On the guilty days, I find myself obsessing over the cracks in the back patio and the endless parade of water and syrup spots on the counter tops. I calculate my days to have the least amount of inconvenience and the utmost in comfort. I shy away from anything that will exhaust me. And I embrace anything that will allow me to breathe, slowly and calmly.
These speedbumps in my brain do not fit well with raising toddlers. They also don't fit well with being a Christian really. But by scandalous grace, I'm allowing God to work on those parts of me day by day. Sadly, there are days where I spent more time sweeping the floor than reading their favorite books with them; cleaning more dishes than I play dinosaurs. And my heart breaks over that.
It doesn't break because I feel like I should be spending more intentional time with them–we spend a lot of time together–it breaks because I am still a slave to the idea that I should be doing more to have purpose. In this place I am taking the gift of motherhood for granted; a gift that some ache for and cry over at night.
On the days of gratitude, I remember that this life is not about doing and that I can rest in just-being. For the first time in my life, I wake up facing the day and only the day. I don't plan out my weeks and months based on job deadlines or vacations I am dying to take. I literally can only take it one day at a time because my life is so blank.
It is blankly beautiful; I am just praying for boldness and bravery to fill it up with beautiful creative, God inspired things that tighten the laces on this family unit I've been a partner in creating. But more than that, I want to use this space to run to God.
I am not one of those moms who always has something unique and fun for her kids to do. I don't plan trips to their favorite places or play dates everyday in succession. For some, that gives them peace of mind and is necessary for their well-being, but, for me, not always "doing" is an exercise in patience and being in this place fully and wholly. It is a discipline for me to be still. To have space. To get bored. And to be led to inventiveness alongside my kids.
And somewhere in there I am in wait for the beauty of the weight to be revealed. The gloriously weighty call of motherhood.
I have a dear friend who lost her second child at 38 weeks. She was able to hold her daughter for 12 hours before she had to let her go. We were talking about her sweet daughter this last weekend, and she described to me how one of the hardest things to process was holding the baby blanket empty; there was no weight against her chest like there should have been. And how strangely enough, the most comforting thing was feeling the one pound weight of her ashes on her lap. The small box was evidence of her daughter's existence, there was a weight to offset the immense amount of nothingness that she was left with.
And this woman, what a warrior. The way she talks about Christ it's like her first language. A portal has been opened between heaven and earth for her, and she lives between them inviting her daughter's memory and Christ's constant presence to be the bridge that connects her to a life of meaning.
And here I am: fiddling with filler when this type of unspeakable and unbearable pain is a reality.
How can I remain too scared or hard headed to reach up for the deep stuff? To let Christ permeate my being; to let the spirit speak continuously–not in spurts when I have presence of mind enough to take myself out of the equation.
I do want to know him like those who speak his language fluently do; to let him fill in those insidious cracks in my character that mirror the cracks in my patio.
The hardest thing for me as a mother hasn't been the sleepless nights or the diapers or the potty training or the tiredness, or the tantrums, or the monotony; the hardest thing has been tricking myself into thinking that there is something beyond these four walls and these two souls that I am supposed to be doing.
Being happy and present: that is one of the biggest challenges facing a Type A, do-it-yourself, creative junkie like myself. I know the answer lies in knowing Christ more and focusing less on me. But I am horrible at surrendering the need to do over to my God. To get out of my own way. To shut up. To sit down. To enjoy. To stop the spinning wheels.
Today my son, daughter and I were still enough to sit in front of the windows long enough to spy three Stellar's jays, four chickadees, and one robin. And while we were trying to name them, the oddest thing happened. A hot-pink headed hummingbird flew right in front of us and hovered for just long enough for it to feel like magic. He didn't zip by in a blur, he hovered right in front of us, face-to-our-faces and simply shimmered before he flitted off to smell the yellow flowers in our bed.
Jesus has been speaking to me in bird lately. A language that I don't fully understand, but it just feels like gift and maybe the beginnings of a dialogue that perhaps will soon flow without stopping. I heard my son whisper as we sat on the ground watching the birds peck and nibble on the seed in a nearby feeder, "Thank you God and Jesus for these birds. I love you so much."
And just like that my heart splattered into a million gooey pieces for two reasons.
1) My son does not whisper. He has two volumes. Loud and louder.
2) That's exactly what I was thinking.
For a brief second my son's heart was laid bare and beautiful. I saw Jesus speak to him the way he speaks to me and he spoke back. It was small window into the wonder that God may be knocking on his little heart already.
After that, we actually had a particularly hard day. But in the wise words of Paul Rudd in the highly spiritual film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, he explains that the secret to surfing is to "Do less". And in parenting no amount of low or high tides, crashing waves or calm waters can change what I know: the less I do the more I see Christ at work.
We're in this together,
M
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