Love without condition

i've often said i want jesus with skin on
a chance to talk to him in the flesh
a chance to hold his brown wrinkled hand in mine

i'm pretty sure she'd like that too
even if she doesn't call it jesus;
she would like to be looked in the eyes
and talked with, not at or, worse, not at all
her skintight shirt her only shield to the night, and hate. 

i think he would know if jesus-skin offered him a real meal
not a value meal, not a dollar in change
but true change, life change
and priceless love, cigarette burning ash
and eyes that see past cardboard "laziness."

who am i to want him here
but not to be him here?
how can i not feed his sheep
when that's all he's ever asked?

to love as he loved
surely that's an impossible task
how can i? won't i get hurt? won't it cost too much?

his hands are browned and worn, and
he grips that little hand all white and chubby, and
there is a light in both their eyes,
like lightning,
the kind that burns the soul,
and i think that's the first step
to walking jesus feet-
to love without condition



ann asked how we can be jesus's hands, reaching out to the hurting in the world, and this is a poem i wrote as an initial reply. join her for walk with him wednesday?

Throwing away the pinch pots

i worked at a montessori school that year, my first post-college job, my first to feel like a grown up, despite being surrounded by little children. maybe because of it.
i assisted jodi, who taught me a lot that year, mostly about being true to yourself and how to listen with your soul. children and broken hearts need this the most, and i was both that year.

~~~~~
she was a potter, and taught a little slab work for art projects and end-of-year gifts. i knew instantly that i was made to love or appreciate pots, maybe make them one day, too.

many years later, i still have ever only attempted three bowls on the wheel, and i crumpled my first tiny pinch pots back into the pile for making slip. i shrugged off my disappointment and simmered in my own quiet perfectionism, vowing to buy the beautiful works of others.

~~~~~
i still struggle with perfectionism.
i like to quote the verse that says He will complete the good work started, but i often fail to live by it.
i see my oldest son, so sure and sensitive both; i see in him a demand for excellence, of himself and of his younger brothers.
i see my tiny middle man, so sunny and spirited, crumpling under two year old inabilities.

it is my turn to stop throwing away the pinch pots.
~~~~~
you hear the sermons reminding us we're all clay. the reverend asks, "now, if you're going to be clay in His hands anyway, wouldn't you rather be soft and pliable? wouldn't you rather be moldable than be stiff and unbendable, forcing him to break you?" it's a clever question, and one that gives pause. but the truth is, bisqued and glazed with our own hard hearts, or supple under the assumption we're so good, we are still in need of the Potter's grace.
~~~~~
grace-based parenting is the hardest thing i've ever done. i'm not so good at giving grace to myself but i want my boys to be excellent at it. i'm not so good at keeping unwarranted anger down, but i want my boys to feel loved and secure.
on a day of stormy tempers and breaking molars and sibling rivalry, i feel the need for grace in-dwelling. so today i sing the best chorus from one of the best songs*, and we dance.
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees


writing on the spiritual practices of parenting this week with ann and *singing the song worlds apart by jars of clay.

A time as this

i talked to my mama yesterday and i wanted to cry and scream and let violent out after.

she has cut off youngest sister, the one who's held on the longest for all the wrong reasons, but who was always there hurting and dying inside, holding onto her mama because she was afraid if she let go, she'd slip off the edge. and now that mother says she can't handle youngest, that she sees Another Woman, and i want to scream and let go and run to hold sister.

i talk to surrogate-mama, meg, and she tries to soothe and pray comfort into my heart, but i don't know if i can listen.

she reminds me of the story of esther, how since we know the rest of the story, the ending, when the king storms from the room, it makes sense. but it didn't make sense to esther; was he running because she admitted Jewess, or running because of evil planned? and, too, we see the power of a mighty God when mordecai whispers, "for such a time as this," but all esther could have felt was fear, uncertain footing in a palace not hers, the weight of a people crushing her soul.

i wear my sister's weight heavy, but what if for a time like this one my own relationship with my mom is patching while sister's breaks away, for life? for her time to heal, for emotional space to be raw and real?

God knows the rest of the story; i often can't see past teh very words of yesterdays to allow todays and tomorrows to look any different. yet i am not author, and it is not my vision alone. i can't often sift sense out of this mess, and yet this is one piece of the whole tapestry, the one where the ending is the same as it has ever been.

today i'm writing with Ann and others, choosing to walk with Him, for i know no other way.




***
there is also change in our family's lives on the horizon. many decisions need to be made, and there is not a lot of time. help us pray for clarity and peace?

