Grass

It’s 2:30 AM and you fell asleep again on the couch because the dog was whining and you can’t block out her cries like I can.  And you finally woke up and came to bed and apparently a dog howling won’t wake me, but the soft rustles of the sheets being pulled back are enough to make me bolt upright and bristle about insanely late hours as I squint at the clock and throw myself back to the mattress in a huff.  I’ll have to take your word for it because I don’t remember any of it.  But allegedly that’s how I react when you come to bed in the wee hours of the morning.

It’s 5:15AM and you’re shaking me awake, a very risky move considering how I treated you just hours before.  But you were having a dream that the chickens were clucking and then you realized that they really ARE clucking.  Loudly.  In the middle of the pre-dawn hours.  And your heart is pounding so hard because if you woke up then surely the neighbors did, too, and whatever sailor’s mouth response I might give is worth it if I can get them to stop.  NOW.  

It’s 6:45AM and the kids are dressed and ready to head down for breakfast  but they have to have their daily snuggle with you in bed and it used to be manageable when they were toddlers but now they’re small mastodons and our queen-sized bed groans when they lumber in with the delicacy of a wrecking ball.  There’s a 50/50 chance that you’ll take a shot to your gut as they squirm and knee their way into the crooks of your arms, all while you’re trying to squeeze in a few more minutes of sleep before I begin the Mother Yodel at 7AM. 

It’s 7:45AM and I’ve yodeled and urged and harangued the herd upstairs for toothbrushing and haircombing and it’s my turn for the 3 minute sprinkle that we call our showers these days.  Even though you’re still half-dozing, trying to get a total of 5 or so hours of good sleep, you’re on duty and it’s your job to keep each child separate from the others while they rotate through the bathroom and the cats, er, children know you’re not up to the challenge and they immediately begin their scratching and hissing and general clamoring and I can hear them in the shower and because I know you’re still dozing I have to yell at them through the walls to SEPARATE! and BRUSH BUT DON’T FLUSH (while I’m in the sprinkle because it will scald me) and GET YOUR SHOES ON!  And as I’m yelling I hear you scrambling down the hall to re-establish dominion over the herd so when I emerge with my wet hair and wild eyes I won’t have to holler like a sailor again.  

It’s 10:30AM and I’m upstairs cleaning the kitchen and I’ve reached the limit of where I can stretch my arm on the top of the fridge to wipe off the thick layer of dust that has collected back there so I call down to your office to see if you’re available to come up and finish the job because I know if I don’t ask you when the thought is immediately in my mind, it will be another six months until I remember and then there will be an even deeper layer of dust for you to wipe up.  And I try to explain as you walk up the stairs with pursed lips and fixed pupils that although it seems like I’m being unreasonable by asking you to do this favor in the middle of your work day, in reality I’m actually taking your allergies into account because wiping off one inch of dust is surely less troublesome than wiping off two, right?    

It’s 1:00PM and we’re standing at the kitchen counter, meeting over a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I slapped together in 30 seconds because I forgot to make you lunch.  Again.  For the third time this week.  Yesterday’s soccer game got canceled because of the rain and you’re going to be in north Jersey for work on the night it’s rescheduled so we’re flipping through our iPhone and Blackberry to see if we can somehow figure out a way for one parent to get three children to sporting events that span two counties and it’s just not possible.  So you offer to bump the jiu jitsu lesson to Saturday morning which is the only time slot this week that looks like it might be good for mowing the grass and Lord knows the grass will need to be mowed after all this rain and so we tap the new plan into our calendars and wipe the crumbs off the countertop and head off in separate directions for the rest of the afternoon.  

It’s 3:15PM and I’m calling you from the Kohl’s parking lot to see if you can squeeze a quick trip to the bus stop in before your conference call so the kids don’t have to walk up the hill alone.  It looks like rain and I’m at least 20 minutes away and I’m calling in hopes that you’ll be able to break away from your computer for a few minutes to fill in for me because I just don’t think I’m going to make it back in time.  And while you’re at it, can you check to see if I remembered to dry the baseball uniform and remind the kids to start their homework right away because we only have half an hour before we have to leave again for the fields?   OK, thanks.  I owe you one. Or two or ten.

It’s 4:30PM and I’m hollering down the stairs to let you know that I left a hotdog on a plate in the fridge for you and there’s some leftover macaroni and cheese, too, in a bowl on the bottom shelf by the lettuce.  I’m leaving for the ball fields and the other two are eating their hotdogs and they need to do their after-school chores before they play outside and don’t forget that it’s shower night for both of them so they should start that by 6:00 or there won’t be enough hot water for the third one when he gets home from his game.  Oh, and the cat threw up under the dining room table.  Can you clean that up when you come up for your hotdog?  

