am left unsettled.  my frailty wishes for shelter.  my humanity wishes for easy.  my body wishes for mild.  but my soul knows i need holy.  my God desires it all.  He has taken my heart of stone...my heart which was hard and safe and cold and numb and mine...and He has replaced it with flesh.  and now it is His and it is tender.  "I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh..."  (ezekiel 36:26).   and now His piercings come and they are poignant.  His refinement burns fast.   He desires all.   "to the israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain." (exodus 24:17)  i am an israelite. stiff-necked. stubborn.  doubtful. wandering.  but i wonder if i truly know this consuming.  have i really stood near enough the fire.   i know there are places closer. hotter.  and like the moonlight, i want to shut my eyes against these close places. move further. forgotten.


and so i hunker down and play dead.  i hide under the table of my fabricated self.  but He knows where i am and He has a plan for holy.  and sometimes it burns. and sometimes it tears.  but, always, it is good.  because He has a plan and it is for holy.  and though i can pretend to hide from the early morning moon.  i cannot hide from the ever-present,  always-loving and most-unflagging pursuit of my Holy God.  Holy God.  God.

"so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.

and a sword will pierce your own soul too."  ~ luke 2:35

only a review: one thousand gifts

today i challenged the girls in my bible study to dig into the book, one thousand gifts.  ann voskamp is the author.  God is the inspiration.  i will simply be the reader.  a humble reader. a grateful reader. a thirsty reader. and an incredible read it is.  my friend, karen, had to write me two separate emails encouraging me to go get the book.  she knew i was meant for it.  though she apologized in her second email for pestering me, something in her knew this book was meant for me.  right now.  right here.  i am so thankful that my friend is not only beautiful and inspiring, but she is a listener and maybe even, on occasion, a pesterer.   she heard something which encouraged her to push me....and she pushed.  and because of this i am now pushing countless other women. this is a book for women to read.  to absorb.  to consider. to treasure.  
i really am not sure what to say about ann voskamp.  she is the mother of six.  she homeschools the entire half dozen.  her husband is an organic farmer of corn and she refers to him in her book as, The Farmer.  i love that.   i laughed out loud at first reading.   i must warn rick, i could easily copy her practice.  how natural it would be for me to over coffee and scrambled eggs refer to my business-minded husband as, The Executive.  i chuckle writing this...i can only imagine his expression and his first thought:  i knew she was on the edge.  i am now quite convinced. poor woman.
so this ann voskamp,  this ann without the sophistication of even an "e" is a writer for the times.  if you haven't heard of her, i am pretty certain you will.     ann lightly weaves together thoughts, ramblings and words about women and the stuff we mess around in. the simple and the substantial.  she addresses the myriad of messy issues which touch the lives of us girls.  it is spirtual.  it is provocative.  it is passionate.  and it is, unquestionably, beautiful.  
late friday night i climbed old and tired into bed with my new and shiny copy.  at 1:35 am rick rolled over and asked what in the world i was doing. 
still reading.  i can't put it down. sorry.
 you can't put it down?
 no.  i can't put it down. 
he rolled back over in his blanket of disbelief.  he knew from experience not to question me any further. he needs to be sharper for this kind of conversation...much sharper than is humanly possible at 1:35 am.
 there is something about this book which compels me.  as i read it, it makes me want to meet her for coffee.  i am pretty sure this farmer's wife, mother of six and inhabitant of ontario canada will not be scheduling coffee with me anytime soon.  but i can't help but wish it.  she gets me.  i get her.  is that weird? perhaps.
so what is the 1000 gifts thing?  what is this?  another list?   it is indeed!  and i get this.  i connect with ann on this exercise of list making.  she explains it as "coaxing the ink out of the pen."  those of you who know me well,  know i am a list maker extraordinaire.   i adore lists - practical and impractical - it matters little. i very much just like the process of lists. the comfort of them.  it is as close to an art form as my mommy-self can get these days.  i take pleasure in carrying around these remnant scratchings.  though i don't pretend to consult them all that often, i find myself completely dependent on their physical presence. their nearness.  maybe it is just the reassurance of having a list in the deep recesses of my pocketbook or tucked in the scribbled pages of my journal or on my blue high-piled desk. sometimes they are desperate acts...urgent dispatches to my muddled mind -  DON'T FORGET to sign this paper, pick up this child, make this appointment, check this rash, deposit this check, cook this meat.   regardless, these lists help me  feel better about things.
