Grow

i wrote this piece as a creativity boot camp challenge word prompt, but wanted to actually feature it here and not just under my create page.

mama was a natural despite being as northern-bred and citified as they come. she made plenty of mistakes early on, like the time she put a whole cup of sugar in the greens instead of just a tablespoon. granny b sure cackled at that and my dad wore his bemused expression which looks an awful lot like his annoyed expression.

she'd never canned before, but after that garden with more corn and tomatoes than we knew what to do with (and more shucking than i'd ever hoped to do again), she had so many rows of red the color of july, all lined up neat, brass rims a smart salute to her success.

and flowers, too, responded to her touch. she weeded to forget the hour-long commute to work, and she watered to forget the politics of an office. river rocks lined the pathway, and her little pond bubbled and shimmered fleeting gold below. she had primroses she transplanted from meemee's kentucky farm, all the assorted annual color she could find, and a few haphazard succulents for humor. we never wondered at the love she had for that garden.

i didn't love the idea of gardening until i lived with meg--and even then i never really asked her to teach me what she knew. i always assumed there'd be plenty of time to learn by osmosis. she had a different love for the garden, one that reveled in the sheer work of it, of the hands dirty and shade hat pulled tight and low, and the lawn immaculate, not just to HOA standards but to her own.

she shared her garden with gale who lived next door, and they separated too-thick day lillies and let sweet william grow all over the place, and waited breathlessly for the don juans to scent the air. meg always wished the peonies on her side would do as well as gale's, and gale always wished her quince would produce any fruit at all.

she gave me the ficus tree she'd had for years before i knew her, a beloved weeping benjamin. i threw it in the trash heap outside last weekend, its branches dry and brittle from too many forgotten waterings and too many grubby fingers snapping twigs and pulling on roots. the tree had died on my watch. she used to hang the jesse tree ornaments for her boys growing up, and my ornaments are still wrapped away, waiting til the boys are old enough not to tear them up. there's no place to hang them now.

we've always rented, and so i've never really taken time to rake soil and sow tender shoots, but i dream. i dream of a garden that i can fill with edible bounty and find treasure for the three boys that have grown inside of me and are growing outside of me. i pore over burpee catalogs and wistfully sigh at the jackson and perkins roses, but i have no garden, and no one close by to teach me to till the land.

i haven't been to mama's house in seven years. i lived with meg for only three, but we talk weekly and she asks after my little seedlings, those boys of big feet and tall stature and loud laughs that mama has never known. and i wonder what kind of garden i will grow. who will teach me?

Broken

(the picture says, "God can heal a broken heart, but he has to have all the pieces.")

today i read a lovely post on brokenness from a newly found and favorited blog, and many of the comments including my own have been floating in my head. brokenness is a recurring theme here on my blog because it's a recurring theme in my life. in past circumstances, i've flailed at the idea of being broken, but really, it's the breaking that's so hard, because once i'm truly IN that place of painful exposure i realize that there was another who broke first. broke as high and wide as the sky and as far from the east to the west. broke so that the earth trembled, and His own blood poured free.

as i wrote in my comment,

"broken is bloody shards of glass and soul, and it is salve to let the poison out.

broken is healing, and broken is Grace.

broken is the forbidden fruit eaten, and a plan of salvation for adam's children.

there is a promise in broken in broken that outshines the hurts, the doubts, the fears, and the self-focus. there is love inside the broken because Love was broken."

it's easy to write about how wonderful and healing brokenness is, but i've also been where it is ugly and raw and i plead to just continue as i am. when a 2 year engagement ended in a day, the healing was long in coming, and i argued with God as my 3-year-old tantrums "no." but i know, now, well after the fact, that if it hadn't been for that kind of heartbreak, i would never have met my husband and been in a whole place to move forward in relationship, nor would i have had the courage to deal with my broken relationship with my parents. i hated every step of the way. sin, too, has a way of cutting deeply, and repentance is itself a kind of being torn, but without the love of our Father, we'd be undone. i am glad for the breaking that draws me close.

