Everything and Nothing

We are, none of us, everything.

Not to ourselves or our spouses or our children or to anyone who we love.

I'm reminded of this forcibly when my 2-year old's face crashes because I can't pick her up. Baby brother in one arm and three or four grocery bags in the other, walking through the middle of the parking lot, it's an impossibility. I cannot do it.

I hate that, those moments where I know what they need and I know what they want and I still can't do it, the moments where I have to look into their eyes and say, "Mommy can't right now," and I know they don't understand.

They need everything. They need to be held by arms stronger than mine, cared for by someone more patient than I am, fed and clothed and hugged by someone with infinite energy.

That's not me.

And so I choose, here and there, the things I'm good at and the things I like and the things I feel called to, and I try to become good at giving those things. I try to let the rest go, to know that Daddy and Jesus can meet the needs I cannot meet. All the same, in this torn ragged world we live in, I know that some needs, some important needs even, will go unmet.

I can be everything to no one. And so I strive to do a few things well, knowing all the while that they need everything and I can't give them that, no matter how much I would if I could.

May I point them to Jesus, who has already given it all! May one of the things I learn to do well be directing their eyes to his and teaching them to see! May they have receptive hearts to see and hear and understand!

Linking with Emily today.

Growing Up

Time wings by, passing us unless we mark it somehow. He's more than two months now, and the early days, the ones everyone tells you to hold onto, are going and gone, and me with vague impressions in my head of smiles and coos. Already, too-small clothes pile up and I try to face truth that I may never see a child of mine in them again.

And she's two years, and I wonder where the hours are. I feel there must be a pile, somewhere, of seconds and minutes that I missed. We couldn't possibly have lived enough of them for her to be so big.

Time passes, and I can try to hold onto it or I can look at their faces now. I can wonder what I missed, which precious moments didn't get catalogued by photograph or memory, or I can look at what I have, at what my hands hold now, and marvel.

Moments weren't meant to be held. A few, perhaps, we'll cradle forever, but most of them are meant to be lived. I mean the bad ones, too, the ones where she learns she's not part of me and two asserts itself with a vengeance, and the ones where tummy aches keep him awake and tired baby eyes beseech the world for sleep.

Stopping time would be a luxury, but it would also be a curse. I could hold the moments I want to remember, have enough time in them to write them down or take that picture or build an altar. But how to know when to stop the clock? What if the next ones would get even better? And, oh, the agony of choosing to start time again, not knowing what's ahead.

And so we go through life, unable to skirt around the edges even if we want to. For truly living isn't just making memories, it's also marching through the unmemorable and choosing to continue, and it's knowing that we can't hold onto everything we love, that not even our memories are entirely our own.

Sometimes the Answer is Another Question

I put my order in for this week and, like those times when you ask for an Egg McMuffin and end up with a Cheeseburger, somehow it got garbled in the process. My requests were simple, I thought: 1 baby (born, healthy); 1 mama (healthy, no longer pregnant); 1 toddler (healthy, happy, loving baby brother); 1 daddy (healthy, proud).

Instead the tally seems to be 1 baby (still inside, presumed healthy); 1 mama (sick, still pregnant); 1 toddler (sick, grumpy), 1 daddy (healthy).

I keep wondering if it would do any good to go back to the drive-thru and try yelling this time.

They're little things, the ones I didn't get this week, and yet I keep finding myself upset that I didn't get them. I want this baby out like you could not possibly believe (except you can, if you've been there), I want to be able to breathe through my nose, and I want my girl to regain the ability to deal that seems to flee when she's ill.

This week, these little things mirror larger things that I prayed for over months and years when I felt like God was ignoring me. Now that things seem to be on the upswing for us, I can look back on those times with a little more clarity. A little more, but not too much.

I thought there'd be a moment of truth, a time when I'd realize why we walked through difficulty and uncertainty, when I'd see a purpose behind it all and suddenly understand. But just like I don't understand how this week turned out so opposite what I'd hoped, I don't understand why our lives had to go all topsy-turvy for 2 years.

Maybe I never will know. Maybe I'll never be able to explain to my girl why her first impressions of the world are probably so mixed and confusing. Maybe there will never be words.

