A Letter To My Two-Year Old

Dearest Diana,

They’ve rushed by us like the wind, haven’t they? These past two years, towering behind us. I’ve tried to stand in the center of it all, directly in the bullseye of experience, to feel that wind swirl around me, to lift my face and let it carry me high. 

You are a wonder. Have I told you that lately? I hope so. I hope that I tell you every day, beginning now, until I am gray and you are carrying your own child on your hip. I love the way your curls fall across your forehead. They are an exclamation point, they punctuate every emotion, I am won over before you even begin. I love when you reach for my hand when we walk up the stairs. You are always careful about choosing a finger. Some days your prefer the index finger. Lately you have wanted my ring finger, usually on my left hand. Maybe, even that, is God’s redemption. Do you know that finger carries significance for me, that I used to wear a diamond ring there?

When you were born, I thought I might overflow so completely that there would be nothing of me left. I mean really, I just spilled out. It didn’t matter that you were small, that I had imagined mother love as a fenced-in thing, something I could order and control. Your smallness contained God’s majesty—you were spark and you were light and it was midday when you came but it felt like dawn.  Maybe it’s ingrained in our double X chromosomes, but the love rose like high tide, fierce and protective and so tender I was afraid of breaking your tiny body, all five pounds of you, feather-light but everything in me pouring out to enclose you.

                   

I was watching you yesterday. We were outside and I was sitting on the steps, you were running through the yard, picking up rocks and pulling up handfuls of grass. You still run as if your legs were brand new, clumsy and distracted; you’re not sure which way you want to go. Maybe the neurons are firing too quickly, your legs are too small to contain it all. It is that sacred childhood innocence, the joy in what I have called mundane, but you have called beautiful and brand-new. It brings me to my knees, the way you can find that tiny speck of glitter on my arm, the little cactus growing on the hill behind our house, or the pool of water filled with rocks that borders the park. You always pull me towards these small miracles, “Mom, Mom, Mom,” and sometimes I’m dragged. You ask me to join in your wonder, to exclaim, so that you can show me the way the cactus pricks your finger when you touch it, the way the water is murky at the bottom beneath the rocks. And the glitter on your arm, Mom, see the way it catches the sunlight? Yes, Baby, I see, I see. It catches and it lands, right there, the glimmer in your eyes.

                 

I know that our life is not ideal. There is a lot I wish I could change, for myself, for you. Sometimes I am afraid. I am afraid of the future, I am afraid of your hurts, that my love is not big enough, my wisdom not deep enough. But the sufficiency of God stills me, grounds me, reminds me that he is enough, and to hell with this ideal life I’ve imagined. Because he is glorified in our weakness, and what is within matters more than what I can see, what I can touch.

You are only two, a baby, a girl. But you are becoming right before me. The pants you wore two months ago are too short now, when I ask you about the moon, you point at the sky, and you can recognize the color red on your sandals. It sounds incredibly cliché, even trite (and perhaps it’s a cliché because it’s true), but where has the time gone? You have grown up so fast, from five to twenty-two pounds in ten seconds flat.

These first two years together, I hope they are the beginning of a friendship, that I can not only call you daughter, but friend, companion of my soul.  Maybe we will enjoy the same things, have similar hobbies. Or maybe we will be as different as night and day. Perhaps you will be one of those rare people who can bring out the wildly expressive, outgoing part of me. I hope that we can read books together. Maybe you’ll love Steinbeck and Wordsworth and Harry Potter as much as I do, and we can stay up late and talk about it all.

                 

I’ll talk to you about boys and about sex, about friendship and gossip, about bullies and the power of our words, about guarding your heart and standing up for the downtrodden. We’ll kneel together, lift our hands together, and oh, sweet girl, I’ll talk to you about our beautiful God, about his redemptive power, the gospel that rescues us both, this narrative of grace—it is our DNA, and we are sustained by Him.

This love is deep, this love is high, this love is wide. It goes on and on and on. It is far from fenced-in; I can't imagine it will ever end. 

I am proud, thankful, delighted to be your mother. My life is richer because you are in it. You are the goodness of God towards me; I pray that I can be the same for you. I know that I will make mistakes. I have already made quite a few. My motherhood is imperfect. But together, we serve a perfect God who will carry us, who even now, is carrying us—further up and further in. I am excited to be on this journey with you, beautiful daughter.

