If you want to make small talk with a little kid, you might ask them one of these 3 questions. How old are you? If you are lucky, he or she answers by trying to hold up the right amount of fingers. Best case scenario, the kid doesn’t even get the answer right. What is your favorite color? Pink and red and blue and green and the rainbow. Lastly, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Really? I always thought that an odd question. Well, I don’t know. You mean, I am not just going to be a kid forever? I’m certainly not thinking about a 401k verses a Roth IRA and I'm not concerned about paying off a student loan or what the future of health care means for me. Can you just move? You are blocking the tv. Gummi Bears is on and then I'd like to seriously get some quatlity time in with Barbie and Ken.
I probably just said some generic school-age answer. Marine biologist, obviously. When all along I couldn’t stop playing pretend house and taking care of younger children than myself. My real answer even if I didn’t know it at the time was a mom.
The second Sunday of May has always been a day that I’m ashamed to say I have conflicting emotions. While yes, I am overjoyed to celebrate my mom, I am just as equally jealous that no one is celebrating me. It's not because I'm craving attention. Heaven’s no. Rather, it has been a struggle to be reminded of all the things that I am not.
There is a famous poem based on a version of Indian legend by John Godfrey Sax called the Blind Men and the Elephant. It is about 6 blind men who try to figure out what an elephant is by experiencing just a part of the whole: an ear, a tusk, a trunk or a leg. In the end, they are all right and all wrong. The moral: Knowing in part may make a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole.
I was getting my hair cut the other day and my hair dresser, Joy and I were talking about my mom. Joy has cut my mom’s hair for probably decades now. She said to me about my mom something like this, “Your mom is a very strong woman. And you wouldn’t recognize it unless you took time to notice it.”
Did I ever mention how strong my mom is?
On the surface you may only notice that she likes to keep a nit-picky, tidy house. She does. And she does it with a heart of gratitude for what God has given her.
On the surface, you may think she is quiet. She is, but it is to her credit that she is careful to speak because she knows words are dangerous and cannot be taken back once let go.
On the surface, you may think my mom has too many boundaries and is overprotective. She does have many boundaries and is learning to make more healthy boundaries in order to have Godly relationships with others and to keep her family from harm.
On the surface, you may notice most of the artwork in her house is signed by her. That’s because she’s always using the gifts God has given her. It is also because she is a testimony of what God can do with great patience.
On the surface, I may have just thought my mom had too many fears to overcome and wasn’t willing to push outside her comfort zone. As I look closer, I realize she has prayed through her fears with grace and humility.
As a whole, this woman continues to inspire me.
The whole of my mother cannot be described in mere words just about how clean or how artsty she is because more importantly,
she has made her bed in the depths,
she has settled on the far side of the sea,
she has been to the heavens
and has risen on the wings of the dawn and all the while, knew how to experience the presence of the God.
Many people have been in the same places as she, but didn’t know how to rely on His presence.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139 : 7-12
I have experienced a lot in my short life and I'm about to experience more than most people can even dream of. I've been in a hot air balloon. I've swam in waterfalls. I've surfed. I've blown fire and glass, I've cut my own hair in layers and bangs by watching youtube, fixed a leaky pipe, installed a garbage disposal and rewired all my lamps. I've tried to save a drowning man. I floated in the Dead Sea. I've tried fencing and ziplining. I've been a bridesmaid 8 times and I've seen all the great lakes just last summer.
I've done so much and have loved every second of it. The funny thing is none of these things were on my bucket list. I've never experienced the things that I've always hoped I would. I'd like to experience what it is to be romanced and what it is to be loved like Christ loves His church. I'd like to experience a wedding from the white dress point of view and not the dated taffeta. I'm curious to know what it's like to carry a baby for 9 months. It would be entertaining to find out if I'm the kind of lady that loves swollen feet and odd cravings in the middle of the night or absolutely despise every second and bawl my eyes out. I'd like to know what it is to love my own kid even when she's screaming all night long.
I have only experienced a piece of the whole of my life. I've always thought that the anticipation to a new exciting experience is possibly the best part. This means that Mother's Day is a day of anticipation for me.
Maybe God has something great in store for me soon.
Just think, in one year, I have seen my father almost pass away right before my eyes, watched despair and brokeness almost bring my family to ruin and then out of the ashes, God restored it all.
He made all things new.
I only know in part, but He knows the whole.
I think it's time I learn to live excited, excited because we have a lot to anticipate what God can do in just one whole year.
1 Corinthians 13:9-12
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
There have been many mothers who will make this Mother’s Day important to me this year and I will spend the day celebrating them and praying over them.
My cousin, Krista –you have spurred me on to greatness. May God continue to move you in the direction He is leading you as a new mom. My aunt Diane – you have been an anchor for me during the storm. May God give you a season of peace. My grandmother – your grace and mercy is a spiritual blessing I inherited from you. You helped teach me how to forgive. May the Lord grant you His grace during each season of life. My sister – you remind me to be joyful about my own pursuits of being a mom some day. You raise the 3 kids that I've experienced a love that comes as close to what I think a mother's love might be. May God give you wisdom to lead them in the way of the Lord.
My mother – we have been like iron sharpening iron, encouraging, challenging and pushing each other to become more like the Lord. It’s funny, but I thought that is what friends did for each other. And then I realized, I’ve never thought of you as my friend before, but through all these years, we truly are. To my mom, my friend, I love you for the whole woman you have become and how your life has shaped mine to be more like the Lord. May God grant you every blessing of anticipation of what He can do!
*I actually wrote this the day before Uncle Paul's mini stroke yesterday thinking about my family's own experience one year ago after my dad's stroke. Aunt Diane and Krista, you were very much a part of what God did in that one year. Thank you!