I can say that, but can I live it? Questions rise up, more and more of them every time I try to make peace with that. Not just "Why?" but more detailed questions. Did I miss something? How do I know when life is just like that and when there's some sort of method to be found? I wonder why my girl's coming into the world seemed to usher in a time of pain and confusion, and my son's looks to come alongside peace and routine and rest. And on, and on.

So right now I'm sitting with questions. They're fragile, or maybe I am, because if I think on them too hard, they'll break (or maybe I will). So they sit in my hands. I poke them a little, then I walk away and come back later, only to poke again.

Will answers come from the prodding? Peace? I don't know, but I know that, just as I can't look at them too hard, I can't leave them behind, either. They're pieces of the future, I think, even though I can't see how they all fit just now. So I'll hold, look, poke, leave until something rises from their ashes.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Loving the Sharp Places

It's easy, when the beautiful is her smile and the sun reflecting off her blonde hair as she runs ahead of me. And it's easy when she dances on the living room floor, just-learned jumps still wobbly but nothing half-hearted about them.

But it's different when the beautiful is tears at dinner because her olive fell apart and demands to get out of the car while it's still moving. It's different when naps don't happen and they dare change the clocks and she doesn't want to wear diapers but refuses to use the potty.

We think of beauty as the round and the smooth, with graceful edges balanced by straight lines. But beauty can be pointy, too, and sharp, and hard as a rock. Some say that isn't beauty, but when it's a little heart trying to figure out what it means to be human, what else can it be?

And so I try to love her like she's beautiful, even the hard parts. I wrap my arms around all of her, even the points and the prickles, and I hold her close to me even when she's sharp. How else will she learn of love, that it has more to do with the lover than the condition of the beloved? Because to be human is to be loved, and that's what I'd have her know more than anything else.

When Love is Enough

At the end of a day when she didn't sleep and I needed her to, tomorrow looks like a long haul. I keep reminding myself that we're all still in transition, but what to do when I need 10 minutes away from being mama and she needs her mama now, and now, and now. The pressure is on, to get us settled before her baby brother arrives and to still meet her needs and make her smile.

Little eyes, little nose, red from crying and I can't give her what she wants because neither of us know what that is. Not up, not down, not bunny or bear, not the book, nor the baby, nor the markers and paper.

It's the intangibles that get us all, even when we're small, and sometimes being offered love just isn't enough. Sometimes we all want to run away, want to bang our heads against the wall or hold our hands in front of our faces so the world can't get in anymore. Sometimes stress settles around all of our shoulders, even the smallest ones, and we can't rest for the pressure we can't see.

I didn't want her to be like me, didn't want her to absorb emotional energy like her skin is an emotion-permeable membrane, not always able to distinguish what's mine and hers and yours and someone else's. But I think she is, dear little sensitive soul, and I feel the need to be okay so she will be okay.

There's also truth, though, and when the truth is something other than okay, I want to learn to hold that for her, as I hold her and let her fall apart in my arms.

Tiny love. Not so tiny anymore, not even the tiniest in our family, but always my little love. May you find your sleep, and may we both remember that love is enough, even when it feels like it ought to be otherwise.

Musings on Liturgy: Where Do I Go?

To whom shall we go? 

You have the words of eternal life,

and we have believed, and have come to know

that You are the Holy One of God.

Praise to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ,

King of endless glory.

My head hurts today. The raging hormones of pregnancy can cause that, they say, and I suspect that pondering the future too much can, too. Not being able to take my traditional rounds of medication makes me grumpy, and when I'm grumpy too long, I go to a bad place.

Most of you reading this probably know that place, if not in your own experience, at least in your experience of other people. It's a place where life sucks and where I don't want any demands placed on me because I'm uncomfortable, darnit!, and the people around me are supposed to take care of me, not the other way around. 

It's not a good place. It's not a place that makes me a better wife, mother, symbiotic host, or friend. And it's not a place from which I really want to talk to God. After all, he calls me to be more than my headache, to come out of the place where I want everyone to feel sorry for the poor pregnant woman who cannot take medicine to feel better and see where others are at, too. 