Happy Birthday.

Love,
Mama  

I Can Do Hard Things

Words like these have carried me through entire days. On those particularly difficult mornings or afternoons, when the hollow loneliness catches up to me, when I'm reminded of the reality of this past year, the past five years, they are like a salve, an invitation to keep going, in faith, clinging to peace.

Because it is hard. There is nothing kind about divorce. It is sharp and unyielding; it burrows into you, into the sacred spaces, the parts you believed were safe. I have felt like a teenager again, all of the angst and the confusion, the bitter bitter sting of rejection and insecurity and exposure.The grace of God is certainly here, his kindness is all around me. He is the giver of beauty, and he has not stopped giving. But it's hard. It's so hard I want to scream. Sometimes I do scream. And I ask a lot of questions. A lot of "Why me?" and "Why does life have to be so unfair?" and "Will it ever get better?"

I can say this: I am getting better. I have gotten better. Divorce is a severing, a tearing, an open, gaping wound. Regardless of how good, or how bad, the marriage was, you lose a whole lot of skin in the ripping apart, and that inner layer is tender and raw and damn does it hurt. It involves grief, and while some choose to forgo the process, I am enmeshed in it. I have been weighed down by it. About eight months ago it was so heavy, so oppressive I never thought I would get out from beneath it.

I had always imagined grief like a set of stairs. You begin at the bottom, of course, with the agony, the heart pounding, the burning tears, and the tightening of every organ, limb, emotion. Your heart beats like a gloved fist in your ribcage; there is always a swift undercurrent of anger and sadness, just dig a little, it lingers behind every word, sharply inhaled breath, the circles I run in my own head. But eventually, despair recedes. Reality sets in. This is my new life. I can do this. You can breathe a little easier, the vice loosens. The climb takes work, but with each ascent the air is clearer, your lungs are fuller, and the view is more expansive. Progress. It is all progress.

It's a nice image, a hopeful one, and I guess in some ways it has been that way. What I didn't imagine was how many times I would tumble down that set of stairs, headfirst, and find myself on my face at the bottom again, bruised and bewildered.

Maybe this is all a little too vulnerable. Am I saying too much? Probably.

But there's freedom in the retelling. I'm not naive enough to believe I am all the way through, that this whole thing is behind me. It's simply not true. But I am part of the way through. And now, nearly a year later, I know I will not drown. I know I will be okay. I am better.

"Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed." (Hebrews 12:12-13)

Some of that has been the daily moving forward, the faithfulness in the small, waking up and going to work, caring for my little girl, making straight paths and walking down them, no matter how weak I feel. His faithfulness is astounding. I am looking back over it all—there are mountains of regret, and yet even those are stepping stones on this road extending out before me. He can transform it all, can't he? And he does. I was lame, but thanks be to God, to my community, to faithful friends, I am not out of joint. The broken bones are splinted, they are reforming. My wounds are closing. I am trying to keep my heart open, my eyes open.

I can do hard things. 

You can do hard things.

We can do hard things.

Thank you for walking with me.

A little Peek

This little one is growing up. Yesterday, she said "yes" for the first time. It sounded more like "yah." She still doesn't talk much, no sentences yet. Hearing her recount a story is the funniest thing. The other day she was trying to tell me about how she fell down. She pointed at the ground, said "BOOM!" and then "down," with a sad face. Toddlers are the most precious little people. I can hardly bear to think about the fact that there are people in the world who would intentionally hurt them.

Some peeks at the little lovely

Modeling for me after I told her I was taking a picture

Naptime!!

In her favorite shirt playing in her favorite place (the dirt) 

 

 Playing hide and seek and grocery shopping

Our day-to-day life is pretty low-key. I work most of the day, and we spend the evenings together. Lately, she waits for me to get home out in the front yard (with Grandma, of course), running in the grass. On most days, the first thing she wants to do is nurse, and we usually sit on the front steps because she doesn't want to go in. She knows the way to the park, so she'll point us in that direction. I have to run inside and change out of my work clothes before we go, and she cries about that because it means going indoors, but we eventually get there. At some point I eat dinner, with one hand and it's usually cold.

She's a delight, and while I enjoy working, I wish I didn't have to work as much as I do (but that's a post for another day). But the Lord cares for me, and for her, even in this. And this little one ADORES her grandma and grandpa, and I don't see that as anything but a good thing, a good gift from Jesus.

