Sunday Scripture {Be my everything}

"Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before God made anything at all and is supreme over all creation.  Christ is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can't see-kings, kingdoms, rulers and authorities.  Everything has been created through him and for him.  He existed before everything else began, and he holds everything together.  Christ is the head of the church, which is his body.   He is the first of all who will rise from the dead, so he is first in everything. "

~Colossians 1:15-18

Sunday Scripture {promise}

"Never will I leave you.

Never will I forsake you."

~Hebrews 13:5~

He is always with us.

Leaving Eden

She demanded French toast.  It was how we started the day. Composed and regulated I shuffled back downstairs throwing back eggs as an option.  “We don’t have time this morning.” Mutters and disgruntled banter echoed from upstairs.  She does this.  This fighting with herself. Trying desperately in all her four footed’ness, to make it about me.

It was going to be a difficult morning.

The dried out mascara brush coasted across eyelash and it continued.  From breakfast option, to wardrobe. Loss of television shows, hurling complaints my way. Deflecting. Redirecting. Anger rising.

Time out….

She threw a few more jabs my way, and retreated finally back to her corner.   Defeated by her opponent’s precise blocking. Covered jaw, bobs and weaves. Boxer’s stance strong, engaging core and maintaining my balance.   I would not be dragged in. Because she needs to stand on own two feet and own moods and bad mornings and the not getting of the way.

A little later, with earrings clipped on, and face painted, it was then I found her.  Piles of crocheted blankets strewn across coffee table and couch.  Bare leg and painted toe nails jetted out from under.   Bits of Lego friends accompanied her. “Mom don’t move my fort while I’m at school”….she hid there, sheltered and safe.  Contained in her own little world, regrouping and reshuffling the play list of attitudes and behaviors in preparation for the day.

And I thought for a moment, if it weren’t for adulthood and responsibility, job to get to and school drop off to make, I would have crawled right under there with her.  Under the covering, in that safe walled domain.   Where French toast meets seamless socks and favorite pasta sauce stained shirt.  Where needs are met and bills are paid and true love prevails. Where friendships are easy and houses are clean, and sleeps are sound, and parents are healthy.  Under markered-coffee table wonder. In our very own Eden. 

By the time she came out, she had left it there mostly. Brushed bangs aside, and settled on outfit and reverie. We embraced and reconnected. Amongst winter jacketing and mitten bearing. Door closed behind us, Eden awaiting our return from the battle and the barriers,  the triumphs and the victories. 

   He will cover you with his feathers,

    and under his wings you will find refuge;

    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

  ~Psalm 91: 4

Covered

My first grandfather passed away sometime around my eleventh birthday, leaving my grandmother a widow for the last two decades of her life.   I only really remember her as a single lady.  I imagine her alone in her apartment, devouring the daily newspaper, while sipping on tea and munching butter tarts.   She preferred her solitude, in part I think due to a life long hearing condition.  She was an introvert by nature, and though weak in constitution, lived a hearty 95 years, several past what her family had anticipated and prepared for.   She was greatly loved and inadvertently created a legacy of little women and gentle men. 

This year for the first time, I heard the expression: as you get older, life gets inevitably more complicated and painful. You experience more loss, more setback, and greater disappointment. But you learn (hopefully) through age and wisdom, to weather the storms with increased grace and understanding. With expanded patience, and a more open heart.   It is a tricky paradox, two conflicting experiences competing for our attention.

I remember her couch; her “chesterfield” on those sleepovers.  Jersey fitted sheet pressed tightly, almost sterile expanded perfectly over flowered cushion. Westminster Abbey chimed in on the hour, at great volume, which she may have heard faintly, cradling her as a comfort reminding her of home and routine. My synapses recorded the smells of her Ivory soap, and Charlie perfume.  They photographed her laundered sheets, and perfectly pressed “slims”. Together, legacy bearer and granddaughter wove memories on scrabble boards and cherry wood tables with seven-up glasses and old dutch chips. 

I knew her as grandma, not woman.  I was unfamiliar with her heartache. She sheltered her longings and unmet dreams, to put on a pedestal, her family and theirs.   Without fail, her smile, her lit up blue eyes would greet us each as we met with her.  In apartment walls, in hospital beds, and in her last home. Tucking away her dark times, her struggle, grasping for something bigger, something more lovely that stands the test of time.  Her paradox also present and fighting.  The dreary and the mundane, the injustice and the unfair, with the birth and the beauty and the loveliness all held together in one.  Ninety five years of loving on.  While living in the struggle.

I know we glorify in death. We lift up and erase brokenness.  We illuminate only beauty. But I think it's  okay for us to do this as He tells us, it is finished. It is written. We are covered. In our blank spots, and in our peanut brittle states, where he has us reflected back in His perfection.    He calls us here up from weakness to lift our heads and look to Him who is greater, who is bigger. Him who has the paradox.  Who won it over. Who loves us in it, who calls us through it. And reminds us, child, in this I am enough for you.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

~2 Corinthians 12:9

Sunday Scripture {Waiting}

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope... 

~Psalm 130:5