And yet, where else is there to go?

The words above, part of my morning liturgy, seem like one of the most appropriate greetings for God that I've ever heard. That's the way I see them, like the words I say when I'm finally through the door, after I've stated my intention to want Him and only Him and asked that my heart be changed so that intention can be truth. Then I get to see Him, and these are the words I'm given to say. 

Truly, there's nowhere else to go. Or nowhere else that it makes sense to go, anyway. In reality, we all try to go a lot of different places other than to God. People talk about these places all the time. They're the things we try to fill ourselves with, the things that actually make us more empty, and yet we return over and over again.

There's only one place we can go, but to do that we have to admit that He is God. We have to say that He is the Lord, the Son of the King and King himself, and that his perspective, the eternal one, is the one that counts to us more than anything else does. It's hard to do this, especially hard when we want our circumstances to matter more than they do, when we're demanding acknowledgement of our pain or our struggles or our unmet desires before we submit to anything.

That's not to say that these things aren't important. We need to feel our pain, and we need others to see it and speak into it. Our circumstances do matter, because that's where we're loved. And if we aren't held and loved in the places where our deep desires aren't met, we'll have holes inside that effect the rest of our lives. 

These things matter, but they aren't everything. Even when we're hurting, there's more going on than our pain. There are His words of eternal life, and the knowledge that He knows us and sees us, and that our pain hurts Him, too. It's not always comforting to remember these things (in fact, it can be maddening), but keeping them in mind can change our perspective. When we see Him through our pain, we see the pain itself differently.

And so today I work to acknowledge Him. I work to love the people around me, even with their demands, because He loves them and because He loves me. And in the larger picture of our current struggles and state of unknowing about what the next few months, I try to find the joys in every day, because those are things He has given, rather than dwelling on the unknown, or the things He hasn't given.

Canyon Places

We've been waiting and waiting, these last months, for the phone to ring. He's applied so many times, so many places, so many different jobs. People tell us over and over again that the market sucks, like we don't know that or it's supposed to be comforting. It's not us, nothing personal, and we don't take it that way. But you can only go so long staring at a silent phone when all you want it to do is ring before you start to wonder if you got the rules wrong, somehow, or if you're playing a different game than the rest.

And then it rings, and again and again. Three interviews in two weeks, and we were out of town for one of those. A job we really want, a job we kind-of want, and one that we'll take with joy if the others fall through. Three different industries, three different types of experience. But it's all backwards, with notifications coming in the order opposite of what would be helpful and us wondering if we're going to have to close the door on something sure because we hope for what we don't yet know. We're not sure if we can do it, if it comes to that. Not even sure we should, with two littles in the mix now and the need for at least a semblance of stability.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a player in a game that I don't understand, like if I could have the view of the chess player rather than the pawn, then it would all make sense. From where I stand, it feels backwards and inside out (or, in the words of my daughter's book, "Inside, Outside, Upside Down"). We've waited so long for any opportunity, and now we have three. Rejoice! On the other hand, we may end up choosing one that's not what we really want because we can't wait any longer to hear back from the one that's most ideal. Bah! 

It's a twisty thing, this path of life, and somewhat easier, I think, if we accept that most of what we'll do is wander. There aren't many vistas, here, not many places where the clouds part and the rocks move and we get to see where we've been and how it leads to where we're going. Most of the time, I think we're in a relatively narrow canyon with high walls. It's beautiful, there, with a stream running through and trees and flowers and all the layers and layers of rock stacked to remind us that others have been by, millions and millions of times. It's beautiful, but we can't see.

This doesn't bother some people nearly as much as it bothers me. I've always wanted to see, always strived to understand more, to gain a bigger perspective. I think it's the the way my mind works, the way I was made, if you will. I don't like having pieces without a whole, don't like sifting them through my fingers without some sort of overarching reason or premise behind it all. 

I want us to make the right choice, to not choose out of fear but out of wisdom. I want the pieces to fall into place, so that I know. But without the bigger perspective, I don't know if that's possible. And I wonder why he doesn't tell us more, doesn't give us what we need to know to make the right choice. 