It’s 7:15PM and as I pull in the driveway I can see that you’re mowing the grass because the shed door is open and both side gates are, too, and as I unpack the van and send the mud-caked child up for his shower, I see you striding through the back yard with the mower cutting through the thick grass ahead of you.  I know you well enough to know that you checked the weather app and saw a big enough window between the storm clouds and decided that you could squeeze in at least the back yard before the next bands of rain arrived.  You look up and see that we’re home and you give a wave and a smile and I wave and smile back and then hurry inside to see which child needs my attention during the bedtime hour.

It’s 10:00PM and the sun has been down for over an hour and the children have been sleeping for almost that long and I hear the leaf blower finally rattle to an end and the garage doors are closing and I know that you managed to squeeze in the back, front and side yards tonight because you only leaf blow when you have to clean off the sidewalks and porch and you’ll be tremendously happy now that you won’t have to mow on Saturday afternoon.  And I hear you come in from the garage and the thump of your lawn sneakers hitting the floor means that you’re going to start a load of laundry right now so I holler down the hallway to throw the baseball uniform in with your grass-stained socks and you holler back that you already did.  And I open the fridge to heat up your hotdog and mac-n-cheese because I know you didn’t take the time to eat it before you went outside and I pour a glass of mint ice-tea and cut up a few lemon slices to drop in the glass because this week, I actually remembered to buy some.  And you holler from upstairs to ask if I have any gardening clothes that need to be washed and I tell you to grab the old jeans and tshirt that are laying across the back of the rocking chair and I open a bag of chips and pull out a sleeve of Oreos because you like salty and I need sweet.  

It’s 10:30PM and you’re fresh from the shower and the washing machine stopped running so I go and bump it with my hip and it starts running again and I pull up a chair at the table and we talk about the day that’s done and the day that’s almost here and I joke about how you missed your chance to escape while you were mowing.  I tease that you could have just kept walking down the street like you were headed off in search of greener grass to mow and how no one would’ve blamed you for needing a break.

It’s 10:35PM and you put down your glass of tea and the eyes that meet mine are quite serious and intent and you reach over and put your hand on top of mine and say 6 words that halt the minute hand’s march.  

But this IS the greener grass.   

And my heart stutters and the worry and guilt that have been lurking at the edges of my soul are evicted and breathing feels good again and I can’t believe how dandled and indulged I am, how blessed I am, how incredibly loved I am.  I can’t believe how easily you bend because when I try to bend I usually snap and everyone runs from the whiplash.  But you bend with such grace and I’m wordless at the words you’ve hung in front of me like a great glowing sun that takes a raindrop and breaks it into a rainbow.  And I turn my hand upward and lace my fingers with yours and we spend a few minutes just soaking in the quiet and then I hear the clock ticking and look up to see how much time I have before I begin my transformation into a prickly sailor once again.

It’s 10:45PM and I rinse the dishes and get out the peanut butter to make the children’s sandwiches and I set out the homework folders by their backpacks and stick a post-it note by the coffee pot so I remember to thaw the hamburg in the morning.  You go down to your office to finish up a few emails for work and you holler up the stairs that you don’t need a sandwich tomorrow because you’re meeting a customer for lunch and I’m thankful for that because I don’t think I have any ham left in the fridge.  I feel my legs begin to ache and that’s the sign that I need to head upstairs and wrap up the day so I call down to let you know that I’m going to bed and if you could put the wet clothes in the dryer when the washer stops spinning that would be great.  I switch off the kitchen light but turn back to tell you one more thing before I go upstairs.  

I’m sorry in advance if I yell at you in my sleep when you come to bed.  Ignore whatever I say.  Because I love you.  I really do. 

And you call back, I love you more, and I’m supposed to reply, I love you most, because we’ve been saying that for the last 18 years but this night I let you have the last word because it’s right to fasten it there.  

It’s 11:45PM and I’ve checked my email and Facebook and Pinterest for the last time and I’m weary and sapped but I smile as my feet turn down the hallway to the bedroom and I think that David had it right when he wrote the 23rd Psalm.  The Lord is our shepherd and we do have everything we need and He really does provide a place of rest in the green grass ... this greenest grass we’ll know 'til the other side of Heaven.   

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup.  

You have made my lot secure.  

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.

Surely, I have a delightful inheritance.  

Psalm 16:5-6

The Searing Fragrance: A Mother's Day Memory

On the morning of my first Mother’s Day, the nurse on duty brought me a little plate of petit fours along with the breakfast tray from the cafeteria.  I remember 3 tiny cakes, one for each baby; 2 with a blue bow on top and one with a pink rose.  And I remember pushing my pancake around in the syrup with a feeling of dread hovering in my heart, knowing that the hours ahead would be melding from sweet to bittersweet to bitter.  

