Phrases, quotes, devotionals, things said that I overheard … all to do with being thankful. I heard … but didn’t really listen.
Then I happened to click play on a video that a friend posted, and my ears were attuned to the message that had been stalking me all week.
Thankful, grateful … those words and their meaning. Their capacity to alter our hearts, our minds and mood. Their power, through the simple (?) act of choosing them. Choosing them over fear, loneliness, sadness, anxiety, despair.
So, today, let me share a prayer for you, and five minutes of a video that I hope helps you hear of how much there is to be grateful for … in spite of the dark and twisties of life.
Lord, As the sun rises, as we rise this day … Remind us to not just lift the bedcovers off our bodies, but also that we lift our eyes … to the flowers, to the trees, to the bee buzzing in the garden, to those around us, to the sky, to you. With each rise of our eyes, may we … be thankful for what we can see, smell, hear, touch, taste. Lord, this day of Sabbath, may our choosing gratitude, turn what we have into enough. Amen
The countdown is on … nineteen class days until the end of the school year (plus exams)!
More than any school year before … I don’t just want, but I know that I need a break.
It has been a great school year, with fantastic colleagues and amazing students who allow us to come alongside and shore up their weaknesses, their struggles … so that they can successfully thrive in the academic hoop-jumping that is high school.
So it is not so much that I desire an end as I need to be shored up in my own weaknesses and struggles … so that I can thrive.
A year ago I was completing my first year at a new school, preparing to move (physically and emotionally) and walking the unfamiliar, precarious road of life with loved ones with debilitating illness.
This year, my body, mind and soul need a rest, renewal!
How about you? Are you in need of a break? a change of pace? renewal?
Though the Song of Solomon is written as an erotic love (hear it as though Barry White said the word love) manual, I read the following verses recently and they sounded less erotic and more of a love that will go the distance for you, a love that protects, renews … a love that gives a complete rest that is beyond comprehension.
“My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come …” Song of Solomon 2:10-12
Ah! The winter is past … bring on the flowers and the singing!
I read a blog the other day about mothering in the middle, when one feels a bit like a taxi driver, fast food cook supply manager, academic assistant, nutritionist, administrative assistant and cheerleader. I found myself reminiscing through that non-stop stage.
It happened to be on a day I was utterly bored.
You see, I am at the mothering young adults stage, the hands-off mothering stage.
The movement from mom in the middle to mom of young adults is similar to a hairpin turn driving down a steep mountainside … you’re moving at speeds you didn’t know possible, then, all of a sudden, you make a sharp turn facing the opposite direction … and the sun is obscuring your view, making it hard to see where you are going.
Our kids are all finished with high school and in varying levels of study and work. Two of our three are still living at home, one in another community. To be honest, I vacillate between wanting them to all be out and independent and wanting them all under one roof (mine).
This is the stage of hands-off mothering … unless they need me … RIGHT NOW! I am talking drop everything and help them right now.
This is where, I guess, boundaries should be developing … but I so need to be needed, and really, no one needs me as much as I desire to be needed anymore. So, I am struggling to draw those boundaries … wanting to be available if someone might have need of me (the struggle is real).
Then there is the I am gonna sever my tongue, from biting it so frequently part of this hands-off mothering stage. They need to be making their own decisions about their faith, their schooling, their work, their income and relationships … I just SO want to offer my opinions … all of the time.
As I was writing this post, hubby let me know what time one of our kids got in last ‘night’ (aka this morning) … gotta say, I really didn’t want to know … that ostrich with it’s head in the sand? I am getting to know him (or is it her) quite well.
I am learning that they need to make mistakes … their own. Live with their own consequences. It was a freedom I was graciously offered by own parents and I believe that I need to regift this freedom to them.
Then there are the heartbreaks … they are so real, so lasting at this young adult stage (though many can come to them earlier). Their relationship struggles, loneliness, uncertainty in their abilities, in their future, their jobs. Life for a young adult is not what it was thirty years ago, when I was twenty. There is little in society today, for a twenty-something that is typical … other than nightlife. And if they are not heartbroken for what is (or is not) going on in their own lives, they live vicariously through the hurts of their friends.
These heartbreaks ripple into my own heart … stories that include suicide, health struggles, drug addiction, sexual assault, homelessness and single parenting get processed with mom on SOS … and I have no answers when I am invited into these conversations … but I pray … how I pray.
At this stage, their friends are not necessarily ones that I know, have met, have made cookies with and carpooled to various events. Their friends are often faceless names that remind me that their life is their own.
Then there is the attempt to get everyone together for one meal … Oh my lanta! I think world peace might be easier to attain!
But …
They are learning, they are seeking, they are even thriving. They do good work, love deeply, seek justice, care for each other …
and they ask me to pray.
