A Wisdom so Broken

 

It’s 5:30 AM, which is my new wake-up time because we got a puppy. Technically, the kids got a puppy, which means that she “sleeps” on their side of the house and they are responsible for getting up in the middle of the night if she needs to go out. And by “they,” I mean that when I come into the living room at 5:30 AM I know I will find Claire sleeping on the couch with little Lucy curled up at her feet. I tap her on the shoulder and whisper, “Honey, do you want to go back to your bed?” She nods, picks up her pillow, and stumbles away for a couple more hours of sleep. Claire is twelve, but has always been forty in her heart, which is what I will be in reality one year from today.

Today is my birthday. I sit beside Lucy on the couch and think about it. I read from my Bible-in-a-year plan and think about how Solomon had all the wisdom he asked for but slipped further and further into compromise until you can’t even recognize that wisdom anymore. I wonder about myself, and whether I will remember or forget the wisdom I have learned in 39 years.

Three months ago, for the fourth time in my life, I experienced the incomparable shock wave of awe that comes when you realize that God has formed a new life inside of you. It was unexpected. I had thought our family was complete, but when the shock wore off I laughed at how much I had believed that I was writing my own story, and at how different the plot was going to turn out than what I had expected.

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord established his steps.

This morning my reading was of Solomon’s prayer of dedication at the completion of the temple construction. He was on point as He recalled the Lord’s faithfulness in the past and pointed toward all the different circumstances that would compel God’s people to call on Him in prayer. I wonder if Solomon had clung to that thought, if it would have changed the trajectory of his story. I wonder if the turning point was when he stopped thinking about God’s faithfulness, stopped thinking that he needed to be one of those people crying out to the Lord.

In those early weeks I was not afraid. This was completely God’s idea and not our own. I’ve lived long enough to know that He is faithful, and that His plans are better than ours. In past seasons I have struggled and rebelled against unexpected change, but for the first time, I knew nothing but peace about this twist in the plot. This little life was God’s plan, and it was good.

But when I walked into that ultrasound room to see my baby for the first time, and when the technician took too much time before turning the screen around to face me, I knew.

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens Lord, with me abide

For three more weeks I walked around in a body that thought I was still pregnant but with a mind that knew the truth and a heart that hoped against hope that maybe the ultrasound was wrong. Week by week I watched as my labs returned with the confirmation that the life in my womb had ended. On June 23, the day before I would have been at the end of my first trimester, alone in my bathroom I delivered the sweet shell of my child.

When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me

The thing that I knew most deeply during the days of my miscarriage was that my Shepherd was with me and that His faithfulness would never fail. I knew it so deeply that I could taste it. Even when my spirit was raging within me, I was fully confident in His goodness. I found rest. My disbelief and fear and disappointment were safe in the refuge of His compassion. In my brokenness He was so near.

On my 39^th birthday, I think about Solomon. I wonder in those early days of his reign, when he was so broken and bowed by the weight of the crown on his head, when he knew without a doubt that his only hope for fulfilling his purpose was to sit at the feet of the Fountain of Wisdom, if he felt that same nearness, if he could taste it. I wonder when it started to fade. I think at the end of his life he remembered, but it was so bittersweet as he wrote, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.”

If this baby was a girl, her name was going to be Tessa Joy. Tessa – “harvester” –  after my mom, who also discovered that the name can mean “fourth child.” Harvester of joy. In the hardest days, I read from Psalm 16 – “In Your presence is fulness of joy.” This fourth child is in a fulness of joy I have not yet experienced, and that is a beautiful thought for my heart to dwell on.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness

I’ve probably never been so broken as I have been in this season. But what a deep well of wisdom is formed through suffering. I pray that I would never be the same, that I would be marked forever by the comfort of God’s presence that can only be experienced in brokenness. I look at Solomon and see someone who gained wisdom but forgot how to use it.  On my 39^th birthday I hope I will not forget.

Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me

 

The Middle Ages

About a year ago I experienced a shift – one which slipped in unnoticed but proved to be rather seismic – in who I am as mom. For twelve years I had at least one child in the baby-toddler-preschool era. I was a stay-at-home mom. The role was hard but at least simple in some ways – keep them fed, safe, somewhat clean. Teach them to listen, snuggle with them in the mornings, pull up a chair to the kitchen counter so they can “help.” It was defined – never easy, but still clear. It felt like running a marathon through a mud pit – slow, exhausting, and inching toward the goal.

My baby started first grade this year. My firstborn turned twelve. I have one eagerly knocking on the door of adolescence, one reluctantly closing the door on the preschool years, and one trying to figure out who she is in the middle. In the flash of a moment I went from stay-at-home mom to taxi driver – from naps and bathtime to screaming cheering on the sidelines of the court or field or stage, heart in my throat as I watch my babies give it their all, facing the risk of failure, learning to persevere. Where I was once exhausted physically, I find myself with three independent humans under my roof, requiring less and less of my help with daily tasks. But where I once knew what was required of me each day, I find that I am more and more desperate for wisdom to guide, help, encourage, and instruct these three unique personalities. It feels like running a marathon on a slip-n-slide – wild, unpredictable, moving ahead by leaps and bounds some days and falling flat on my face other days.

I have been quiet for a couple of years. I’ve been finding my footing. I’ve grieved the loss of the sweetness of babies and toddlers and preschoolers, but I also love where we are. I love getting to know my kids all over again, the people they are becoming. I’m not sure of myself. I had developed perspective in those little years, and now I find I am developing it all over again.

Anxious thoughts look a little different in these middle ages but they still tend to multiply. And when they do, I remember Moses’ words to the anxious Israelites as they stared into the impassable sea that stood in front of them.

Fear not…stand firm…see the salvation of the Lord…

It doesn’t all depend on me. These sweet “little” people, one of whom has reached only a couple of inches below the top of my head and will probably pass me next year, will each have their own journey. They will have to learn to trust in the Lord with all of their hearts, and I will continue to do the same. The prayer that is most often on my lips and mind and heart these days is that they, as Paul prayed for the Ephesians, will be rooted and grounded in love.

The middle ages. We’re here, ready or not. But I think we’re ready.

The Tension and the Remembering

I see you on the hard days. I am acquainted firsthand with the struggle between faith and sight. I know the look in your eye when your reality does not line up with what you have been taught and what you have embraced and what you know to be true.

We live in a tension.

There is the promise, and there is the waiting. There is what we can see but also what we cannot. Our days are often a mixture of good news and hard news. You’ll learn this more and more.

But Abraham still stood before the Lord…

It was in between the good news and the hard news, in the tension of God’s faithfulness to His gracious promise and His just punishment of evil. The Lord came, not for the first or second or even third time, reminding Abraham that what He says, He will bring to pass – a son would be born, nations would be blessed. Basking in the comfort of that assurance, Abraham must have felt his heart drop when the Lord looked toward Sodom, when He said, “I will go down and see,” when the men turned and went toward the city. Abraham knew what they would find.

But Abraham still stood before the Lord…

Boldness and humility wrapped themselves up in his prayer to the Judge of all the earth. “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city…forty-five…forty…thirty…twenty…ten…” And the Judge of all the earth was not angry but full of compassion. “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” Abraham clung to the promise and hoped.

And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord…

It was in between the good news and the hard news, in the tension of God’s faithfulness to His gracious promise and His just punishment of evil. Abraham had gone to bed knowing that within a year he would be a father to the child of promise, yet also knowing that the life of his nephew, whom he loved like a son, hung in the balance in a city full of wickedness. When he got to the place where he had stood before the Lord, interceding as one who knew he was but dust and ashes, and looked out over the valley, he saw the smoke rise and he knew. His prayers had not been answered. His intercession had not changed the outcome. The city was destroyed. The Lord had not found ten righteous in Sodom. All was lost.