Many waters cannot quench love

we washed each other's feet at our wedding. water pours and love swells, a physical promise to love each other for always.

i remember a shower together, he laughingly insists i hog the hot streams, his hands wrapped in wonder around my already swelling belly. we begin to know the tickling sensation of those things that can wedge our distractions from another, those little flutter kicks that turn into nursing babe and toddling walker and finally brothers three. those little men who need their mama. the big man who needs his wife.
a woman can feel torn from all the needing.

a discussion with college girlfriend about the book A Severe Mercy, and how sacrificial love could be neatly tied into the phrase "a glass of water in the night."

a more recent discussion with a friend who has observed that staying at home with little ones and fighting her own selfish desires often looks like her husband helping her more than she helps him. yet we were created to be helpmeets, and long for that kind of love to come naturally and easily.

i love that my husband fits my soul so well, he knows me inside and out, woos me even as he rough-houses what our love made. i love that our Father saw fit to give us to each other, rib returning to rightful owner. we are imperfect. we journey on in our Story, but one truth to hold us fast: i am my Beloved's and he is Mine.

to join others in celebrating the spiritual practice of holy matrimony with ann @ holy experience, click the button below.

Reflection

breasts, once touched til my heart
was RAW-
please stop-
flimsy layer of lace no shield,
now sway, stretched with
nurturing
those little red lips
those closed eyes
small hands clutched close
how can i hate these breasts, still?

stomach, once held sucked in a constant POPULARITY
contest
now squishes out, having won 3 times
-MAMA-
but i had no mama to help me push these
little ones out
where was she, then,
and now?

no was meaningless.
hands felt helpless
now cradle sweet, sweaty palms.
voice left powerless
now sings lullabyes
and kisses boo-boos away.

old body, ragged cavern of hate
(don't look, don't want, don't touch)
new body, birth-scarred victorious
nursing love and milk
wombing body and soul
turned inside OUT.

(this was a response to a homework assignment my counselor asked me to do-to look in the mirror in my underclothes and make statements of affirmation. it was exceedingly hard to do, and painful. thank you for letting me share here)

Story

it has taken me years to believe, accept, and find relief in the fact that God had his hand on me from Beginning. he used to simply be something not unlike Santa, big, friendly, "up there," and desirable, but possibly not true. then he was a mysterious cloud to be feared, always on the verge of punishing me for sins committed and unknown. then in academic stagnancy, he was clock-maker, marionetter, distant and solid. but then, slowly, a ray of light shining in a storm cloud, he became Real. not quite the God-as-Father or Friend or Lover, but very, very real. so real i wanted to reach out and touch him. so real i feared i'd never touch him. he created me. he has broken me and molded me. he has Authored me.