Five nights earlier, I had given birth to my babies, tiny triplets
weighing just over a total of nine pounds.  They had come via c-section and so I had been recuperating on the maternity floor, a short wheelchair push down the hall from the NICU where they were learning to suck a binky and hold their body heat and remember to breathe.  For five days, while attempting to walk on bread-loaf feet and figuring out what to do with the thrice pouchy folds of deflated pregnancy skin that enveloped my midsection, I had made countless trips to see them in their isolettes and had quickly learned the routine of visiting the special care nursery.    

First, stop at the sanitizing station.   Pick under fingernails, scrub hands,  apply a liberal coat of Purell from fingertip to forearm.  Next, sign in at the front station and find out which nurse was in charge of our family for that shift.  Then shuffle back to the quad of incubators where an overwhelming 3/4ths belonged to us.  Hear a report on each baby and read their charts.  Apply more Purell and visit Matt.  Rest a hand on his head with the heaviness of a snowflake on the edge of an eyelash.  Remind him that a little more fussing would be OK and Daddy would be along after work to update him on the Phillies.  Apply more Purell and visit Josh.  Pull the Snuggie back around his feet and tuck in a flailing arm.  Whisper a few words about brave knights and slayed dragons and the shield of Momma's love that would be with him always.  Apply more Purell and visit Lauren.  Dip a QTip in sterile water and hydrate her tiny cracked lips.  Gently tug the plum-sized hat back down over her ears and rest a few fingers on the rapid rise and fall of her chest while quietly humming, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”  Finally, talk with the nurse once more and then slump into the wheelchair for the ride through the steel doors, back down the hallway and into my recovery room again.  

I followed that routine for 5 days, round the clock, as my stamina regathered and the morphine haze lifted.  But on the 5th day, insurance guidelines required my discharge from the hospital and so Bob and his parents packed my bags and gathered all the flowers and cards that we had received and I ate the petit fours with tears damming up in my eyes.  We made one last visit to the NICU and I was able to hold each baby before kissing them back into the arms of their nurses who would be with them while I continued to recuperate an hour away in a home that was brimming with cribs and diapers and bouncy seats, but empty of babies.  

I remember coming into the house and seeing it for the first time in 6 weeks.  We had only lived in it a few months before I was ordered to  bedrest in the hospital and so all the work that was done to unpack our belongings and prepare for the babies was new to me.  Bob had assembled all the equipment, painted the nursery, organized all the diaper boxes and clothing bins.  I was thankful and interested but tired and utterly bereft, and I remember gingerly lowering myself onto the couch, still not sure how to comfortably rest my abdomen which had gone from inflated beach ball to sliced open tire just days before.  Bob had a bouquet of flowers and a first Mother’s Day card and even the gold and jade peas-in-a-pod brooch that I had been yearning to buy from an online antiques dealer.  Everything he did was sweet and right and selfless and still my heart was numb that day, knowing that I was a mother at last and yet I couldn’t hold my babies until someone could drive me back to them the following morning. 

That was the routine I followed for the next 5 weeks.  Sleep at home, wake up and call the nurse’s station for an update, wait for someone to drive me to the hospital, stay with the babies as long as possible, then ride home for another evening of waiting and wondering, praying and hoping that the caller ID never showed a number from the NICU.  In the meantime, I began to prepare for our routine at home that would start once the babies were discharged.  I had been gleaning tips and helpful ideas from other multiple-moms and knew that organization and sanitation would be essential elements of our life going forward.  

Each baby was assigned a color; Matt was blue, Josh was green and Lauren was pink or purple.  Feeding charts were printed and bottles were coded.  Guidelines were posted in the kitchen, at the cribs, the changing tables and laundry room so that the multitude of volunteers we were expecting would know how to keep the house as ordered and germ-free as possible.  And in each room, a bottle of hand-sanitizer was always within reach.  The neonatalogists counseled us that the first two years of a preemie’s life were critical because of their shortened time in the womb and so it would be important for us to guard their exposure to pathogens during that time.  We bought hand-cleaner by the gallon.  

And then one crazy, hot and humid day in mid-June, the doctors told us that they had become nothing more than very expensive babysitters.  The triplets had gained weight, learned to keep their body temperatures up, mastered bottle feeding and sleeping without tachycardia episodes.  They were ready to come home.  My atrophied legs had restrengthened by then and I was able to lift the car seat carriers and walk without leaning on a wheelchair but my knees wobbled when the doctor uttered the word “discharge.”  I remember the panic and wave of fears that crashed over my thoughts like an avalanche of suddenly shifting snowbanks.  How could I possibly succeed at this?  Who in their right mind is going to send me home with three still-tiny babies who just days ago were setting off alarms because their breathing had stopped?  When did I pass a test that qualified me to be a neonatal health expert, city manager and graveyard shift nanny all at the same time?  I briefly considered kidnapping our favorite nurse, Nadji, and forcing her to live with us until we reached the toddler years.  But we packed up the bags, got our final instructions and headed out those big double doors that led to an unassuming world outside, this time with the most precious and rarest of gems dangling at the crook of our bent arms.   

