Letting Go…Again.

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She lights up a room. An extreme extrovert, she brings me out of my introversion.

Once again, my momma’s heart is being stretched. Our home, once full of bodies and books, is downsizing its numbers—again. And with it, I’m having to once again adjust as another of the great loves of my life launches.

Not yet a year has passed since my eldest got married, my second son moved into his own apartment, and my youngest started school. Now, my third born is about to plunge into one of her long-standing dreams. In less than a week, she too will fly the nest and move to Toronto to pursue her acting career.

I know we don’t have children with the purpose of holding onto them forever. I know they will eventually have to make their way in the world outside of the four walls we nurtured them within, but it still pinches the heart and stings the soul when the day comes to release them. That day always comes a little too soon.

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My little “Sussila” at ten years old.

The first day of school, sleepovers, the overnight camps are a mere dress rehearsal for the day you say goodbye for real—the day they launch not for a week but for forever.

I know how this goes. There I’ll be out on the front doorstep, where once I helped her climb, my heart suspended between aching and pride as I send her off. I’ll force myself not to over-hug lest she suspects the tears I’ll be fiercely trying to trap behind closed lids. But she’ll probably see them. I’m terrible at pretending and she’s particularly gifted at noticing.

All her zeal for life, energy, fun, and laughter will now be occasional guests in our home. The same place I often wished uncluttered and serene will now be perpetually so. The shoes I used to trip over, the clothes strewn on the floor, the discarded, damp towels (heaven help her housemate) will be replaced with floor! The debriefs over tea at the kitchen counter and the Starbucks goal-setting coffee dates will be replaced with infrequent catch-ups by phone or texts.

Everyone tells you it happens too fast but you brush them off. The days are long but the years are short they say. Listen. They are. One minute I was dragging my bone-weary body through 3 AM feedings, sweeping up countless crumbs, wearing out the knees in my jeans playing on the floor, puzzling over another math question, or nagging after something left undone. Don’t even get me started on the driving—I secretly loved it—but may have spent a solid five years of my life behind the wheel!

Now it all feels like a blink, a breath, as though I could have easily missed it for not paying enough attention. And I’m left with all those wondering whispers bumping around my brain asking, Did I do enough? Prepare her enough? Spend enough time? Teach her enough? Love her enough?

Of course I didn’t. But I sure as heck tried.

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Proud Mom. SO many dance competitions. SO many hours spent driving to dance classes. I wouldn’t have changed a minute of it.

It was all imperfect, as it will always be. A parent can never be enough for all there is in their little-grown-big-one’s life. All I can hope is that I send her off with my love securely tucked in her heart and mind, and trust she’ll take it from here. More than that, the God who loves her far better than I can ever manage goes with her, is beside her, is her biggest fan. That will surely be enough.

So once again I find myself in this uncomfortable celebratory mourning. A conflicted state of I’m-so-happy-for-youwhy-do-you-have-to-go-so-soon. Not one or the other, but both. So I’ll sigh, surrender, and sink into another new normal while thanking God for all we shared, all the sweet memories I carry, and anticipate the visits—and texts—to come.

Bye sweet girl. You’re a wonder and a joyous gift. What a privilege it is to be your momma.

 

A Broken Togetherness

19059562_10155076822815091_6085062570885595610_nTwenty-seven years of together. That’s a decent amount of time—a length I could hardly grasp when I said “I do.” Even now I can barely believe that span of time, even with the years stacked behind us, a beautiful bundle of children—all of it a blur of too fast.

It’s not for the faint of heart this thing called marriage. The years are uncertain, difficult, tumultuous, breaking. They are framed with laughter, stained from tears, and cushioned with faith, hope, and love—without which they’d crumble to certain death. But all of it is the making of a marriage and the making of us, together and individually.

It goes without saying that marriage is the choosing of a life lived alongside another. That recession up the aisle represents side-by-side living, saying no to selfishness, and no more going it alone—physically, emotionally, and even spiritually.

It’s a door flung open into your interior life, and the wider it remains, the better off you’ll be. Shutting the door in unforgiveness, complete self-reliance, or self-preservation isn’t an option. You signed on for a double passage.

It’s not a give and take mentality either. It’s a give and give again. Forgive and forgive again. And love—inside of imperfection—again and again.

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It’s not just proclaiming love in word but in being. In doing loving acts, speaking love out, responding in love, listening in love, sitting quietly in love when you’d rather tell him or her a thing or two. It’s staying when you’d sooner leave. It’s working to fix broken.