"Trust," comes to mind, and I work on that. Yet he's trusted me with so much, and it kills me to think I might not be able to make the right choice here. He'll still be there if we don't; I know that. But I don't know how much more of this wandering I can endure. Funny, that. I've always been a wandering heart. But now I want roots, a place to settle, a place and a routine that feels like home.

Musings on Liturgy: One Thing

One thing I have asked of the Lord,

this is what I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life;

to behold the beauty of the Lord

and to seek Him in His temple. 

Beautiful words, these. And their sentiment is one I would echo with my whole heart . . . if I could. When I first came to this prayer, I almost stopped. "I can't say that," I thought. "Because I ask God for a lot of things, and seek more than just dwelling with Him."

This is a problem that I often have with liturgy - the words are beautifully written and over the centuries they've been tweaked to truly say those things that the human heart most needs to say to God, and to do it in language that is a deep as it is wide. But so many times, my heart is in a different place. I want to mean the things that the spectacular words say (or at least I want to want to, but don't get me started on second-order desires), but I don't. Or I don't know if I do.

In fact, when I really thought about it, the truth was even worse than that. Not only did I feel, in the moment of my prayer, that I didn't mean the words I was saying, but I also I didn't know if the things this prayer asks for would truly satisfy me. If all I ever had was another glimpse of God, would that be okay? What if Dave never got a job and our kids got sick and we had to live with my parents forever? Would I still be okay because I'd be gazing at God's beauty?

***

There is one time in my life where I know I experienced God. Many, many other times, I think I've experienced him or I hope I've experienced him, but there's only one time when I know, absolutely, positively, hands down, that I experienced God. Maybe that's unusual for a Christian, but it's my experience.

I went to Confession exactly once while I attended an Episcopal church. I love the way they do it there, with the priest sitting beside you, a present observer, one who hears the sins but not the one to whom they are confessed. And then he offers absolution, saying a few words and making the sign of the cross on the penitent's forehead. I don't know what you think about absolution, but there was definite relief in my heart and my life to hear someone actually speak words of forgiveness and reconciliation with authority. 

And when he touched me, I experienced God. Love unlike I'd ever experienced it before flooded through his fingers and into me. I didn't know if it would crush me or make me fly, but such was the power that I felt like I had to let it do one of those two things. It was exquisite, overwhelming, powerful . . . and more. I cannot describe it, and that's part of how I know it was God. 

As soon as he stopped touching me, the feeling left, too. A few seconds, but I'll carry their memory forever. I'd followed God for a long time, but he became real to me in a new way, that day. He became real because he became other, not something I could make up nor feelings that I could drum up, but a being entirely other, to be loved and grappled with and understood and not understood.

***

When I think about that day, I feel like there's a chance that I could mean those words. If I was really living in the presence of God everyday, seeing his beauty and seeking the love that could destroy but instead chooses not to, I would be satisfied. I could not help but be so. 

I've noticed, though, that experiencing God like I did that day doesn't happen very often. Once, for me, in thirty-two years and a few months. Maybe more for some, but not a lot more. And so I'm left in a quandry - I could mean the words I see in the liturgy, but I don't think it's possible (or at least probable) that I'm ever going to be able to experience God like that in every moment. So do I pray the words as a wish, or do I refuse them because I know I have to live as me, in my world.

***

What I experienced that day was an unusual, powerful, and intensely personal demonstration of God's love. I can't get to that everyday. For one thing, I don't think God offers himself to me in that way everyday. Maybe knowing him that way would destroy me. Maybe it would make me superhuman. I don't know. But I do know this: it would take me out of my world. 

There have been a few who have walked that way. Dame Julian and St. Therese, to name just a couple. But more often, God gives his love in everyday circumstances. He doesn't make us all mystics, but instead calls us to seek and behold in our everyday lives. I don't think that means living with a moment-by-moment awareness of the kind of love I experienced that day. 

The truth is, I do dwell in His house every day. It's all His house: our cluttered desk, the dirty clothes on the floor, the teething baby, all of it. And while it's nice to behold his beauty in a more straightforward way, at least every once in a while, I can choose to see and seek Him everyday. 

