song

By the time I was my daughter's age, I'd been singing in a choir for at least six years. I contemplate this as I watch her make corporate music with her classmates today—praying that similar seeds of interest and affection would likewise get lodged deep within her ready heart and take root.

Their voices are sweet, innocent, self-conscious. How long until she learns to sing with abandon, I wonder? How long until she discovers the thrill of giving herself over to the experience? How long until her joy in the glorious moment overpowers her fear of what other people think?

I flash back to my weekend—singing love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all, with my college choir Saturday night—full heart, full voice, full volume. Complete abandon. Complete accord. Complete joy.

I try to tell Beth about it at breakfast. About how alumni of the Chorale always get to join the choir in the singing of this piece at every concert. About my director and the significant role he played in that very significant time in my life. About how I've never been so happy as when singing with a choir of that caliber. But I can't tell her. Not without tears. Not today.

The Chorale sang—

What can purge my heart
Of the long And the sadness?
What can purge my heart
But the song Of the sadness?
What can purge my heart 
Of the sadness
Of the song?

("Song for Billie Holiday," Poem by Langston Hughes)

This sadness cannot be purged by any other means. Song is the remedy. Song is the therapy. Song is the salvation.

There will come a time when Song will be restored in my life. All is healed, all is health… Hearts all whole. ("Sure on This Shining Night," James Agee) I eagerly await that day—when my heart is once again whole. Until then, I merely listen, missing pieces of that which is most essentially me.

My thoughts come back to the 6^th graders before me—fresh-faced, fledgling voices lifted up together in praise. I smile, fighting back tears for the second time today. I pray for their song to purge my sadness. And I listen with eager excitement, awaiting with baited breath the moment when they, too, learn the fullness of joy that comes from abandoning one's self to the music. Until they, too, know what it feels like to be Complete.

we get by with a little help...

The day spent, we lay in bed, catching up on lost snuggle time—a high priority in our household. Buddy's curls find their way around my nose, tickling me even in their post-shower dampness. I breathe in the smell of shampoo, repositioning my head, and hug him tighter.

"You know what, Buddy?" I say. "I think you're the best boy ever."

He squeezes my arm, wrapped securely around his waist. "And you're the best Momma ever," he replies.

"I mean it, Buddy. I think you are a really neat kid," I tell him, wanting him to get that I'm not just saying this because this is something Momma's say. Wanting him to get that I see him for who he is, and that who he is has value. Wanting him to get that I don't just love him, but I like him, too.

He squeezes again. "I mean it too, Momma," he says. And in a whisper he adds, "You help me when I need help."

You help me when I need help. I am caught off guard by his comment—I smile a "that's an interesting thing to say" smile in the dark. "I'm happy to help you, Buddy. I will always help you when you need help."

It is interesting the things that speak love to a child. So often, they are not the things we think we should be doing. They are the things are children ask for. Snuggling. Praying. Doing something together. Time spent in proximity at the end of a day of separateness. Helping when one needs help. Putting the work aside and playing four square (with two people) when you'd really rather get your work done. I don't do it all perfectly. Some of it I don't even do with mediocrity. But in his world, at the moment, there is a little bit I am doing right.

After my week, I will take it, and rest in that tonight.

on the couch with buddy

Sigh. What is it they say about the best-laid plans?

Today was spent nursing my 8-year-old back to health, rather than taking care of myself. Some days, we just have to do this. God takes our tidy little agenda and tips it upside down like a snow globe, and all the little "appointments" float around like flecks of glitter and fall in entirely different places. My women's group. My quiet time. Blogging. Working on the manuscript. My healing prayer appointment. All up in the air, and then all just gone—buried under a day full of Mike Rowe getting dirty to my son's gleeful delight.

It would be one thing if I did it well—this caretaking thing. I sat on the couch for as long as I could stand it, reading my book in snippets between Mike's bleeps and blunders, and then I was gone. The itch to be productive would not leave me be and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the computer working on blogging issues and research while Buddy sat on the couch watching Mike alone with his fever and his chicken soup.

I wrestle with this parenting thing. With this working full time/writing part time/parenting full time/exercising part time/dieting full time/socializing part time/taxi-driving full time/repeating sixth grade part time schedule I keep. There is not enough time to do it all, let alone do it well. There is fatigue. There is frustration. There is worry. And there is guilt. There is a LOT of guilt. I worry I've not done this mothering thing well. Not really well. And it grieves me. Because I wanted to do it well.

But there is, occasionally, a light that glimmers like a crystal catching the light of the sun at just the right angle. It reflects back to me something of glory. I sit back, my breath caught, and I just look. That glimmer is hope. And the sun is reflecting more and more of it lately. The hope that God will equip. Will restore. Will sustain. Will guide. If only I will listen and follow. If only…

My devotional for today reads:
Trust me one day at a time. This keeps you close to me, responsive to my will. Trust is not a natural response, especially for those who have been deeply wounded. My Spirit within you is your resident tutor, helping you in this supernatural endeavor. Yield to his gentle touch; be sensitive to his prompting. (Jesus Calling, March 18)

Yield to his gentle touch, sensitive to his prompting. I wonder how different today might have looked had I done that. I can't undo it now, so I will not dwell there in regret, but move forward in resolve.

Tomorrow, the snow globe gets re-shaken, and the glitter falls where it may. I can only take it one day at a time. Tomorrow is a new opportunity. To listen. To yield. To follow.

To trust.

To take care.

standing strong when the winds blow

"Momma, they're kissing on the LIPS," my sixth grader tells me, distraught. "And their parents don't KNOW."

A wide range of thoughts and emotions churn in the back of my head making a sound similar to the whirring and grinding my computer does when its busy thinking. I am confused—when on earth did this happen? I am concerned—why is this issue coming up so frequently already? I am relieved—my daughter obviously thinks this is a significant problem. I turn cartwheels quietly in my head at the reassurance she does not think this is appropriate. I am alarmed—how do the parents not know? What's going on? I am apprehensive—do I need to tell them? How do I go about doing that? And how do I protect my daughter, the bearer of information, in the process?

She goes on and on in her concern. For several days. DAYS. She talks to me. She talks to teachers. She cries on their shoulder. She cries on mine. So much drama for such a tender little heart. So much confusion and chaos for such a young spirit. It consumes her life for several days. And, therefore, it consumes mine, as well.

The proverbial winds of change are blowing with a gale force this March. Boys and girls kissing. Friendships shifting. Homework increasing. Expectations increasing. And that's just at school. An exit from the gym. An entrance into physical therapy. An increase in my hours. A change in my husband's employment. Her life is in flux. Flux is not fun.

She tells me in bed last night that she's worried. She sees herself in a row of dominoes. She fears that the choices her friends make will affect her. She frets that if one domino falls, they eventually all fall. I give her a different picture. I encourage her to see herself as a column. A pillar. Tall and strong and rooted in the ground. A domino cannot topple a column. "I like that, Momma. That's a good picture," she tells me, nestling into my shoulder.

Innocence is already beginning to slip away, and my daughter is not yet even twelve. I take a deep breath, and I pull her close, and I pray like crazy for wisdom, for guidance, for her protection. I pray that God will show her in a multitude of ways that he is in control, and he's got this situation in his hands. After amen, I go downstairs, and I look up pillar on biblegateway.com, and this is what I find:

Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace. Ps 144:12

Our daughters will be like pillars.

He is showing me, in a multitude of ways, that he is in control. He's got my daughter in his hands. I can rest assured.

I can rest, assured.