*****

8 years have passed now.  I’m coming up on another Mother’s Day and this year instead of an empty house I’ll wake up to a very busy one.  Teaching the kids’ Sunday School class in the morning...setting up the basketball hoop that Matt got for his birthday last week...finishing the Lego table that I’m building for Josh....letting Lauren get her feet muddy as we rototil the garden together.  Life was crazy 8 years ago and it’s a different kind of crazy now.  Gone are the color-coordinated feeding charts.  Most nights we’re lucky if I remember to put forks and spoons on the table.  Bob still folds piles and piles of laundry, but it rarely gets put away in neat stacks in the closets.  And the hand-sanitizer bottles still sit at every sink in the house, but I hesitate to say that we use them much.  Actually, I’m pretty happy if the kids just remember to sneeze away from the table these days.  

So after nearly a decade of waiting to become a mother and then another 3 or 4 years of wondering how I’d ever survive being a mother, I find myself finally comfortable in the role of being a pretty normal, run-of-the-mill harried mother.  The kind that freezes a dozen PB&J sandwiches on Sunday night to use through the week and utterly depends on her children still believing that she has eyes in the back of her head.  That’s me.  Another ho-hum mom.  And most days I don’t even think about the journey of getting here because I’m so busy breaking up squabbles or reviewing Everyday Math word problems or standing at the sink with my arms crossed while I watch the hurry-up boy, the one I prodded in the NICU to fuss a little more, re-brush his teeth for the third time that night.  But every once in awhile I get a whiff of Purell...

*****

Is there a smell that takes you back in time, almost in an out-of-body-deja-vu kind of way?  For me, it’s Purell.  Every once in awhile I stumble into a squeeze of it and I’m immediately back in the midst of those tenuous NICU days.  And it hits me in the strangest of places, like when I’m washing my hands in a McDonald’s bathroom and I suddenly feel like I’m standing by an isolette, watching a baby’s eyelids flutter in dream.  Or I’m disinfecting the handle of a grocery cart and I feel as though I’m reaching through wires and tubes to wipe spit-up from the corner of a baby’s mouth.  In those moments I’ll pause and smile while getting lost along a pathway that has been seared in my memory by a simple fragrance.  

Most people might find it strange that I could delight in the memory of my babies in the NICU because having a newborn tethered to heart monitors and canula tubes and IV poles isn’t exactly what a mother pictures when she daydreams of the first glimpse of her child.  But as much as the NICU can be the setting of a nightmare, it’s also a place where great love stories unfold as parents lay their hearts bare while nurses and doctors display round-the-clock devotion in the gentlest and sweetest of touches.  There’s simply no way to spend time in a NICU and not have your heart changed for the better.

Did you know that God has a smell that takes Him back in time in a similar way?  Did you know that He pauses and smiles while remembering the place He cherishes deeply?  Did you know that the place is Calvary and the scent is the aroma of His son’s sacrifice on the cross?  It’s startling to consider, but give it some thought and it will make perfect sense.  Paul tells us in Ephesians 5 that Jesus’ death on the cross is a fragrant aroma to God, the ultimate fulfilling of all the temporary rituals of forgiveness from past generations.  Right there in the middle of creeping death and nightmarish agony, the Father unfolded His great love story, laying bare His only Son that we might be given a path out of the dark and into the Light.  The recollection of that day is seared in His heart and with every wandering child who finds the pathway home, God is again delighted with the memory of His Son’s obedient love and gift of unmerited grace.  Who can spend time in that story and not be changed for the better?            

*****

This Mother’s Day, I’m pretty sure I’ll be fussed over with some semblance of breakfast in bed, perhaps a potted petunia or marigold and hopefully a full day of mostly-behaved children.  And in return, I’ll fuss over them and hold them close and tell them exaggerated stories of how empty and dull life was before they arrived.  We’ll laugh and tease and I’ll remember again how exceedingly blessed I am.  But truly, the moments when my heart swells fullest will come late at night as I’m pulling the covers up straight and resting my hand on their slumbered heads, just as I’ve done since the day they were born, spilling an alabaster jar of praise at the feet of my Father whose love I can never plumb.  

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, 

that we should be called children of God! 