It's hard, this finding-God-in-daily-life. Some do it through gratitude, some choose to look back and see where He's been in the past, and some pray the hours. I'm not good at it yet. But I have come to see that, if I could live that way, my life would be full. Or, rather, the empty spots wouldn't matter so much anymore. 

***

There are still days where I come to these words and pause, days when I don't really want to put in the effort to see Him in everyday life, where I wish he'd either reveal himself more vividly or leave me to my life. But I say the words because they're right and true, and because they're the call of my heart even when my heart doesn't know it. 

Betraying Ourselves

But it was not your fault but mine,

And it was your heart on the line.

I really f***** it up this time,

Didn't I, my dear?

-Little Lion Man, by Mumford & Sons

She'd been away from home for a long time, this girl, and had returned largely against her will. Upon coming back, she found out that her most beloved brother had, years ago, been involved in something large, dark, and awful. Just in case that wasn't bad enough, she had become a victim of this awful darkness, though neither she nor her brother knew of the other's involvement. 

Several days after the horrifically awkward situation where they found this out, he managed to catch her alone. "What must you think of me?" he asked. He had to know.

She ponderd her tea for a minute. Old anger and rage filled her, but she knew her brother. He gotten carried away by rhetoric and let other people tell him what greatness was. Like her, he'd spent years forgetting the person he was and trying to replace him with someone a bit more dazzling. She could not hate him.

"I think," she said, then paused for a moment. "I think we all make choices, sometimes, that betray ourselves and the people who love us. And it's not about whether we make them, because we all do, but about what we do afterwards that counts."

***

I wrote that, a couple of weeks ago, and stopped. Her sentences, there, are what my book is about. I thought it was about leaving and coming home, and reconciliation, and joining together to fight something bad. And it is about all of those things, but they're all responses to the self-betrayal that she mentions here. They're all part of the "what we do afterwards."

I stopped because I'm in awe of those sentences. I can't quite believe that I wrote them, in fact. Times like this, I know that I don't write alone, because I don't think like that. I don't usually manage to sum life up in phrases that actually make sense. 

***

Self-betrayal and what we do with it isn't just what my book is about, but what life is about. If we were originally made in God's image, after all, then all sin is self-betrayal. It's something that takes us away from the beings we were created to be, something that keeps us from becoming the people we could be.

It's also endemic. We all sin, we all betray ourselves. But afterwards, we have choices. Whether the betrayal is big or small, we can run from it or we can face it. We can't always undo it or undo the damage done, but we can choose how we move forward. Denial or acceptance, defensiveness or repentance, trying to ignore it or struggling through the truth, there are always choices.

It's hard to come to terms with the evil that we've done, especially when the sin is large and guilt and shame are competing for prominence in what we feel towards ourselves and our actions. Sometimes it takes years to pick up the pieces of the actions we've chosen and move on, to figure out which direction is actually forward and to choose to move that way. 

***

It's especially hard to come to terms with the evil in ourselves when we've hurt ourselves along the way. It's hard to say, "I would be hurting like this if I hadn't made particular choices," or "I was a bright-eyed little child with so many ideals and I'll never live up to them because of the choices I've made." 

I don't think this is hard because we can't see or feel our own pain, but because it's so hard to hold the fact that we can be both a victim and a perpetrator in the same action, at the same time. That's what my character sees, though, when she sees her brother. She sees the pain he's felt at his own choices, and she chooses compassion for the wounded brother rather than vengeance on the stupid one. 

Of course, the only reason she can see all of this is because she's experienced it in and of herself (she's a perceptive one, that girl). And maybe that's one of the most important reasons we need to face our sin, acknowledge all of the victims including ourselves, and choose truth as we move forward. If we don't, we can't choose compassion on other sinners, either. 

***

My characters aren't all happy in the end. They aren't all living the lives they'd have lived if they hadn't made the choices they made. And, though I think they'll do it eventually, they haven't all chosen to look truth in the eye, to choose to walk in who they really are and not who they want to be.

I think that's real. I don't know that seeing sin for what it is is something that everyone can do, though I do know that many capable of doing it won't choose that. But I do know that seeing the truth is the best way. And asking our own forgiveness may seem like it's only something that sentimental musicians do in popular songs, but I think it can take us far. 

