Open Letter to the Mama Who Feels the Too-Muchness
Dear Warrior Friend, Yes – warrior. Because if you weren’t fighting for your kids you wouldn’t be here. Let’s just get it all out there on the table before we go any further. This mom gig is the hardest thing. I’ve seen the social media memes and the you’ve-got-what-it-takes articles and all those things that are meant as an encouragement to all of us who are momming in the trenches. But the too-muchness of motherhood still creeps in like children’s little fingers under a locked bathroom door. And there isn’t a season of motherhood that isn’t without its own too-muchness. From the wild-eyed newborn days to the drama of middle school to the heartache of watching grown kids make destructive choices, being a mom can feel like more than we signed up for. I understand...
Read MoreLearning to Dance
A little leaf hitched a ride in the door on the bottom of my sock. It’s one of those days when the sky is just gray enough to make the rusts and yellows of the trees look a bit other-worldly, and I couldn’t make myself pause to put my shoes on. It wasn’t long ago that it was honeysuckle and fireflies pulling me outside, and before that it was dogwoods uncurling their petals like victory flags. Every day it’s easier to trace the branches that are letting go of their leaves, bare and unafraid and standing just as tall as ever. They settle in for another time of rest, because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Nature swings and sways its way through the rhythm of seasons like it’s slow dancing to a melody we can’t hear yet. It’s my fortieth November, and maybe I’m...
Read MoreFalling Into Hope
Somewhere along the way I lost my grip on hope. Maybe it was during those days that I leaned, with a baby on my hip, to adjust my mama’s IV line and put balm on her dry lips. While she drew near to the edge of glittering eternity, maybe it was then that I began to draw away. I didn’t know what to do with a God who would answer desperate prayers by letting cancer steal the rest of the days we wanted to hold her here. When God didn’t obey me, I wanted to punish Him by closing my eyes to any of His work that would make me feel. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. But I was. I didn’t want to trace the fingerprints of Hands that would let death pass through them. The Christmas before my mom died, it started snowing just as the sun went down. I nursed my newborn and...
Read MoreWrestling Stones
I remember the smell after flood waters start to go down. It’s not something you can forget. We had floods almost every year where I grew up in the Philippines, and they usually did nothing more than turn low lying fields into muddy lakes around houses perched on tiny green islands. But when the water receded it left behind a decaying film of brown on whatever it had touched. Sometimes a storm changes everything. When the wind blows and the water rises, the landscape becomes unfamiliar, and whatever isn’t destroyed may never be the same again. A storm can roll in and out like a freight train, leaving us just grateful to be alive. It’s afterwards, when the losses start to pile up and the smell of uninvited change makes it hard to breathe that the weary plodding...
Read MoreWhy We All Own Charlottesville
I’m trying to find words for the images on my newsfeed of the mob of hate-shackled bullies darkening the streets of Charlottesville, VA, this weekend. Nauseating. Terrifying. Hellish. Infuriating. Convicting… Not because I’ve ever agreed with any of the poisonous, white supremacist garbage they stand for. But because the root of their sin and mine is the same. Pride. How many times have I elevated my humanity above someone else’s? How often do my actions show that I value myself over another person? Racism, at its core, is unchecked, profound, toddler style self-centeredness. Me. My kind. Us first. It simmers and spreads, dressed up as politics, tradition, culture, even religion. Its stench runs deep and wide in American society, but it isn’t until it marches...
Read MoreHeaven at the Edges
I’ve seen it I’ve seen Heaven poke its toe in under the curtain There where light meets water and waves dance glory I’ve seen it where the sun peeks round the fireline edge of a cloud Like a groom looking shyly for his bride I’ve seen it at the place where spring kisses winter to bloom And where green gives birth to cooling gold I’ve felt its silk in newborn skin And breathed its ache at the side of a grave Where flesh meets clay and the veil thins I’ve heard it catch in a throat as a sob becomes a laugh And it’s risen out of flames where ashes end and beauty takes flight Heaven’s horizon isn’t far off It’s here and here and here In familiar lines and creases At the tips of fingers and in the pulse and stretch of hearts It’s where we see And the seeing pulls us...
Read MorePlease Don’t Get Over It
We sat with our friends exactly two weeks after they buried their firstborn son. Baby Ollie’s bouncy seat was empty by my feet as we looked through pictures of his gorgeous almond eyes and rose petal lips, and his daddy told stories about the two days they were face to face with him. Ollie’s daddy talked and his mama smiled gently, and their faces looked changed from the last time we saw them. They’ll never be the same again. Time heals, yes. Life will continue and even be sweet again. They know this. But their eyes will always hold shadows that weren’t there before. As if they could be anything but different after laying a part of their hearts in the Indiana soil. There are things about this world that knock dents in the core of us. Broken, terrible things like...
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