1 John 3:1

Pull Into

It’s been a rough week or so.  A sudden and formidable stomach bug and an early spring snowstorm hit last weekend, upending our plans to enjoy the start of the new season outdoors.  The week before was also full of usual household stress:  the mad dance of laundry baskets up and down the stairs, the 15 millionth example of how to carry the one into the tens column, the cat throwing up a hairball on the carpet two inches away from the linoleum (where cleaning it up would’ve been so much easier.)  When I saw him hunched over, convulsing up another thing to put on my “to do” list, I cried.  When I watched helplessly as my daughter grabbed the bucket and wretched up two teaspoons of Children’s Advil, I crumbled.  The fever would continue.  I took the obligatory two steps back and sank into my chair at the kitchen table.  “What can I do to help?” asked my ever-attentive husband.  “Nothing.  That’s just it.  There’s nothing you can really do.   It’s just defeat by a thousand paper cuts.” 

I don’t do winters well.  A big part of me wishes that God had designed a mandatory hibernation period from late January through late March for humans.  I’m jealous of the groundhogs and bears that get to enjoy that respite from the bone-chill and gauzy gray days of winter.  That said, I do love the beauty of first-fallen snow.  I love to photograph it and admire all the ways that white can highlight an ordinary, drab setting.  But let’s be honest.  Those moments are fleeting and they can’t compete with the rest of the raw season’s largess.  For every moment spent in quiet awe there are a dozen ticks on the clock spent with aching knuckles wrapped around a cup of hot tea.  

But while I’m complaining of my aversion to the deep winter, I’m also trying to bury a secret worry like a mother trying to hush a baby’s cry in the middle of a church service.  As much as I can’t wait for spring to arrive with breezes that cosset instead of abrade and sunlight that stretches instead of shrinks, the truth is I’m afraid for spring to arrive.  Because if I’m honest with myself, the warming of the air and greening of the yard means a hundred hours of work that I didn’t have to do while I was holed up in winter’s bastille.   The battle to stay one step ahead of the weeds, the chess game with the aforementioned groundhog who never tires of trying to break into my garden, the insanity of running a 3-child sports schedule which started with spring baseball practice this week.  What was I thinking?  Why was I so excited for this next season to get underway?  Soon I’ll be collapsing into bed at night, wounded by a second thousand papercuts.               

I was pondering this dread a few days ago while working on a painting project in the garage.  We had a farm bell refinished last summer and this spring we’re going to get it installed in my back yard flower bed.  I’m eager to finally see the project completed and so I wanted to have the post ready to go as soon as the ground would give way to the spade. As I pulled the brush back and forth, trying to spread the wood stain evenly and adequately across the splintery beam, I recalled a bit of advice my father-in-law had given me many years ago while we were painting a room in our first house.  

I had been slathering the paint on haphazardly, trying to press the brush into the drywall and squeeze the last bit of pigment through the bristles.  “Pull the brush like this,” he instructed, starting on the bare wall and dragging it toward the section that was already wet with color.  “Pull into the paint, not away from it.”  

It was such simple advice, but had immediate effects.  As the bristles picked up paint from the wet section, more could be supplied to the dry area.  I found that each stroke covered more space and I needed to return to the paint can less often.  It was also easier to feather out the brush marks as they faded into the painted sections, giving the wall a smoother finish.  I still remember this wisdom and use it every time I’m painting, even something as simple as a post that is destined for the dirt.  

As I dipped my brush into the can and pulled the red stain from the dry knotty wood into the wet section ahead, I realized that pulling into the paint isn’t just wisdom for walls and posts.  It’s excellent wisdom for life as well.  It seems that as we spend our days moving from one dry spot to another, we’re always training our eyes on the lack, the empty, the unfinished work before us.  We grind our hearts and minds into the barren, trying to push hard enough to squeeze a little bit of life into whatever it is that we want to see flourishing.  We haphazardly go about our days, heaping them with endless expectations, leaving jagged edges behind where words spoken in haste or exhaustion cut deeper into loved ones than the papercuts we’re feeling burdened with ourselves.

Yes, life in all seasons is hard.  It’s hard in the winter when all I want to do is curl into a ball and disconnect until the frozen days are past.   And it’s hard in the spring when life must be lived in the multiple spheres of inside and out.  And it will be hard in the summer when I’m desperate for an hour of escape from the arguing and tattling of 24/7 parenting.  And it will be hard in the fall when the mold spores launch from leaf piles into our nostrils as I wish for a freezing cold snap to settle the air crisp again.  Life is hard because it’s desiccated, long before we even set foot into it.  And the truth is, if we’re honest with ourselves, that we know we’re cracked open, too.

Bones were never meant to ache and children were never meant to rattle with chills and weeds were never meant to strangle the morning glory I want to trellis on that farm bell post.  But they do and the result of those thousand cuts is that my body leaks rest and peace drips from my heart and discontent blows like a parching wind through my mind.  I was never meant to collapse from exhaustion or clench my teeth in impatience but I do because I’m split wide and my search for resupply always leaves me lacking when I pull myself into the droughted places that the world has to offer.  