Even with the bitter, life is sweet. Spring is all around, and the blooming of the earth mirrors the blooming in my own heart. My life is gospel grace embodied, I feel it all the way down, into my marrow, see it everywhere I look. And even when it's hard to be thankful, I am thankful. All I have to do is look at the pictures above, see the promise in that beautiful face.

Of course He is good. Undeniably, He is good.

When All I Have Are Wordless Groans

Today, this morning, I am reminded of these words:

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God (Romans 8:26).

My heart is heavy—lately it is as if the burden never fully lifts—and my prayers are one long wordless groan, rising up from the spirit man, where the ache is the deepest.

I wish I could open up my hands and catch all the pain, close my fists tight around it, and will it away. It’s not my job, I know. It is far too large a call, my hands are too small, and if I am honest, sometimes it’s hard enough to catch all of my own pain.

And so what is there? How can I? Is it okay if I spend my life on the small kindnesses, on doing the most good I can, clinging to the one who can catch all of the pain and repair a world fractured and dark and out of tune?

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

…For this, for everything, we are out of tune. (William Wordsworth)

It feels this way sometimes, doesn’t it? This morning, especially.  And what was so shocking in Boston is everyday life in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and much of the world. Everyday people die, violently, unjustly, at the hands of cruelty and pride, greed and despair.

I am praying for you, Boston, beautiful city that I love, your streets full of my memories. I am standing with your wounded, your slain.  I am praying for you, Iraq, where yesterday you lost 55 of your own in a series of attacks, and we didn't blink an eye, I didn't blink an eye. My prayers may be wordless groans, because I struggle with what to say and how to say it. But I know that he hears them, I know that he is interceding for you, even as my heart hangs heavy within me and at times it feels like too much to bear.

But there is always hope, isn’t there? This picture has been floating around the internet

It’s true, isn’t it? He redeems. We partner with him. And he will light up the dark. 

Here are a few lights—

I Have a Place to Offer-Boston Marathon Explosion 

Boston Marathon Explosions Reaction: 7 Quotes That Provide Hope Amid Heartache  

Bravery in Boston: Heroes, Helpers, and Hope 
Boston Marathon Tragedy Met With Unbelievable Acts of Kindness 

When You're Praying for Boston 

Let's add our own small flame, however we can.

This Week's Links

A list of some of my favorite reads around the internet this week. Enjoy!!

What Christians Need to Know About Mental Health by Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience

Helping Women Isn't Just a Nice Thing to Do by Fmr. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

"But fighting to give women and girls a fighting chance isn't a nice thing to do. It isn't some luxury that we get to when we have time on our hands to spend doing that. This is a core imperative for every human being and every society.

It's no coincidence that so many of the countries that threaten regional and global peace are the very places where women and girls are deprived of dignity and opportunity...It is no coincidence that so many of the countries making the leap from poverty to prosperity are places now grappling with how to empower women. I think it is one of the unanswered questions of the rest of this century to whether countries, like China and India, can sustain their growth and emerge as true global economic powers. Much of that depends on what happens to women and girls."

Where is Your God Now? by Brad Curry at The Blue Quill

Is Doubt an STD? by Rachel Held Evans

"I was young and newly married when I first started whispering these questions out loud--Did Anne Frank really go to hell? How does a young earth explain how we can see the light of distant stars? Did God really ask Joshua to commit genocide? Is it possible to follow Jesus with my intellectual and emotional integrity intact? How can we know any of this is true?

These questions emerged from the deepest, truest parts of my being, after many sleepless nights, long talks with Dan, tears of frustration, intense study and prayer, and seemingly endless periods of silence. It was my first encounter with doubt, and it was scary."

The Target A profile of the beautiful and brave Malala Yousafzai by Marie Brenner for Vanity Fair. It's long, but worth reading, especially if you have been following her remarkable story

The Sexy Wife I Can't Be by Mary DeMuth for A Deeper Church. This piece of writing is incredibly brave, and incredibly necessary.

"I walk with a giant limp in the sexy wife arena. I still feel outright rage when I read that for the sake of my           husband, I'm supposed to be adventurous and wild, that to be this way represents true spousal godliness. Because honestly? Those words just make me feel less than. Those are a set of guidelines I'll probably never meet.

I haven't given up. I press on to be whole. But I also know my limitations. And I know that many of you are reading this and saying, yes, yes. Mind if I offer you grace?"