When they or their friend is in a tough place, they still ask me to pray.
And if that is the common thread of their need of me, at this hands-off mothering stage … then I will pray.
There is a video that I would return to (over and over) in those mom in the middle years, called The Invisible Woman (below). I realized, the other day, that it still has something to offer me at this hands-off stage of mothering:
“At times my invisibility has felt like an infliction to me, but it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my own pride. It’s okay that they don’t see, we don’t work for them, we work for Him. We sacrifice for Him. They will never see, not if we do it right, if we do it well. Lets pray that our work will stand as a monument to an even greater God.” Nicole Johnson
As I was watching a trailer for a movie, a conversation onscreen caught my attention.
A young man, new to Nunavut, asked of an elder, “you lived up here a long time?” The elder replied, “six thousand years.”
Like an oak tree that began with an acorn from another oak tree, or a salmon from the fertilization process of two salmon, we humans carry not just the DNA and physical characteristics, but the history of our family of origin.
A number of months ago, while collecting and organizing photos for a framed family history, I was intrigued by the photos collected on my maternal side of the family.
The same squinty eyes, over and over, in each image. As though the gene has just taken over generations of women (my own daughters included).
The quote from the movie made me wonder about those whose DNA I share … what else has been handed down? Not the seen, through our squinty eyes, but the unseen?
Are there strengths within their physical bodies that I have benefitted from? Weaknesses? Were my struggles with self control and downtime shared by these previous generations of women? Did my great, great, great grandmother stand at her clothesline in the Scottish countryside and see wonder in the mundane of daily life, too? Did it connect them to their Creator, as well?
Like trees, those who came before us have seeded within us the first fruits of our lives … not something that we have any control.
I look at my mother, a woman who persevered through a childhood of abuse and terror. She is my squinty-eyed model of an overcomer … one who took the generational curses of her paternal side and slammed the door on them … choosing to end that chapter of inheritance of abuse and alcoholism. She chose to be grafted into a new tree, one that grows better roots, sweeter fruit.
What did I inherit from these women who I knew not at all, or knew so little about?
Their images contain frowns … furrowed brows. I know my family tree was not seeded in the cultivated gardens of palaces, but in the countryside where work was hard and never-ending. I know that there were families full of love and closeness, as well as struggle and heartache.
Yet, in their furrowed brows and squinty eyes there is also a ready smile … strength in the midst of struggle, joy during the trial, hearts full … even when they were broken.
You ask: “Have I lived here long?”
To which I reply: “Thousands of years.”
“Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future. We make discoveries about ourselves.” Gail Lumet Buckley
Last spring, as we were packing up our belongings, our lives, in preparation for our move from a larger property to a townhome, I would wander our garden, drinking in the changes we had made, the flowers, shrubs and trees I had planted.
There was one tree that I remember standing in front of for quite awhile. It was a magnolia tree, planted a number of years ago, after receiving it as a gift one Mother’s Day. Once just three to four feet tall, it reached well above my height to over twelve feet in height.
Magnolias are my favorite tree (along with Japanese maples, Forsythia, Dogwoods … okay, I love trees that flower, have colors beyond just green). They are an ancient tree, believed to pre-date bees (pollination was done by beetles). Their flowers can be white, pink, coral or the creamiest white. Mine was pink, with large, sturdy ‘teacup’ flowers. They smell of spring and bloom early in the season. As they lose their petals the ground underneath appears to have experienced isolated snowfall.
It was as though that tree represented the very growth and changes of our family, and I remember standing in front of it, mourning my loss of this history holder, this memory of a gift from the ones I love the most.
I probably mourned this loss over all others when we moved.
Then, this spring, while driving home one day, my eyes were opened wide to see that there was a magnolia just in front of our townhouse. Actually, the street is lined with them … dozens of pink flowered magnolia trees right in front of our new home.
I smiled every day as they decorated our street with visual beauty.
Coincidence? I think not.
“He delights in every detail of their lives.” Psalm 37:23
When a need, a heartbreak, a sorrow is shared with white knuckles, tear-stained cheeks and seemingly nothing left within to ignite hope. When the eleventh hour has appeared to come … and gone over and over like a bad dream. When even the prayer warriors are are tiring on their knees.
Then comes good news …
and the circle of all who had surrounded those being petitioned for … shared in the news as though it was their own …
for it was their own.
They had seen the sorrow, the pain and grief. They had heard of the questions, the whys. They had had no choice, no option but to pray alongside, wrap their arms around the ones hurting and take on some of that hurt, and life it up to God.
It is to intercede, to come between the hurting ones and God, loving the people, feeling the pain and asking God to move, to act. It is the greatest gift that we can give to another.