But then there’s that simple offer, the one with immediate results.  Jesus says, “Come!  All you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”  Just as I pull the brush into the paint, I know I should also be pulling myself daily into His presence where the supply I desperately need is found.  Initially, rest from labors.  Then everything else I need for the day that He promises to provide when I have sought after Him first.  

But far too often, I look at the daily chore list first and decide that I’ll pull into His presence later, once I’ve tackled the most pressing issues of the day.  And before I know it, I'm wrapping my wounds, crawling into bed, asking for strength to make the better choice in the morning.  

What makes me flounder in the dry instead of pulling into the paint?  What makes me question the wisdom of starting my day in quiet prayer or hushed praise?  Why do I flip open the iPad to update my status instead of flipping open the Bible to dive into living waters that await me?  

It’s a question I wrestle with often, just as I wonder why I still grab the Oreos instead of the carrot sticks.  I think it has something to do with laziness and something to do with the ghost of self-sufficiency that hangs around the periphery and whispers, “I can handle this on my own, thank you very much.”  But I think it has mostly to do with the fact that I so easily forget what a spectacularly devastating price was paid so that I might be called by God into His place of rest and supply.

The back offered to the whip, the brow offered to the thorns, the hands offered to the  crucifier's mallet.   A body completely handed over to the cuts inflicted by countless sins, broken open so that the necessary blood of a New Covenant might be spilled.  

As I painted, I remembered the gift.  The undeserved, unasked-for inheritance we have at the cross.  But no inheritance can be gained without a death first taking place.  And no man’s offer to lay down his life can ever pay the wages of a whole world’s sin.  God’s requirements for cutting a New Covenant could be met by God alone.  And so He sent a piece of Himself, His beloved and only Son, to offer that necessary blood, to make that necessary sacrifice of His own life so that my life might be preserved.  And that’s why He calls us to rest.  Because He knows we have nothing to offer, no way of supplying the most important thing we need: absolute assurance that we are right with God again.  

After I put the brush down, I realized that the post I had stained red was actually a cross.  How fitting, I thought, with Good Friday just a few days away, to be reminded of the new life that this season heralds.  How humbling to see the place where Love’s arms reached out for me, thousands of years before I ever endured a single papercut.  How comforting to hear the Holy Spirit whisper, “Come, Jennifer.  Lay your burdens here and let Jesus carry the heaviness for you.”  

Tired and depleted and overwhelmed by the stings of those thousand hemic cuts, I made the better choice this time and went to pull myself once again into His supply where I triumph by the blood of the Lamb.            

For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, 

that whoever believes in Him 

should not perish but have everlasting life.  

John 3:16

Being Beloved

He handed me a small package, wrapped in pretty pink paper.  “I got this for you.  Thought you’d like to listen to it while we drive.”  A quick peck on the cheek and he stepped out of the car to fill the tank for the 3 hour trip to Pittsburgh.  I began picking at the tape running along one edge.  Peeling back a corner of the paper, I saw that it was Natalie Merchant’s latest CD, Tigerlily.  Always thinking of me, I mused, trying to relax my quivering jaw.  I hadn’t thought to buy him anything past the gold ring that I had slipped on his left hand a few hours earlier.  He slid back into the driver’s seat and I slid the disk into the dashboard player.  I remember feeling so vain at the thought of 22-year olds having a CD player in their car.  It was the last day of August 1996 and we were driving to the airport to catch a flight to the Bahamas.  The first hours of married life commencing and you might have mistaken them for a funeral wake.  

As the lyrics to San Andreas Fault filled the air, the dam I had been propping up with smiles and laughter all day finally gave way and I split open right there in the passenger seat, flooding the car with tears. Heaving, ugly-crying, snot-bubbling sobs that squeezed  the air out of my lungs.  I must have looked a sight in my purple trousseau, curls still pinned around the beaded headpiece that my own mother had worn some 25 years before, mascara running rivulets down my flushed cheeks as my hands clenched Kleenex to my mouth in an effort to blunt the rue.  I looked over at Bob and saw wide eyes filled with utter confusion and bewilderment.  This moment was clearly not covered in any of our marriage counseling sessions and he had no idea what was happening or how to make it stop.  This was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives, the moment we had long awaited when we could finally drive off as newlyweds into the happy dawning of our hopes and dreams.  Instead, it was the commencement of a season of turmoil, grief even, as I struggled to make sense of my new identity as a wife and married woman. It was suddenly real, unavoidably now and all the months of paradise-planning were nothing more than vapors escaping from a pressure cooker.  Natalie was a needle and she punctured my steely veneer, sending pent-up worries, fears, expectations splattering across walls of anticipated marital bliss. 