So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham…

It was in between the hard news and the truth, the seen and the unseen. He saw the destruction but he didn’t yet know the relentless mercy that God demonstrated in Sodom. He saw the smoke but he didn’t yet know that his Lord had literally pulled Lot and his family out of the city despite their foolish lingering. He saw that the prayers he had spoken were unrequited, but he did not yet know that the Judge of all the earth had heard the unspoken cry of his heart and had moved to answer by rescuing his nephew. He thought Lot was dead, but he wasn’t.

We live in a tension, but one day we will see not through a glass dimly but face to face, and know not in part but in full. You will live through days when your heart is filled with rejoicing in one instant and dread the next. It is a hard thing to walk by faith, but it is the only way. Trust in His promise because He is faithful. Know that He is always at work, even when you can’t see. Boldly approach His throne because He is full of compassion. Intercede knowing that He hears the cry of your heart. And when smoke fills the horizon, remember that He is good, and that He remembers you.

Lord of the Seasons

 

You stood in the kitchen this morning, dissident, questioning the whole system as you have been doing since the day nearly a decade ago that I told you to pick up your shoes and put them in the bucket. You picked them up, leveled your 14 month old gaze on me, and promptly threw them back on the floor. You’ve come a long way since that notorious hour and a half long Battle of the Shoes, and your relentlessly questioning nature has gained an edge of wisdom but it is still there. And I kind of hope it will always be.

So I flipped the grilled cheese sandwiches and thought about how hard it is to be between a child and a teenager, and how much maturity it takes to yield when you don’t want to. I thought about how a toddler needs kind and gentle authoritarianism but an almost eleven year old needs hope that will feed obedience past the days when a mom’s voice isn’t the loudest anymore. I thought about how I figured I would have the mom thing down by now but I still don’t have a clue what I’m doing.

“I know this isn’t what you want. I know it doesn’t seem fair. But it’s the season that you are in. This season won’t last forever. But if God really is good, and He really is wise, and He really is in control, then there must be something good that He wants you to learn right now. Maybe you could ask Him to show you what that is…”

Now you are at tennis practice and I am wondering why these words flow out of me when you are standing in the kitchen with exasperation on your face but they leave me when I am alone with my own thoughts.

I know this isn’t what you want.

I have spent the past half of my life coming to terms with the fact that life doesn’t cater to my wishes and dreams. I moved to New Orleans to pursue a calling and left in a hurricane. I entered the classroom as a teacher to change the world and left in tears. I married to become one and found out that it’s not automatic. I lost some friends too young, watched others leave a narrow path for a destructive one. I began to understand that my perfectionism will never satisfy. Thirty-one years I have been walking with the Lord and what frustrates me the most is how far I am from being like Christ.

But it’s the season that you are in, and it won’t last forever.

Ah, there’s the part that flies from my mind. To everything there is a season, and I don’t get to define the length or determine the conditions. Does God say, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ”? Does He say, “Faithful is He who called you; He also will bring it to pass”? Does He say, “All things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose”? Why don’t I believe it? Cling to it through all the days when my sight is not catching up to faith? Like Abraham I get too impatient waiting for the promise.

But after so many vain attempts to change the seasons myself, to ignore them, to become bitter in the midst of them, or to crawl under a rock and hide from them, I wish I could constantly remember that it’s not the seasons but my perspective that needs to change the most.

If God really is good…

I lift up my eyes to the mountains; where does my help come from?

And He really is wise…

My help comes from the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth.

And He really is in control…

He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.

Then there must be something good that He wants you to learn right now.

I want you to know that God is for you; that He is Lord of all the seasons that we experience, and that we can’t define happiness apart from humble submission to Him. I want you to know the joy of trusting in His promises and walking in obedience. Of doing justice and loving mercy and walking humbly with our God. Of abiding in Him and He in you.

I want me to know it too.