In Which Jezebel Gives Way to Deborah by Sarah Bessey

My Year on Match.com by Anne Lamott for Salon

Relief by John Blase at The Beautiful Due

"So save yourself some embarrassment

and don't ask me to bless the eggs

unless you're comfortable with 

suessy word-lobs like rupiefonb

(I prayed that nonsense for a week)."

How do we stand?

It was a fine cry, loud and long. It had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

-Toni Morrison, from Sula

via Pinterest

I read this book, and I’m still recovering. Recovering emotionally, intellectually, theologically. It was one of those rare reads, full of data and story and a call—a higher call, to something, to someone.

I have fought against my sensitivity my entire life. I have pushed it down, willed myself to stop feeling, to quit being so emotional about every perceived wrong, every injustice. It will crush you, it will crush you, I have heard the voices murmur. My reactions to certain things seem outsized in comparison to those around me. I have walked out of church services, meetings, when they began to talk about poverty, orphans, hunger, the suffering, the abused. It sounds so terribly callous, but it wasn’t because I didn’t care. It was because I couldn’t breathe, and dropping my face into my hands and sobbing, shaking, didn't seem appropriate.

I have been ashamed, ashamed, of the deep feeling. What good is all of this empathy? It is useless, accomplishes nothing—squash it down. And I have, pretty effectively over the years, in fact. I’ve taught myself how to go numb, to be less affected, to shut it off, to think more practically about it.

I know I am not the first one to struggle with all of this, to wage war against my empathy, the heightened sensitivity that lays me low, curled up on my bathroom floor, crying until my ribs ache.

Here’s the thing, though, and I’m only realizing this very recently—for me, soul-searing emotion precedes action, and maybe that’s okay. It is not weakness, the Father has had to tell me over and over again. You are not weak because you feel. And it thrusts me into the praying place, the longing place, and from there, perhaps I can put my hand to the plow and do something.  

I’m not sure what that something is yet. I know that lately, I feel the weight of my first-world privilege like a burden, heavy. I want to know how I can make the most of it, not take the opportunity that I did not ask for, did not deserve, and squander it. I know that I am incredibly naive in all of this, I feel quite helpless, and yet that cannot be an excuse, as it has been for me in the past.

How do we stand against such injustice? What is there that we can do? These hands, what shall I do with them? Because it could have been me. It could be me. And no, these women are not a charity case, not in that belittling way. They are not just a cause. They are human. They are valuable, and that is enough. They are hurting and aching and oh, I cannot even think of the brutality of it all. It is too much to bear. And God, where are you??

I am almost 27. And while I am not old, I am not young either. I am not a teenager. I am not a child. There is so much need. And I have been given much much much. I dream about them. I cannot stop thinking about them, the girls being sold, traded, sexually exploited at twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. The girls in their villages, bright, full of potential, denied an education because there is no access, and even if there were, there is no money. The women in Niger, or Sierra Leone, where the maternal mortality rate is so astronomically high it is criminal. If I were a woman, born in Niger instead of the United States, there is a 1 in 7 chance I would have died in childbirth. I cannot stomach it. It nearly paralyzes me.

But I am asking the Lord that it not paralyze me, that I am not completely overwhelmed by the immensity of their need, as is wont to happen to me. No, instead give me something tangible, Jesus. Give me something real. Because this world is full of women, girls, enslaved, disenfranchised, maligned and unrepresented. They are curled up in huts on the edge of their villages, with fistulas caused by brutal rapes, abandoned by their families and left for the wild dogs. They are being doused in kerosene and burned by their husbands for daring to fight back as they were beaten. They are being forced to marry their rapists, the threat of death hanging over them and their families. They are locked up in brothels, their virginity sold to the highest bidder.  

I am no humanitarian. I’m struggling with my what my response ought to be. In all honesty, I am terrified to even be writing this, posting this. It feels like exposure, it feels like nakedness, it feels like vulnerability, shedding skin, and I am afraid.

But maybe there can be some accountability here, an exchange of ideas, of resources, of prayer.

There are no simple solutions. I know this. I am not the solution. But maybe, together, we can be a part of it? Maybe, together, we can make a dent, partner with Jesus and shift the destiny of one woman, two women, a village.

Whatever it may be, and unsure as I am of the way forward, I would really love to hear your thoughts.