Lost and Found

I felt so lost after I had her. I clung to her and to Dave and I hoped that, someday, my world would stop spinning so I could find myself again.

Post-partum depression, people say, and I nod but I don't know. So much more happened than just having a baby (which is hardly a "just"). I gained and lost more than the parts that most women gain and lose when they have a baby.

In that year, I lost my safety and security, pieces of my identity, even my home. Some of it was taken, and some of it I just gave up and walked away, the effort to hold on no longer worthwhile.

And yet I wish . . . I wish I had looked into my daughter's face and felt peace and hope, not terror. I wish those baby smiles had brought joy, and not just a temporary abeyance of fear. I wish I'd loved her as well on the inside as I did on the outside.

Now I carry another little one, a tiny soul who needs a mother who knows who she is, and I still don't know. I wonder, sometimes, what I'll see when I look in this set of eyes.

I suppose that's what love is, at this stage: wondering who this child will be and how I will respond, wondering what it will be like to hold another baby, wondering what our family will look like when another little soul joins us.

It's a weird love, complete and yet entirely uncompleted, present and yet so dependent on the future. I know myself here, even though having another child means becoming lost again. We will wander for a while, I suppose, and then we will know ourselves. Stronger, because there's strength in the wandering.

Today I Believe

It's one day at a time around here right now. We're waiting on paperwork from the state on at least two different fronts, and they say the envelopes should arrive and yet they don't. I call and call and I might as well be talking to the wall, as effective as I am. My husband can't work in his new field without some of this paperwork, and so we're in a holding pattern. Again.

Lord, you have always given bread for the coming day,

And though I am poor, today I believe.

I'm tired. Pregnancy does that, and allergies and waking up and not being able to go back to sleep. I stare at the ceiling, wondering if it's better for the baby if I take the medicine or if I don't get the rest that I need. I imagine horrible things in those dark hours, tragedy and loss and things getting worse for us and not better. And when I do sleep I dream, strange sagas that don't seem much better than lying awake. 

Lord, you have always given strength for the coming day,

And though I am weak, today I believe.

Sometimes, it's hard for me to see any life for us but this one, this constant treading water, taking several steps forward only to take other ones back and find ourselves at the starting point once again. I trust, I grip God's hands when they're offered and pray, "Please, please, please," even when I don't know if it goes beyond the walls of my room.

Lord, you have always given peace for the coming day,

And though of anxious heart, today I believe.

I forget that we're fighting an enemy, that this life is a battle and every day, even the good ones, are days when we should be ready for attack. I forget, and I get weary, for carrying a sword is hard work. It looks glamorous on TV, I suppose, but the reality, this redeeming and transforming every moment that we're called to do, is a much more serious, mundane task than it appears. 

Lord, you have always kept me safe in trials,

And now, tried as I am, today I believe.

This world is not my home. I know that now, in ways that I didn't know it before. It's not my home, and I don't want it to be. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't see the beauty, shouldn't love the stolen moments when my girlie smiles her toothy grin and he takes my hand across the table and we watch her, overcome with joy even though there's no good reason. 

Lord, you have always marked the road for the coming day,

And though the way is hidden, today I believe.

And so I hope, not that it will be easy, but that we will learn to see beauty where we stand, wherever we stand. If I give my children nothing else, I want them to know that circumstances are just that: circumstances. They're not to be ignored or brushed over, but accepted and grieved and lived in and made meaningful, but they're not the end. Never, ever the end. 

Lord, you have always lightened this darkness of mine,

And though the night is here, today I believe.

We can only embrace and transform our lives and our circumstances when we see them as part of the whole, when we remember how temporary and transitory they are. They form us, if we'll let ourselves be formed by them, but the end of the story is always the same. Joy. 

Lord, you have always spoken when time was ripe,

And though you be silent now, today I believe.*

* The prayer is from Celtic Daily Prayer, the prayer book of the Northumbria Community.

Time

It's a quiet morning. I wish there were more like this, where it's just me and my computer and my view of green and clouds and I can set apart a little time to think and pray and write. There's something beautiful and whole-making about these moments, something my soul craves in the stillness and silence and entire lack of other people.

