Tucked between the layers of sand, dirt, mud, and sweat.
Hidden deep down where he might forget, but you never would.
Stashed in the corners of a conversation dominated by a whole lot of “no.”
Jammed into his gym bag, under sweaty T-shirts and knee pads.
Cluttered into the corner next to the cleats.
Hunched on the sofa in the midnight-should-have-been-home-by-now hour.
Resting in the rhythm of his safe-in-bed breathing.
Are these moments.
I’m over at the MOB Society for Mothers of Boys (and really anyone else who juggles the occasional crazy). Join me?
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There have been days lately when I’ve felt like a crazy person at the center of a three ring circus of my own making. What I can’t figure out is if I am called to be at the center of the big top right now or if I stumbled in by accident. Either way I find myself juggling what seem to be purple poodles leaping through flaming hoops while dangling 30 ft up, suspended by only a thread, which a small but persistent caterpillar is nibbling through. I look down and see row after row of blurred faces cheering me on. Clapping and laughing they tilt heads way, way back and wave hands at me, smiling and certain that I won’t fall.
To the left and the right clowns are being shot from cannons and cotton candy sellers promise that everything will turn out sweet. Ponies prance and dance in endless circles and the music blares a marching anthem over it all. Left, right, left, right deadlines bear down to the beat of their own drummer.
I swing and spin and catch and release flying dogs and elusive peace – I am ring master and servant and my dry mouth feels the sweetness dissolves into vapor.
So I close my eyes. I close my eyes and let go and know I will fall a long way down amid a shower of poodles, hoops, and failure to prove myself worthy of all this trust and pomp and circumstance.
I let go and I don’t fall. I let go and I am held.
Strong, calloused hands of a Carpenter have been wrapped safety net tight around me. I lean my head way back and let Him support my weary head. I curl up into the tiny child I feel like on the inside and wriggle into the crook between His fingers.
It is such a relief to remember how big He is. It gives me permission to embrace my smallness. We are a perfect fit.
God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. – 1 Corinthians 1:27.
Me and the purple poodles.
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He made me buzz off all his locks yesterday.
I thought I would be heart broken.
But instead I discovered my brother. Underneath all those curls, there was Luke staring back at me. All the strong, sturdy lines of a face I’ve known since 1981. There it was today, grinning up at me and making my heart clench fist tight in that old familiar way.
It’s been two and a half years since you two first met and last saw each other.
Beautiful Luke of the blue eyes and blonde hair. The little brother who calls me Lisssa-Jo in just the same way that Micah does too. Luke of the passionate heart and tender spirit; Luke who I’ve mothered in all the ways he probably wished I hadn’t since we were both just into our double digits; Luke of the nights spent on the green couch in our loft when he oh-so-sincerely wasn’t falling in love with Carine; and Luke of the wedding, and the wife, and the growing up into Carine’s husband.
I remember how our Auntie Lies once described my lanky little brother as a chunky, stocky toddler who ran headfirst at life. And today, an ocean away, there he was grinning great gusto right up and into my eyes while hanging over the foot of the bed.
I pray Micah inherits more than your features, my little brother. I pray he inherits your compassion. I pray he follows your determination to grab faith by both hands and wrestle it off the pages of Scripture and into real life. I pray he harbors a deep well of creativity like yours, and draws from it to tell the only story that matters. The story that lives in every character you paint with words, no matter how battered or broken they are.
And I hope he gets to spend many a summer with you. Teach him about jacaranda trees and movie sets and send him home to me with more than just your looks.
Send him home with your story.
Lovingly linked to Emily’s place – where a group of star gazers find beauty in the everyday extraordinary.
{Did you know you can get my posts delivered for free via email or in a reader?}
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I’ve spent hundreds of hours of my life in airports.
And I still contend there is something magical about them.
They sweep us up and out of ourselves; a moment of complete suspension, between one reality and another. And we see more reflected in the windows than the neon lights dangling above the sunrise. We see snapshots of life played out in the full spectrum of human emotions. Shades of love, sorrow, and reunion that sinew around the heart and squeeze the breath out of lungs no matter how many times the scenes have played out before. Every time they unfold it’s like the first time. Because for someone it is. And for someone else it still feels as vivid as the first time, even when it’s the hundredth.
I spent 36 hours in three different airports this weekend. And aside from the multiple delays and missed flights, the experience did not disappoint.
There was the dad-chaperone travelling with a crew of four teenage girls en route to a missions trip. Watching him shepherd them while trying to balance their independence was a delight. They walked the same tightrope of hope as the rest of us stand-by travellers, but there’s was louder and more rewarding to watch. Two flights came and went without them. Every time names were read they clutched each other with bright green fingernails, sighed and wished and groaned when they were passed by.
But when their father-figure fist pumped and announced he had got them on the second to last flight of the night their joy was delicious. They whooped and leaped and hugged and high fived. I was almost glad they had taken the five remaining seats standing between me and home. Almost.
There was the mom travelling home to Baltimore after a week in Jamaica. Not for vacation, but for a funeral. And her husband would be driving out at midnight with their two daughters in the back seat to pick her up. So when tired mothers came traipsing by with their kids wrapped close in tow, I looked at her and knew her arms felt as lonely as mine.
There were the proud parents of a deeply asleep 21-month old boy who whispered to me in the dark confines of the aircraft about their weary journey from Venezuela. The dad’s red-rimmed eyes warmed into mine and I recognized what I saw there. The look of deep love for a child. The look of a parent who expects everyone else to realize the miracle that exists in his child. So I did. I whispered back how beautiful the boy was and how well he had travelled. And the dad grinned quietly in the dark.
There were other moments too. The sleeping on the floor, the recognition that my bones have aged since they were last stranded like that, and the pure, gut-wrenching frustration of hour after hour of lonely delays. But those were an aside, rather than the main story.
And the main story is always about relationships. The good, the bad, and the desperately beautiful. So, I chose to read those. And I love that you read along. Thank you for being a part of my story. Thank you for making me laugh, providing geography lessons, and encouragement. In all my years of travel, you were a first for me this time, twitter. I love that you walked me all the way home to my happy ending, which, through tired eyes, might have looked a bit like this.
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…my children show me so.
…my husband proves it so.
…the tulips sing it so.
…my journey shouts it so.
OK, your turn. Subscribers – wanna click over to play along?
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Can I ask you a hard question?
Does blogging grow your joy? Not just does it bring you occasional joy, but does it grow your joy?
Does it give or take away your peace, your sense of contentment and your view of yourself?
Does it remind you that you are part of a community larger than yourself?
Does it inspire you to greater action, greater love, greater contemplation?
Or does it make you feel small?
I’m worried about your answer. And I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. Because sometimes this world of blogging can become just one more opportunity for the biggest liar of them all to tell you that you don’t measure up.
Wanna know my idea of the antidote? And yes, it does include s’mores! Come and keep reading with me over at (in) courage today.
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