On Taking a Deep Breath

Its been a few weeks, a few weeks since I have heard anything. A few weeks since I've really thought about him.

I am thankful for the way they protect me, the way the burden is just gone. While trust is still a process and submission a war waging within me, I never knew how light these daddy issues could be when I actually broke down let them fight for me, my adapted dad and my big bro, when I stopped trying to prove something. When I stopped trying to save the world—and my dad.

While I've been working and studying and doing life with my dozen and welcoming my international friends back for another year, he has been detoxing and sobering up. While they counsel him, yanking up his war-torn memories and question his attempt to bring the 80s back to life, they counsel me to fast from him and let Jesus be Jesus. He remembers his days of having it all, his days of good looks, his days of being called boss. He probably remembers the alcohol weaving through those years too, the millionaire gone broke in a single choice gone bad, the abuse and neglect, the relationships burned to ashes—the story of his life would bring in millions at the box office.

We are all drawn to the brokenness, I think. We feel better, more comfortable in our own mess when we know that someone else has it worse? And there is always someone. I glimpsed a show last night, Intervention, an episode of a man who is addicted to getting high by holding his breath long enough to pass out. His family was desperate to save him, to keep him a while longer. I sort of laughed because what else can you do? We are just so broken and we cover it up, but sin always takes us farther and I know it too well. 

While my battle has been with food, his continues with alcohol and I remember we're not so different, but oh sweet Jesus we are and I praise you for that! 

He is getting out today. We have been here, here in this place too many times to hope. I don't trust because nothing but fibers in my blood tie me to him now. But it's okay because we are all a lot of work and a little progress, crying out for the image that was before the woman and the tree screwed it all up. 

But one day, one day soon we will see heaven and it won't matter. 

This time, he is walking out the door with a diagnosis. I don't really know what it is but I know he can't function on his own anymore. He can't have money and he can't take his grandkids out for an ice cream afterschool. Life is different and messed up so I know faith is the thread that holds me even tighter. 

My god-send of a brother, this man with deeper hurt then I will ever know, this one who loves his wife and raises his son so good, this one who fights for me and wears the gospel on his sleeve, this one with grace unfathomed and mercy so raw—he is getting dad and driving him hours to live in this house with others like him for a year. Others so broken and hurting and lost. We've all been there—I am there. We all have our out, we all stop breathing sometimes.

Yet, he has sustained me thus far and for that in itself, I call Him good. 

So, here we are in this world where men get high by holding their breath and dads hurt their little girls and we don't know how to make it all right, to justify the brokenness so we paint a mask and we cover up with leaves because it feels more right and we laugh because we remember that heaven is coming and it's just not getting better until then.

So we take a deep breath and we tighten the thread and we press onward, heaven bound. 

On Saying Good Bye

As many of you know, I have had the privilege of playing "Mummy" to my two beautiful daughters this year. Each are from other ends of the earth, both cultures far different from mine, each with their own opposite personalities, various beliefs, unique passions and dreams, differing friend groups, etc yet in the midst of it all, we bonded as only a Mummy and daughter could.
I cannot begin to formulate the right words to describe the impact these two have had in my life this year. All I know is that He is faithful to provide--friends, daughters, and teachers through their lives.
As the year winds down, I wrestle in the bittersweetness of the pending goodbyes. I know my life has been changed by realtionship with these two. Much of my time outside of work or the classroom dedicated to pursuit of their hearts, a place which has brought me great joy in doing life intimately with them both. I feel as though a piece of my heart is being ripped out as I say goodbye.
Lately I stare at the ceiling at night, just wondering what will they do without me? How will they ever make it when they get back home? Prideful much...ummm yes.

The better question I avoid like a plague being, how in world will my life look without them?? What will it be like to no longer hear them shout "Mummy" as they jump into my car? As one mentioned in tears last night, Mummy, I call you everyday...I cannot imagine you just not being there. It is hard for me to imagine as well.

I have learned so much about dying to myself through them. About putting the needs of another above my own. About effectively (and NOT so effectively) being light in the darkness. About proclaiming with boldness the Truth in which I place my hope and trust. About boundaries. About walking with someone through the joys and the heartaches of life in a fallen world, nonetheless. That I cannot be the Holy Spirit, not even in my daughters' lives. They have taught me about grace--the need for it in their own lives and my own growing dependency upon it. About balance. About loving--the kind of love which has no bounds.

I hope and pray these girls know they are loved. By friends and family, by their "Mummy," but most of all by a God who loved them so deeply He sent His one and only Son to the cross to pay a price they could never pay to make a way for them to know a Holy God, a God who desires to pursue their hearts intimately not out of anything they could do to be good enough--just because He loves them, a God whose forgiveness and redemption I cannot imagine my life apart from.

So often, I desire to be the Holy Spirit. To convict, to judge the intentions of the heart, to convict some more. With my daughters that has been no exception. Still unaware of the exact proportions of meeting them in that place (wherever that may be) verses calling them out of it, speaking with gentleness verses boldness, encouraging them with Truth or challenging them with it.
Then there's the battle of my time. Boundaries really. I see the fruit begin to bud as they are distanced from the weekend parties, the stress of studies, the drama with friends. When they are imerrsed, even challenged by, quality time with myself, friends, believing community, my family. I see glimpses of light for one-- thoughts which consider the possibility of something far greater. Maybe "Mummy" is not just religious and moralistic. Maybe, just maybe. For the other our time breeds encouragement, hard questions, radical convictions. A practical guide to biblical roles as a woman, sister, daughter, future wife and mom. A weighty call to know Him and make Him known, on the other side of the world that is lost.