i grew up for a while in a single-mom household, not much different from other single parent families, excepting the unavoidable fact of my being a triplet. compare and contrast was a fact of life growing up. we only went to church on easter and christmas, and then only when granny made our outfits (always matching, of course). we were poor, often without electricity and food, though i don't recall much of that. i remember eating blueberry doughnuts and riding the carousel. it wasn't til later that my mom confessed she'd bought day-old doughnuts for a quarter and that we went to the "shady" mall to ride the carousel free on thursdays.
then, she met a man and remarried. this was such a novelty for us girls: we were receiving attention from a father figure for the first time in our lives, and we were giddy with it. we were 7 when they married, and we went to church on a regular basis for the first time. we actually had to, because dad was a pastor, and in the early days he often filled in for various holy-ghost types. it was very new and very impressive to a young sponge, and i made a profession of faith. i was mostly scared of going to hell, but i also wanted to be good. i wanted to be loved. i wanted to be complete.
dad seemed to delight in his new brood, and gladly sat us on his knees and gifted us with goodies we'd never been privy to til then. soon, i smiled shyly and smugly at the whispered favoritism i received and was only mildly alarmed at the lingering hugs and kisses. mild alarm swiftly turned to inner dismay and guilty sadness as being tucked in turned to being touched and caressed in a way i knew was wrong. the touches and provocative words and threats lasted for years, and he preached all the while. i began to hate god, but i didn't know those strong words then.
i learned my sisters were also favorites, daddy's little girls. we told mama. nothing and everything changed. he never touched me again, and our family never talked about it again, but i felt a shell forming.
throughout high school i sought solace in grades and quiet perfectionism, fearing being singled out, but forcing myself to continue to be good, do good, seem good. because i wasn't, you see? i was dirty, and shameful and ashamed. i was wounded and bleeding on the inside and perfect and calm on the outside.
i made it to a small, prestigious private school and i feel my true story begins here. i met christian girlfriends for the first time, a sweetness of relationship i didn't even know existed beyond the bond i shared with my sisters. i attended my first ever bible study and remember my leader crying joy-tears when i asked her so shyly what 'grace' meant? i thought i was pursuing grace; little did i know it was pursuing me. i wrestled with faith for the first time, not ever having faced Doubt before (we were required to fulfill a religious component, and i didn't know at the time that it was going to bible-bash!).
and in all of this: quiet, sick-to-stomach anger. and i finally told.
flood.
i went home, asked them why we never talked about it again. why, if we girls were crazy hadn't we been seen by someone? why, if it was true did we never deal with it? why why why why why?
they told me i was crazy. that i had lied. that i had misunderstood. they tried to pit sister against sister. the anger balled but flatlined into unknowingness. i didn't know how to deal, and i was unequipped. i still talked, though, to a couple of counselors, band-aids.
i found relationship, my first boyfriend at 19, and we were pups, new and excited and it didn't last. i'm not sure i expected it to. i still didn't feel complete. my senior year i met another and he took my breath away. we danced and shared what wasn't ours to give and when that tore apart, i felt the ebb of pain pushing against my fragile-ly held barrier. i seeped.
anger has a way of breaking through the cracks and cracking itself wide. i know exactly how a bullet-pierced windshield must feel, spiderwebbing fissures running til there's no stopping them.
real counseling to help: stringent lidocaine to help me stop. breathe. tell. break. breathe. be. believe. hear. all truth.
i finally met him, and he loved me whole. we, too, awakened love before its time, and this time the hurt came from the Bride, who cut us off and faulted us for the beautiful life we created. tails tucked for a season, we nursed wounds and baby boy. this new life! and the Lover woos again. slowly, timidly, we crawl into lap and pray together and share fears/wants/hopes. we return to the fold.
three boys.
i mourn loss of my mom, no one to teach me to hold these little ones close. no one to show me how to love unconditionally. the fissures still stretch, and i lash out at my babes. i cry with them all too often and i breach that promise, unspoken always, to never harm my child.
my heart has been torn wide, and i have suffered long and i know a hope that burns fire and glory and sadness unlike any other. i know the despair of being broken, of breaking others. i know storytelling and storyletting and storymaking, because i am witness to, character in, and daughter of His story. my story.
new counselor, new tools, new sense of cautious, carefree love. i wrap arms wide around the men, big and little, in my life and i thank Him for writing us. i thank him for being bigger than and infinite. i thank him for loving me and using me and folding me under his wing.
story goes. it sears sometimes. it delights othertimes. it teaches and exhorts and testifies. it is I am.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
my story is one of Redemption. i was born in need of a savior. i have experienced the woundedness of sexual abuse. i have known premarital sex and its precarious hold on the heart. i know the kind of severed relationship that feels forever. i know unhealthy anger. but i also know sins forgiven. healing. evil-for-purpose. and a way of turning to Him, to glorify how much i'm not and how much he Is. i am still in professional counseling to aid me in my control of my anger and to find right and proper channels for it. i have been blessed with 3 beautiful little boys, and i am finding new ways to delight in them daily, as hard of work as they can be sometimes! if you have more questions for me, i'd welcome your email to mistygreen13 AT gmail DOT com.

Pause and privilege

i pause, "consider all the world thy hands have made."
i, just dust, can star-gaze and sea-wonder,
revel in my own ordinary and know that
i was made for this--
beyond this--
of this.
moments to breathe in, savor, hold in, exhale.
i, muddy soul, love-struck and faith-child,
swallow daily pride and try to remember
i was made for Him:
his pleasure,
his worship.
giving thanks in all things, i drink full moments of
stop-don't move-remember this scene
remember in stones and banners
how He paved the way,
i, ragamuffin beggar
wearing white linen Privilege.


grace to you today.

Muddy water

the quote referred to children acting out to get much-needed attention that was being withheld; it suggests that they'd rather have negative attention than none at all:

one will drink muddy water when he is dying of thirst.

oh, the times i've spent drinking at idol/idle fountains, drinking a stale water that is lifeless. much like that woman asking the wrong questions, wanting the right answers.

may i drink of the only water today, truly thirsty

o God, you are my God,

earnestly i seek you;

my soul thirsts for you,

my body longs for you,

in a dry and weary land

where there is no water.

i have seen you in the sanctuary

and beheld your power and glory.

because your love is better than life,

my lips will glorify you.

psalm 63:1-3