I know that being a wife and a mom means that moments like this are often few and far between, and I've tried to let go of my desire for them. I've tried to give up my self, these longings for just a few still moments every day where I can consult with my soul and my God and pull some of those loose ends together. And I've tried to embrace the constant company that having a husband and children mean. After all, I don't want to be all alone in life.

And yet I still feel myself called to moments like this. I still find myself taking time alone when I can't make it, trying to sacrifice other things even when they're not things I want to sacrifice. And I begin to wonder if at least some time like this, time to wander in my thoughts, time to muse and pray and read and write where there's not much separation between all of those things, I begin to wonder if it's a need and not just a desire, a necessity and not something extra.

But I'm such a good introvert that I'll take almost any time alone that I can get. Some people hoard money and I will hoard time, if give the chance. It's my treasure, the one thing I get all dragon-toothed and scaly-winged when people try to steal. I've thought lots of different things about this over the years: that having all the time alone that I want is good and valid, that it's bad and selfish, that I ought to be with my daughter or my husband, because our time together is limited.

There's truth on all sides, I think. Many things are good in moderation and somewhat less good in excess. But the same is true the other way, too. If too much is bad for the soul, too little usually is, as well. And I think that's where I've fallen off the cart in these months since motherhood found me: in trying to give up myself, I've tried to sacrifice something essential. At least for me, not having unstructured time alone is like trying not to eat, ever again. It might be okay for a couple of days, but it will destroy me if I keep it up.

Water Falls Like Diamonds

The sky is wet and, therefore, so are we. The sandbox and the swimming pool are not longer distinguishable from one another, and the baby is slowly going (and driving the rest of us) stir-crazy.

Still, the rain is blessed. The tomatoes may die and the rest of the population might moan, but this is what it means to have seasons. These unexpected blessings, two days of rain after a week of 70+, and I choose to take the bad with the good because I've lived without seasons. It's not always a ton of fun, either.

Life. Sometimes I think I'd chose a life without seasons over the type of season we've had recently. 18 months of . . . not quite winter, but of days like today. Life feels thick with clouds, pressing in and keeping most of the light away. And it has carried the hassle of rain, of either getting wet or juggling umbrella along with diaper bag, purse, water bottle, and baby every time I leave the house.

And yet . . . and yet. There's always that "and yet," it seems. Something that wiggles its way forward, that waves hands in air and asks me if maybe, just maybe, things aren't as black and white as they seem.

And yet. Without the rain things don't grow. I keep telling myself that, and I have said it over and over these months. It's hard, not knowing what's been planted, not knowing what sort of crop all this rain is tending, not knowing if, really, there's anything growing that would make all this rain worthwhile. But maybe. Maybe. MAYBE. Maybe there is.

I find myself left with another question, yet again not quite sure if I can answer. IF there's something growing that needs all of this rain to sprout and blossom and seed, would I sacrifice it for days of easy sunshine and stagnant soul?

Come Unto Me

Tired hangs off him like a million-pound weight, drips off him like he'd run through a summer thunderstorm. He's working and studying and daddy-ing and husbanding and it wears him thin, and I don't always know how to meet him there, how to touch that and bring him rest.

Rest is a hard word, hard for us right now because it feels like not working, and when we're not working we're not sure where the next dollar will come from or if we're striving hard enough to build a future. And it's different from falling into bed and sleeping at the end of a day spent rushing and fighting life and feeling like the best we can do in this life always falls short.

And yet rest we must. "This is a season," we say, and we both nod before we head back to work or collapse, to veg or sleep because the energy is gone. Rest . . . rest is what will keep us going, what will help us see our way through this season, what will help us see the answers and the open doors that are staring us in the face.

But it's hard to stop. It's one thing to open hands and hold plenty loosely, and quite another to hold lack, need, and unknowing. It's easier to let go of something than to open hands and realize the offering amounts to . . . nothing.

The call, though, is not to offer something of worth, for that's largely illusion anyway. The call is to offer the present, to present the present and ourselves in it as an offering. Because that's all we have, ever, even when life would have us believe something different.