Compounding my anxiety was the sorrow of parting from my parents outside the reception hall.  I could still see my mom biting her lower lip, keeping her end of the promise to not cry at that final embrace.  I knew she was a heaving puddle now, too, as Dad drove her home where my bedroom stood empty for the first time in some 18 years.  Looking back, I think it would have been better if we had agreed to shake loose our tears together, no matter how puffy and red our faces would’ve looked in those last few pictures.  Our brave attempt to wave goodbye as happy stoics only lasted a few miles anyway.  In the end, our better halves, one softened and equipped by the years, the other still starched and ill-fitted for the need, were left to carry us through that hard day of cleaving.   

Bob and I laugh about it now, some 16 years later.  How those hours trapped in a car with an unconsolable bride probably weren’t much of a confidence boost for a young groom (in the days before cell phones, there was no calling home for advice or rescue.)  How a husband turning on the football game upon walking into the hotel room probably wasn’t  the most sensitive way to handle a tear-soaked wife.  These days, I don’t bristle when he missteps and he has learned the fine art of reading emotional tenors.  But for the first several months of our marriage, Bob didn’t know if he would be dancing with a cactus or over-ripened pear when he woke up in the morning.  Some days I handled my fears by being coldly confident, allowing no emotions of any kind to affect me.  Those were the cactus days and Bob learned to keep a safe distance.  Other times, when I was too weak to put up a front, the slightest pressure would slice me into tears.  Those were the ripened pear days and Bob learned to soothe my raw emotions with reassuring tones.     

Don’t misunderstand.  I was sure beyond the shadow of a doubt as I stood at the alter on our wedding day that I wanted to spend my life with Bob.  I could hardly wait for the pastor to pronounce me a Mrs. and thoughts of our future together swelled my heart full.  But I suspected, in the most secret corners of that same heart where truth we want to ignore is buried, that I was completely incapable of maintaining the standards that love requires.  As the pastor read from the iconic chapter in 1st Corinthians that love is patient, kind, not jealous, not selfish, not provoked, long suffering, truth seeking, hope filled and enduring, I cringed in recognition that on my best days I might be half-loving and on my worst days I would be love-less.  

As the weeks went by and the reality sunk in that I had agreed to ideals which I could never meet, fears of daily failure washed over me.  Instead of looking forward to the adventures ahead, my stomach knotted with anxiety at the thought of suddenly being charged with cooking for both of us, with keeping a husband in crisp pleated khakis, with finding a job in an unfamiliar town and knowing how to balance my aspirations of being both June Cleaver and Murphy Brown.  I hadn’t penned my name as Mrs. Gunning once and already I was laying chalk lines for crow’s feet of a much older woman.  And it was because everything I believed about love was wrong.  

Not the romantic passion of loving someone, but rather the daily doing of loving someone.  The thousand ways each day that a wife can either succeed or fail in loving her husband were like a tally sheet I subconsciously kept in my mind.  

Wake up in the morning and grouse under my breath that we had to watch ESPN during breakfast = selfish.  One hash mark in the fail column.  

Offer to pick up his dry cleaning on my way home from work = kind.  One hash mark in the success column.  

And if I was going to track my own doings, then it was only fair to tally Bob’s doings, too.  

He said the spaghetti was a little chewy = provoking.  One hash mark in his fail column.  

He got tickets for the theater on a football weekend = long suffering.  Probably should give two hash marks in his success column for that.   

And on and on it went, this heavy yoke-hauling to be loving enough and the scrutiny of whether I was being loved in return. It wasn’t long before I was in despair over my inability to keep the balance tipped in favor of success.  The more I struggled to love, the less loving I became and soon I found myself bogged down in a form of post-matrimonial depression.  I’m so thankful, so very thankful, that Bob’s broad shoulders readily shrug off offense.  He has the gift of easy forgiveness, a bedrock blessing, because on many days, as feared, I was love-less toward him.

The months went by and ever so slowly, I began to see that our marriage could withstand a burnt pot roast and a disagreement about where to spend the holidays.  Bigger issues involving health and finances cropped up making the cooking and laundry worries seem absurd in comparison and I began to appreciate Bob’s strengths that  buoyed me through my weaknesses.  Eventually, the months became years and the miles our hearts had spent twining together completely covered over those first few harrowing ones of our wedding day.  Rather than a granite table where problems were solved, Bob had become a softened leather couch where heartaches could be emptied out.  And I had learned that a bending willow branch was far stronger than a gouging cactus spine. 

We continued to build our marriage as we U-Hauled across the state for new jobs, clutched our hands together through the grief of infertility, gave each other grace and space through the insanity of 2AM triple bottle feedings and refused to speak anything but words of life during the summer of cancer surgery scars.  For the most part, the potholes caused by my fears had been filled in, allowing for a marriage ride that was crazy but smooth.  Except for that one rut that occasionally caused me to veer back into worry.  That Corinthian chapter about love still taunted me.  Why would God charge Paul to exhort us to such selfless love if there was no way we could pass the test?  I secretly worried that God was setting the stage for failure and it was a matter of time until things fell apart.  