When the prayers, the interceding comes to a joyous end … the whole community celebrates as though the grace from God were theirs alone … for it is. They have been part of the intimate process of loving one another.
“Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.” Ephesians 6:18
Prince Harry said it best, “how any woman does what they do is beyond comprehension” in his response, after witnessing the birth of his son.
Today, in North America, is Mother’s Day. A day when mothers (biological or adopted) and mother-figures are celebrated for … just being mum (mom, ma, mommy, mother, etc.).
It is a lovely day for so many, who have done so much.
For others it is not so lovely. If that is you, stop reading this and click on my post, written just for you, for I understand When Mums Day Hurts.
What Prince Harry didn’t know, when his wife pushed their son into their shared world, what he will not know for many years to come, is that his wife has just begun the hardest work of motherhood. As the umbilical cord was cut, the real work of motherhood begins … that of letting go.
Motherhood is the most awe-inspiring, heart-swelling, prayer motivating, faith-building, white knuckle determination, rip your heart out and squeeze every last drop of life from you experiences.
It is the indescribable experience of a lifetime, that lasts a lifetime. It is a constant push-pull, constant drawing in and letting go.
The job of a mother is, from the beginning of conception, to grow and build and prepare a child for independence … from herself.
Our intuitive desire to hold tight, over-written by our biological inclination to prepare our children for life apart from us.
As a child of a mother, I am keenly aware that in no way can I ever out-love my mother. Nor can I need her as she does me. And it is her fault (being blamed is also part of motherhood 😉 )! For it was my mother who taught me to grow up, that I can do it myself, that I can do anything.
As my own children have grown into adults, I have grown to understand that my letting go of my children continues as I step back and allow them to be independent of me … my advice, my plans, my choices (so much more easily said than done … do I hear an amen?). It is this independence of body and mind that can bring some of the sweetest reunions, when they bring their life back into closeness with mine, sharing what they have learned with me.
Letting go is hard for us moms. For we love our children so much more deeply than words can express. Yet, letting go is the mantra of mums. It is the daily cutting of the umbilical cord, the daily waving good bye, the daily whisper you can do it. And they move forward from where we are, watching them go.
When my days of life and living are done, when my kids sit around a table looking at photos, laughing at silliness, recounting memories that only they share, I don’t care if they think my giving birth was monumental, that my brownies were the best or that I transported them like a full time taxi driver when they were kids.
I hope they are able to say I struggled to point them to Christ, I loved deeply, hugged tightly and that I let them go.
When the calendar turns to May, grieving begins afresh for many.
There are numerous variations on this grief, but the reason is the same … it is the month when Mother’s Day is celebrated.
As valid and deserving as the celebrations and accolades are for most people, it is valid and deserving to equally acknowledge the white elephant of grief for so many especially this month.
My own first Mother’s Day was sorrowful. Four months earlier, at eighteen weeks gestation, our first pregnancy, our first child, ceased to live and grow within me. I remember that following Mother’s Day … I remember soldiering on, tight upper lip, continuing on as always … aching from the depths of my being, wanting to just be home, mourning alone and openly with hubby.
For others it will be the inability to conceive, the struggles toward adoption, living the solo life when you would rather create another human with a life-long partner. All of these sorrows originating in two opposing realities … you desire a child more than anything else and there seems to be no way around your present reality that it just isn’t happening.
It is a grief that is present every time you menstruate, see another who is pregnant, hear an announcement of a child born, get invited to a baby shower, hear moms complaining about their kids, see a child who looks like your child could look. It is a grief akin to constantly having a scab ripped off, blood gushing as though a new wound. It does not completely heal.
For others it will be the loss of a child. Though our losses (five of them) were in utero, I have no idea what it is like to lose your child, to have him or her die and be buried. At any age, we humans believe it is just not right for a parent to bury their child … it just goes against the lifeline … it is not how things should happen. Mother’s Day would be that reminder of what has been lost, again it would be that injury that never fully heals.
Then there are those whose child was adopted (with or against their will) and this has left a gapping void in their heart and life. Mother’s Day being the reminder of what could have been. To be a mother yet never a mom … to know that a part of your heart is out there, somewhere.
There are those whose relationship with their mother is strained. Of course this can go both ways, and it may be the mother who is isolated from her child by choices of one or the other. When apologies cannot be listened to (or even heard) there is loss, grief … thoughts of what if? why? and where did I go wrong haunting every day.
For many, Mother’s Day is the grief of the mental loss of their mom. Disease may have seemingly stolen their mom from them and a visit is no longer greeted with acknowledgement that mom remembers you. Each visit contains a wish to be known again. Longing for what was is deep and sorrowful.