but, back to ann.  so she was challenged to write a list of 1000 things for which she was thankful.  a friend made it a dare:  can you?  can you write a list compiling ideas and thoughts and words and images and pictures of things which make you truly grateful?  this is her book.  she is a story teller.  she is a list maker. she is a dream weaver.  she is a poet.  the words tumble out across the page and the reader can't drink them up quickly enough.  at least this reader cannot.  i read them over and over.  i underline them again and again.  i am startled by her phrasing and refreshed by her images.  i am captivated by her keen understanding and i am completely taken with the beauty.  i read with arched eyebrows,  wearing the expression of sheer astonishment.  it is almost unsettling.  but i have to tell you, friend, sometimes we need to be unsettled.  we need a bit of astonishment.  sometimes we need to be swept off our feet by something new and passionate and life-provoking. 
ann's entire premise rests on the theory that we are a joyless people because we are not a truly thankful people.  i couldn't agree more.  i mean we all sit around and offer a general sense of thanksgiving. most of us at some point in our day, in our year, in our life give God or some higher power some mindless and unenergetic thanks.  that sort of just happens.  it was required by our parents and our sunday school teachers. we were taught Give Thanks.  it was expected.   but do we really rejoice?  do we really praise Him for the minute and specific.  do we see His Glory in the common and His Majesty in the everyday?  we thank Him for the morning, but do we thank Him for the morning mist settling across dark pine?  do we thank Him for the morning light streaming through the fingerprinted panes of our dirty child-laden homes?  do we thank Him for the cold morning's hot coffee in our pottery-fired blue mug?  i do not.  i have not.  because of my frazzled and frenzied pace, i, often, cannot.  i want to change that. 
ann mentions in the book we must Learn.  we must Learn a new habit.  the encouraging fact:  we can Learn.  we can Learn to pause and  ponder and appreciate.   we must be intentional and intent and intense in our quest for finding Beauty and Truth and Grace.  it will lead us to JOY.  we are joyless, because we are thankless.  true joy must be preceeded by a truly thankful heart.  oh, sister...friend...stranger...don't you know it?  don't you feel how steeped into this racing, raging, wild rushing world we are?  i do.  i feel it every day.  i have found myself near tears in the past few years longing to sit in the sunshine of my yard but knowing a meeting or an appointment or a thing was waiting expectantly for me.  i get this at a level i cannot express in one mere blog post.  i get it and my guess is that many of you get it too.
some days we will only have a passing minute to notice.  that is life.  ann is the mother of six...i am the mother of five...i can assure you both our lives are busy enough to spin heads.  but, notice We Must.  We Must stop and Take Note.   i was quite young when i heard the phrase "stop and smell the roses" ...i think my wise and gentle grandfather might have first shared those words with  me.  it seemed silly then.  i had balls to chase and boys to chase and dreams to chase.  i am not quite done with my chasing (well, maybe chasing of the boys)...but i am more aware of my need for pausing. 
so, i don't do this justice.   when you read her first few chapters you'll know i barely have scratched the muddy surface of this book.  you'll read the first page and you'll know.  i am okay with that.  i am writing this post to encourage you...even one of you...to read.   i believe i may have actually scared a few of the girls in my study this morning.  at one point, i jumped up out of my seat to read ann's section on photographing shredded cheese.  i couldn't help myself.  my girlfriends are generous.   at the dinner table tonight i shared the book and the list idea with my family.  oh, i wish you could have been a fly on the wall.  arched eyebrows...sideways glances...furrowed brows and squinty eyes all around the table.  after some hmms and some huhs....my husband, The Executive, chimed in, "well...now, kids, this sounds like a good plan.  i am fully in support of mom and her uumm ...idea."   a chain reaction of whiplash occured as the children fixed eyes on their dad.  who was this father of betrayal? exactly what was taking place?  they expected this occasionally from mom...but dad was another story.  i had to laugh.    