And then one day as I was washing a sinkful of dishes, a verse from 1 John 4 flashed through my mind.  Out of the blue....God is love....  God IS love....  GOD is love.  I rolled the words around as I searched for the right way to hear them in my spirit, like a child turning a block this way and that until it finally drops into the shape sorter.  At last, the lock gave way to the key and I swung open a door that revealed the bigger picture.  GOD is love and LOVE is patient. LOVE is kind.  So it's GOD who is patient. And GOD who is kind.  And since love doesn't walk around in a boastful or arrogant manner, then neither does God. And He doesn't seek to promote himself ahead of the needs of His beloved and isn't easily provoked.  He keeps no tally of wrongs and doesn't take pleasure in injustice but rejoices in the truth.  He bears all things, believes all things, expects all things, endures all things.  He never fails.  

I saw the simplicity of it all in that moment.  Paul is telling us who God is and what good news that is for us as we bump along the road of life.  The love chapter was never meant to be understood as a list of things that we're expected to do but rather a reminder of what we can expect to be as we settle into the the arms of our loving Father.  We can expect to be treated with patience and kindness in our prickliest moments.  We can expect that God won't tear us down by bragging about the ease of His perfection and purity.  We can be confident that God will make our needs a priority and won't be quickly angered when we disappoint Him.  In fact, we can expect that He won't even keep tally marks of our failures at all.  It brings Him no pleasure to see us suffer lack but He's delighted when we prosper.  He bears all our flaws, believes in us all the time, expects good outcomes in every situation and endures alone when we have fallen away.  He never fails. Love never fails. No matter how wrong we get it, God's love for us never wavers.  

I stood at the sink for quite some time, the hot water wrinkling my fingers as I felt the vestiges of past fears and anxious thoughts peeling away.  It had never been my job to produce this kind of perfect, sacrificial love.  It was only my job to receive it as a glass receives water from a faucet.  And once filled, satisfied, equipped, I could simply share agape love with others effortlessly, allowing God's abundant, continuous supply to spill over into the lives I touched.  Oh, these simple things we complicate...

No wonder Jesus speaks of taking on His easy yoke, the one that joins us to Him in grace, the one that burdens Him yet sets us free...  It’s always been about Him loving us unconditionally first.  From the foundations of time, we have been beloved.  But how far from this truth have we strayed, trying to earn His favor, deserve His goodness, claim some role in our salvation.   

There’s a song on the Tigerlily album that I had forgotten about until this week when I was going through the songlist, the first time in over a decade.  It’s called Beloved Wife and the lyrics speak of the anguish an elderly man feels at the loss of his bride of 50 years.  

My love is gone

Would it be wrong if I should

Surrender all the joy in my life, 

Go with her tonight?

My love is gone

Would it be wrong if I should

Just turn my face away from the light, 

Go with her tonight?

It’s impossible to bottle my tears when I listen to it.  But this time, I heard the story from a different perspective.  God must have felt the same way about losing us, having His beloved torn from His arms with that first mouthful of sin.  How He must have grieved the absence of His greatest affection, keened for the one who was meant to receive His kindness, patience, favor.  The estrangement was more than Love could bear and so He did surrender all the joy of Heaven.  He did turn His face from everlasting light.  And He came to rescue us here on Earth where the enemy trafficks us in squalid alleys of despair and darkness.  Jesus paid the ransom, then for good measure, crushed the captor and restored us to our first beauty.  In the end, Love didn’t fail us.  

There are days when I look back on my early misgivings about love and cringe.  So much wasted time, so much unnecessary stress and toil.  Sometimes I wish I could start all over and get it right from the jump, giving both Bob and me an album of happy memories about those first months of marriage instead of the journey derailed that took us both by surprise.  But I’m slowly learning to see value in the weak spots of life’s construction.  Those are the points, when I’m frustrated and hopeless because I’ve got it all wrong, that God comes alongside and shows me how He got it all right.  How He bears the burden of success and only asks that I receive His affection while He works all things for my good. 

It’s an upside-down way of living, this being beloved.  It makes no sense to a world that still clamors for a leading role to play in the love story of life.  But having been through a few seasons of it now and having acquired a bit of wisdom in matters of the heart, love isn’t the puzzle it once was.  I now see that the most coveted role is that of understudy to the Master.  It’s best to find a spot to sit at His feet.  To rivet your hearing to His words alone.  To allow yourself, as unqualified and unpresentable as you may be, to receive all the goodness that He desires to give you.  The secret is this.  Those who love best are those who never find the bottom of God’s love for them. 

We love because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19