family – where we will grow

We all need to be seen.

It only truly matters that we are seen by our Maker,

But while we are down here in a world that is

Tattered and broken,

Often so distant from the one who defines us,

There is a loneliness that erodes our sense of truth

When we are not genuinely seen by those who are near.

We bring great healing to the world

When we choose to see others:

Their hope, Their pain, Their struggles,

Those maddening joys mixed with fear.

On Mother’s Day my husband and I wandered the grocery store,

Perusing veggies and planning lunch.

Only a few close family and friends knew I was pregnant.

My motherhood. My love for my child. All of it,

Was real to me, yet so broadly unseen.

I felt a sort of insecurity

That what mattered most to me didn’t really “count” yet.

“Happy Mother’s day,” said Chase,

As he handed me a pot of yellow flowers in the market aisle.

I gripped the gift with both hands.

“You’re a really good mom,” he said.

That planted a seed in me, that continues to bear good fruit.

We heal when we are known.

And we share that healing when we choose to know another.

You were born into your mother’s arms, loved by her from the moment she knew of your existence. Your father was standing beside her, watching your first breaths. All the pain of their own lives behind them and with them and before them, learning from it all so you could stand on their shoulders and grasp something better than what was handed to them. They would teach you the Gospel. They would teach you of love and show you love. They would talk about grace and when you were too young to understand it, they would show grace to those you loved and those you did not. You would be tempted. So many times you would be tempted towards all that brings pain and darkness and rot, but the Lord would walk beside you, guiding you each time towards what is good and true and beautiful. It wasn’t perfect. You stumbled, you sinned, you scraped your knees, but you never knew what it was to walk as a dead man, distant from all hope, and aching with a selfish and devouring rage.

Before there was water in the oceans or birds in the air, the God that hung the stars knew your name. He wrote a story of redemption that would begin before you entered the world, so many hardened hearts made soft that would one day show you warmth and mercy. So many would give of themselves for you. God himself would give of himself for you. God himself died for you. He chose each hair on your head. Each inch of your skin. He chose the day of your birth and the day of your death and carried you through every love and loss in between. You did nothing to earn it. Nothing to deserve it. Screeching and squirming into the world naked and confused like the rest of us. And yet the one who crafted the land and sea and skies poured compassion over you from the very beginning. And in the end, you returned home to Him. You rested in a Love that was somehow even greater than that immeasurable love shown to you on the day of your birth. Your mother bled for you, cried for you, gave so many years, days, hours, fleeting minutes made up of so many slow daunting seconds all for you, and though you were never wise enough to understand the depth of it, it shaped you so that you could love and walk and give in a way that was so much bigger than yourself. And, even still, her love was weak and broken compared to the Love that would welcome you in the end.

All of it was cosmic, pain and beauty, fury and grace, woven and spoken by a supernatural force with a name and a heart and a joy to be shared and multiplied.

But you never got addicted to drugs or committed any crimes or cursed His name. How uninteresting. And your parents read you bedtime stories and told you about Jesus. How trite. And you prayed from the time you were young until the time you were old. How anticlimactic.

Yes, it was so filled with wonder and compassion. A story divinely orchestrated. But make sure to warn people that it’s rather boring, if they ever ask how you were saved.