Satisfied to stay

i mentioned in my last post that i'd done some back-reading in journals past, and the words, both mine and borrowed, have been a balm. i've been able to remember where i've come, the darkness that felt at the time to overtake my spirit, and i fought hard against heart and flesh, both. i was in love with an idol and the worship alone broke me into pieces. i could not be content because i was trying to obey two masters. when the altar was taken down, the tears poured out angrily and the hands stayed balled, clutching sheets hard to self, and i wrestled, prayed for a return to the past.

a girlfriend whispered the dangers of "clinging to egypt's bondage" and i wandered soul-lost for many months.

then.

i began meeting with her, and she opened my eyes up to see the truth and to see the good in the breaking. she helped me remember where worship belonged, and she guided me prayerfully-wrapped to seek Him again, fall back in love with Love.
these words were penciled in those years ago, words from a book she'd written and which she was having me read:
contentment is an "inward grace given by God that results in a mindset of being satisfied to stay in your circumstances for as long as God wills." it is truly preferring a single, solitary day in His courts, even as a doorman, than to spend lifetimes in the kingdoms of the idols.
it means rest. resting in His grace, His promise to keep, His will, His pierced hands.
if you had told me (and some did try) that i could move on from that sick, ill-sighted love and that i'd one day believe the God of the universe holds me in his hand, i would not have agreed. i was not willing to stay in His will for me then if it meant heartbreak, waking up every morning with disappointment clenching my breast.

i wake up today a different woman, and only by His doing.
yes, i discovered another love along the way, but i am also learning to let go of self and my own will. it is finally figuring out that to stay in the gates of His will is the perfect place, the still waters that quench a soul thirst, so i rest in Him.

won't you click the button below and join in as we talk about the spiritual grace of rest this month?

Resilient pewter

i read madeleine l'engle's a ring of endless light when i was in middle school. a girl spends a summer swimming with dolphins, and upon her first touch of one, she refers to its skin as "resilient pewter." the phrase has always remained with me, because unlike her uncle (or some such) in the book, i was less keen on the phrase. it was too much an oxymoron, and i, a 13-year old dolphin-expert (ha!), simply didn't agree.

the phrase lingers in my mind, as does its matching title.

he wears a tungsten ring, with pewter's dark hue - none of the dullness and all the ring of light.

the ring is heavy and large. so is his love for this family. he made us into one, accepting all of my baggage and past and insecurities, and he has co-created three, some resemble, one does not except in spirit, and he loves us so full. he leaves us, for work, and the hole is heavy and large.

our love has to be resilient. we weather the mundane, but often peppered with impatience and irritation instead of calm and grace. we resolve long distances, but "i need your help" can sound more selfish than "i love you with all of me, and it rips me wide open when you leave me." the dependency can wear on him even as i'm wearing three boys and wishing the thrill in my heart were louder than the din of all this crazy-love, just the sound of his voice at the end of a tired day.

our love has to be strong but supple. we bend as reeds under the weight of grace, for we've worn out our welcome on resentment and pride and self-sufficiency.

our hands lock, my thin glints shiny-white next to his dark slash, our hard metals melding into one, like flesh, like soul-meeting.

i'm joining, once again, ann's marriage series for the month of june. stop by the rest of the community and say hi!

And yet

sometimes i stare at him as if i don't know him, and the gaze lingers inside. we're just on this side of five years and still young enough to be considered new at all this, and yet we have 3 little boys and life has stretched along with the belly and it seems forever since the sparkle was fresh and the talks lasted a million years into the night.

sometimes i fear he stares at me, unknowing who this softer, rounder, grayer version of me is, this one who has struggled with motherhood and how to be a wife, the balance undoing.

i'm reminded of meg's words, "you'll be making this harder than normal, and marriage even on its best day is still hard," and i think i know what she means.

we never had a married season of just two, of knowing and finding and beginnings. our two started out as three, and we were learning labor techniques and registering for baby goods just months after opening our bridal registry gifts.

and yet.

there is a knowing between him and me. we've known grace, and we've known forgiveness from a God as big as the cosmos, and we've seen love made three times, all look so different and form us so differently and shape how we know each other. there have been adjustments with each babe: seasons of bedsharing turned roomsharing ; the bodysharing that touches me out from little hands and a tiredness that feels eternal; his long hours spent in travel with phone calls that turn into business transactions or temper flaring because i just want him home, with me.

we have an advantage, a would-be-curse turned into blessing. we had to be on the same team, never saw it otherwise. we didn't have the years that allowed us to be intimate, just two, but we had the months to figure out that if we weren't pitching for the same team and shared all the same goal-glories, we'd never make it work. He has been kind enough to show us through many failures and mistakes on our part, that our love for each other can sustain because His love is stamped indelibly in our hearts and to veer away would be to die.


a favorite quote by antione de st.-exupery: life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. our hearts' gaze is fixed upon the Only One who can succeed where we don't. this is the secret to making any marriage last.
please, read over at ann's and her walk with him wednesday series on marriage.