And to be honest, you’ll probably get wounded. Love fiercely and there’s a decent possibility. But it’s far better to love than to close yourself off in protection and precaution. That only serves to stifle vibrant love in all its various forms.

I’m no poster child for marriage done right. Ralph and my kids will tell you. Even so, I like to joke that because of him my crown in heaven will be too heavy to carry, and I’ll be assigned a full-time Seraphim flying overhead to hold it up. But he’s the realist and will tell you I’m no angel either.

But marriage isn’t I love you because you’re lovable. It’s closer to I love you in spite of the fact that you often aren’t. To know one’s faults and failings thoroughly and still love brings us closer to the heart of Jesus who loves us this way. To be wounded by that same person, forgive, and continue to love grows us to be like Jesus.

In this imperfect world full of imperfect people, love and marriage will likewise never be perfect. We are two broken people becoming less broken only now we do it together. Yet we often arrive in our marriage in this semi-broken state expecting perfect. So when life gets messy and our expectations of perfect go unmet or completely unravel, we think we made a bad choice. Instead of digging in and shoveling out of the chaos we concur the job is too hard and throw the shovel down.

But what if we agree that marriage isn’t perfection, nor is it the place where all our needs and desires will be met, but instead a broken togetherness.

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It’s not I love you because you’re beautiful, you complete me, you say and do the right things, and show up with chocolate and flowers (though that’s never a bad idea). It more closely resembles, if we are blessed with years I’ll love you until your skin sags. I’ll hang on to your hand over the hospital bed rail until your breath runs out. I’ll stay until the us becomes one again, and all that remains is the beautiful memories and the slightly less broken me once again.

So, here’s to another year of us—of we—amid our imperfections. May we love longer and larger than expected, and leave each other better than we found us.

 

 

 

This Is Not Heaven

61555202_676562199467770_2025329413687607296_nThis time of year is spectacular in Southern Ontario with its breathtaking array of flowering trees. There’s magnolias in all their splendor, the heavenly scent of lilacs, and cherry blossoms that take your breath away. The birds join in nature’s show adding songs that span daytime and reach into dusk.

Yet however fragrant the blooms, however sweet the birds’ chorus, all of this is just a mere scent of heaven. Anything of any beauty we experience here is only a small taste of things to come.

Amid these fleeting pockets of beauty and moments that take our breath away, we’re aware that the here and now is not heaven. Alongside the beauty, there’s heartache and hate, pain and poverty, tears and turmoil. There’s darkness that displaces light and depravity that dipells hope. Sometimes, despite the fragrance of heaven, the next breath is difficult and painful.

The world aches and our hearts throb, yet we try to replicate heaven on earth. We seek comfort, perfection, and beauty while desperately avoiding pain. We numb ourselves to distract the discomforting soul sores or the courage that it would take to face them. As a result we’re addicts clinging to cheap imitations of heaven while trying to break free of our various pacifiers. We reach for anything that will displace the pain for a while, silence the desperate cry of our hearts, or fill our empty places while running from the very thing that offers us the heaven we seek.

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No matter how beautiful the flowers, how idyllic a moment, how much a vacation feels like paradise, or a person like perfection, all pales in comparison to the real deal: knowing Jesus. It’s that friendship that fills the heart holes, heals the hurt, wipes away the wounding, and purchases the paradise you’re longing for. But to find it we need to release our misguided grip on the here and now, stop trying to fabricate heaven on earth, and reach for the promise—the person—of Jesus.

When we do, all that once seemed so important will lose its shine. All that we use to deal instead of heal will lose its lustre. This is how the apostle Paul put it: “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:8)

Strangely enough, heaven comes down—bursts right into the imperfection, heartache, futility, and falsehood, answering the groans of humanity with a healing love. A kind of love that makes room for the mess of this place, while cleaning up the garbage in our lives. In Jesus, we find the answer to our deepest needs, peace in the imperfection, deep joy despite circumstances, and the promise of a heavenly home.

What would it take for us to loosen our grip on the things of this world, to trade in the comforts we’ve tucked around our lives attempting to buffer the blows and ease the pain? In an act of faith we can reach for—or return to—Jesus and let him be the peacemaker and joy-giver of our lives.

This week’s song: “What a Beautiful Name”

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  1. What are you doing to numb the pain, fill the void, or find happiness? Is it working?
  2. If not, try Jesus. He’s been the answer to my deepest needs.