For others, there is no longer any earthly means of communicating, of laughing together, of that warm mother-child embrace … for death has separated them. Photos can reignite memories and feelings, but
opportunities to love, laugh and inhale the scent of love
are gone forever … and it just hurts.
Like David we cry out:
“How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?“ Psalm:13:2
The mother’s heart is an endless one … and it even exists for those who have never had a child address you as such.
To those who are grieving this Mother’s Day, it is okay to grieve. Like David, it is okay to lament, to say what we really mean (God knows it already). It is okay to mourn what is not, what will never be, what is gone. Then, like David, “trust in his unfailing love” (v. 5), for he is acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:5).
People have often faulted the Bible for inconsistencies. Rarely in the lessons or the life of Jesus is this true.
Recently though, as the Easter story was read at church, I found what seemed an inconsistency as a verse was read and another popped into my mind.
The verse read was John 13:33:
“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.”
The one that popped into my mind was just a few verses away, in John 14:3:
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
On first glance it would seem that Jesus is giving contradictory messages to his disciples (the audience he is addressing in both accounts).
As I investigated these verses I learned a few things. In the first verse, Jesus address “my children”. This is a tender address, and this is the only time Jesus ever addresses his disciples this way. It is akin to saying my darlings and is usually reserved for use with children.
It is as though he is saying is that it is not their time to go with him … that they are not ready. He knows what is to come in the following hours … the suffering, death. That is his lot, not theirs.
They lacked maturity, courage … shown after his arrest when they fled and hid, completely denying their close relationship with him.
Ah, then in the second passage, as tenderly as the one who addressed them as “my children” he continues his parental love and care, much like we might do if we were leaving our children with a babysitter. He gives assurance that he will return, that he is always with them.
I loved what I read in the Pulpit Commentary, on the first passage, which actually brings the two together (as did my mind, initially thinking they were contradictory). Restated, as though Jesus himself were the one to expand on the grander connection of these two verses:
“The time is not yet come for you to enter into my glory; you cannot yet come, you have to continue my earthly ministry, to prolong the testimony which I have given concerning God, and which God has given concerning me. The time will come when “I will receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also;” but now he prays, “though I am no more in this world, these are in the world holy Father, keep them” (John 17:11).
So folks, as the Eastertide season (from Easter Sunday to Pentecost) continues, as we continue to consider Jesus’ resurrection from the dead … we need to be reminded that we still have purpose in being here, in being left behind, as it were. But, there is a place, personally prepared by Jesus himself, and one day we will be with him in that place.
Until then, we have the assurance that Jesus is still interceding on our behalf.
“though I am no more in this world, these are in the world holy Father, keep them” John 17:11
Why did Jesus take his disciples into Gethsemane to pray?
He knew they did not understand the gravity of that night. He knew they did not understand the cross he was to bear (literally and figuratively). He knew they would not stay awake with him.
So why did he take them into the garden that night? And why was he so obviously disappointed when they did what was natural, after a long day, after a feast?
I expect that Jesus was, quite simply, so sorrowful … he knew that one of his own was to betray him, that his human body would be tortured and broken, that he would die, that his father would turn his face from him … all so that these men, and humankind thereafter, would have the freedom to choose to keep watch or sleep.
I expect that he also had a lesson in mind for them … for us.
The Gospels tell us of Jesus responses to their garden napping:
“Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 4“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:40-41
“Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? 3Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Mark 14:37-38
“Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” Luke 22:46
As we read the commonalities of the three passages there are three things that stand out to me:
When Jesus asks why they are sleeping (and not ‘with’ him), I wonder if Jesus is reminded of a night when he was sleeping, and his disciples were sorrowful? That night on the Sea of Galilee, when the waves were rocking their boat, their world. When they were certain of their demise. And Jesus strolled across the Sea of Galilee and the waves calmed. He had been awake when their very life was at stake.
After finding them asleep Jesus directs them to watch and pray. This is the lifejacket of every follower of Jesus … keep your eyes open, don’t get lazy in looking around, in praying. We stay awake to pray, we also pray to stay awake. We are more than mortal beings who need physical rest, we also need spiritual rest, but that rest comes through connection to God.
Jesus tells them the consequence of not watching and praying … temptation. This, Jesus knows, is the reality of being fully human … the temptation of the flesh over the good intent of the God-infused spirit. In Romans 7:25 we see that Paul laments this reality, when he states, “with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin.” Thankfully, for the disciples, as well as us, to follow Jesus is to live under his grace.
It is interesting that John’s account of this event did not mention those things. Instead, John reflects on the prayer of Jesus, for his disciples. This makes me wonder … were all asleep?
“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.” John 17:13-19
itsawonderfilledlife 