As I say a final goodbye to my daughters next week, we all three board planes to the ends of the earth, I pray that our lives may bear fruit which furthers the Kingdom as a result of doing life together this year.

I pray that one may boldly proclaim the gospel among unbelivers. That she would honor her family and love her friends in way which honors the Lord. That God would provide her with a community of other belivers, to challenge and encourage, hold accountable and worship alongside her. The she would not be lonely, but stand in awe of God's provision through His Bride, even on the other side of the world, trusting Him to provide again as she returns home. I ask that He would protect her from lies and discouragement. I pray for boldness that she may continue in her pursuit of Him for His name's sake alone.

For the other, I trust God is at work. I believe it is only by His Spirit at work in us that we may know Him---that we may even know our need for Him. I pray she might know her need for Him. I pray that lies would be exposed for what they are--that they would have no authority in her life. In faith, I await fruit with patience and joy for what is to come. I ask God would continue to place His followers around her. That He would captivate her heart in a way man never could. That should she find herself alone in brokenness, no where to look but up, in that moment she might look into His loving and righteous eyes, that He might pierce through the years of toil and heartache like only He can, redeeming the years the locusts have stolen.
Intrigued and hungry to bring the words of Life to a world bigger then my own, I know my life is forever changed as a result of these two women (both of whom are older then me) yet whom I am so incredibly blessed to call Daughter. He is faithful to set the solitary in families...even families across the seas.

On A Lunchbox

It is funny how life happens sometimes. Really, I just have to laugh.

I think that sometimes the hurt is so deep, yet the reality of His faithfulness so divine that all I can do is stand in awe. This morning, I had one of these moments. I just had to laugh—to rejoice in His redemption alone.

Growing up, I dreamed of a life in which my parents were in the PTO at school, volunteered to chaperone all the field trips, and never missed the school musicals. Just the thought of someday coming home to the sweet aroma of cookies baking and toilet bowls with blue water brought me great joy. I was crying out to be a child—for that to be enough. I hungered for the little things.

I love my parents. I really do. I know that my mom worked and worked and worked to provide me with everything I ever needed. I know that being a single mom was such an impossible task—we as women just weren’t created to raise babies alone. I know that she loves me as every mother loves her daughter. And I know that no family is perfect—the aroma of sweet-smelling cookies and all. In spite of the truth I know now, there is this part of me that still craves the little things. The cookies—the blue toilet bowls—the conversations—the moments.

This morning, I had a moment. I was leaving for work and realized that I needed to bring a lunch. I was offered anything from the pantry to eat. I started making a sandwich and she came along and wrapped it up, adding a few things to complete my meal. She then realized I needed something to put it in. She reached up high and pulled out a lunchbox for me to use. She threw in some napkins reminding me that my orange will probably get messy and these will come in handy. She gave me a hug and sent me out the door.

Ten minutes later I am driving down the road and it hits me—through the tears all I can do is laugh. I can remember buying my lunch all through elementary school, even into middle school. I would sit down with my lumpy potatoes, plastic chicken nuggets, and chocolate milk carton continually glancing across the table at my friends’ lunches. Their pink and purple princess lunchboxes came full of surprises. They would pull out their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, in a perfect square with the crust cut off and sliced down the middle. They got chips and a perfectly plump chocolate treat for desert. And a juice box—always the newest and tastiest. They always had a napkin. The real sweet moms even wrote a little love note to their daughter on the napkin, or snuck in an extra treat for later.

I was so jealous. I can vividly remember crying in the bathroom one day. I just so deeply desired that kind of a lunch box—not because of the food, the colors on the box, or the napkin—I wanted the love that came in the crust-free sandwich and letters on a napkin. 

Here I am, twenty-one years old—and I finally got my lunchbox.  

And of course it wasn’t about the box—in fact it was a boy-looking lunchbox, nothing spectacular. It wasn’t even about the food—and yes, my bread still had crust on it. But it was about the moment—it was about the thought inside the lunchbox. That lunchbox was filled with love.

As I sat alone eating my lunch at work today, I simply had to bask in the moment—He is faithful to redeem the years the locust has stolen. He is faithful to meet all of my needs—even my need for a lunchbox at the age of twenty-one. And only He knows those needs, even better then I do. And oh is He faithful to provide for them, that He might be glorified in that very provision. Only He knew the joy and praise that would one day come--from a lunch box at that.

Today, I saw His intimate and persistent and selfless love for me in a lunchbox. He cares for each of us so much, that He would place me in this place on this morning with this spiritual mom to whom He told to send me off to work with a lunch in a box, and in that perfect plan which far exceeds anything I ever could have dreamed, I see HIS love for me—the depth and perfection of it. I stand in awe.

Lord, thank you for revealing your love for me in my lunch box.

I am STILL confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. -Ps. 27:13-14