tomorrow i will leave them journals - list making journals - i will leave them at their dinner places. and they will glance at their dad.  eyes watching. wondering what next.  i can hardly wait. 

a moon like this

don't speak to me of sink dishes and punctutation marks
with a moon like this.
hanging high.  held heavenly.

don't tell me about spaghetti stains or broken door hinges
with a moon like this.
white-washed and wooing.

don't say there is a kitchen spill or a faucet leak
with a moon like this.
silent and silver.  a saturated solace.

don't bring me a sock to darn or a nail to trim or a phone to answer
with a moon like this.
bright and beckoning.  beacon.

don't talk of the teeth to brush or the dog to feed
with a moon like this.
ephemeral. ethereal.  effervescent.

don't hint at the apple to core or the crumbs to sweep
with a moon like this.
inspiring and illicit.  indeed.

don't suggest there are clothes to fold or children to hush
with a moon like this.
diaphonous.  delicate.  delirious.

but sing to me of this hand i hold and this cheek to kiss
with a moon like this.
sing to me of this hair of silk and this eye to close
with a moon like this.
oh sing with me of the dreams to dream and the love to love
with a moon like this.
a moon like this.

where is your treasure?

"for where your treasure is there also will be your heart."  ~ matthew 6:21

i suppose it is the word treasure which throws us sometimes for a loop.   we think about treasure and our minds are instantly drawn to letchy pirates and pretty princesses.   we think about it in terms of buried jewels and secret castle rooms.  it is a strange word to connect with our modern day and somewhat mundane kind of  lives.  treasure.  and yet it is a beautiful word.  it describes the handmade mother's day gifts i collect in a shoe box. it describes the feeling we might get while in the middle of a good book.  it describes a precious conversation with my daughter or an unsolicited hug from my son.  it describes the stack of love letters between my grandparents throughout their 55 years of marriage.  it even describes the smelly pail of seashells collected each year on vacation.   these things of beauty are clearly are all treasures.  and all  things God would want me to value.  He would certainly want me to enjoy.    but if i treasure these items, these gifts more than i treasure the Giver of good gifts, than i am only getting a glimpse of His gold.  i am left holding only a small gem from His heavy chest of heavenly jewels.  when my senses are satiated with earthly items and temporal pleasures i miss out.  i miss out on what God really wants for me.   when i treasure the creat-ed more than the Creat-or i swiftly cross the line from adoration to idolatry.

and what about the things we shouldn't treasure?  what about the things which distract us.  detour us.  derail us?  what about the things which we would never put into the poetic category of  love letters and mother's day gifts.  i know there are things in my life i wouldn't care to admit publicly which take a lot of my time.  my energy.  my resources.   i might pretend they are not too important.  i might pretend myself to be not too attached.  i might even deny them as acquaintances,  let alone treasures.  but if i'm honest, i will admit to you i have things which i value too highly and which therefore continue to compete for my heart.

really in this matthew 6 passage Jesus wants to know one thing:  where is my heart?  the easy and appropriate sunday school answer is: securely with Jesus. but Jesus wants to be real here.  Jesus desires to get down to business with His audience and so He throws out that word treasure.  where is your treasure? seriously, where is it? what fills my thoughts, my time, my days, my dreams?   do i treasure my relationship with Him?  do i treasure His word?   do i treasure His cross?    the thing about the heart is Jesus wants all of it.    the rich young ruler attempted to persuade and impress Jesus with his ability to keep His commandments - well most of them.   but Jesus knew it wasn't about keeping most of them, it was about keeping the difficult one.  and when Jesus told him to, "sell all your possessions, give to the poor and follow me," the gig of good, rich, young ruler was up.  his true colors, his true treasure and his true heart were truly exposed.

for where your treasure is there also will be your heart.  this verse sounds more like a line of poetry than it does a method of evaluation.   but Jesus wasn't wooing us with beautiful language He was asking us to take a real, close, and very careful look at what we value.  He knew back then and He knows today we might very well have learned all the right answers, but he isn't concerned with our correct answers, He only wants for us the correct treasure and a right heart.