Love's Back

 

Little Miss M and I spent a summer morning sharing conversation, the words simple for Miss M is seventeen months old,  and playing with blocks and Mr. Potato Head. After lunch, her glassy-eyed stare and yawns indicated a nap was needed.  Upstairs in the nursery, we said good-night to the toys, turned on the fan, closed the blinds and smothered her with kisses and “Grammy loves you”. With Nuk in her mouth and her fingers stroking her curls, I place her in the crib. Immediately, Miss M stands up lamenting, her plump little arms reaching for me as I walk out the door. 

Miss M sees my back.

Downstairs, I go to work prepping for our dinner, checking email, tidying up and tending to chores. Always with an ear to the monitor, never out of range and never would I leave her for a minute. She bangs her legs on the crib, leans against the rail, flops down, gets up, and laments some more, fighting her much needed rest.  She throws her Nuk overboard and the cries become distressed. I return to the nursery, retrieve the Nuk, kiss her tousled head, tell her I love her and walk out the nursery door.

Miss M sees my back.

Moments later the cries quiet. The monitor shows my grandbaby flat on her belly and at rest.

I’ve been thinking about suffering. How we are forced to endure pain, loss, disappointments and distress. The list of causes long: broken relationships, infertility, death, disease, poverty, racism, hope deferred, a failed business and so many more.  Sufferings as unique as individuals are unique. No need to compare sufferings, thinking some harder than others to bear, because the one enduring just hurts. In our pain we might think God has abandoned us, is punishing us or perhaps, even more depressing, we just aren’t one of the favored ones.

We see God’s back.

As I remember Miss M and me, light shines through a crack in my brokenness and into my enduring heart. God does not turn away from me or our world in all of its distress. When my stomach knots over the pain in my life or yours, I see the image of Miss M at rest, safe in her crib, her Grammy at work and watching over her.  

In my questions, fears and suffering, God invites me to surrender to love and rest. All the while God works and watches over me. We are under God’s blessing and God is at work for me and you.

Two hours later a call sounds from the nursery. I bound up the stairs and see her face turned towards the door expectantly. She sees my face and her arms reach out. Scooping her up with hugs and kisses, we go downstairs.  Her hands point to the door and she says “Buzzzz”. Outside we go to watch the bees drinking nectar from the butterfly bushes and try catching elusive butterflies, wisely escaping a toddler’s hands.

I cannot explain the suffering I see and experience. Still, when the tendrils of despair curl around my soul, this invitation now follows, “Rest, dear one. God is at work in and with you.”

 

Letting Go

For years my life revolved around my family, friends, church and job. In fact, much of the first half of my life involved growing things; growing our family and our church, my competency as a community nurse, and my relationships with extended family and friends.  I also grew in my knowledge and affection for God, demonstrating my love for God by doing service for God. Serving the vision of the church. Serving people.  It was a fruitful season filled with joy and satisfaction. Mostly.

Every now and then I would experience dissatisfaction, a longing for something I couldn’t identify. I would dream of being more.  More what?  I couldn’t answer that. It was easier to identify what I didn’t want than put my finger on the itchy dissatisfaction bumping along below the surface of my consciousness.  

 

 I observed acquaintances and relatives shucking their normal lives and taking the plunge into following their dreams.  I looked in with amazement at their courage and wondered how they managed to get from the dreams in their hearts to living it out.  It looked easy, if a little risky, but the life in their eyes spoke to the adventure they were enjoying. I wondered if I would ever find the courage to step out of my comfort zone and follow my dream.

Six years ago I responded to a nudge from God and left my nursing job, trading it for increased time reading, praying and investing in relationships. I started writing.  About the same time, my husband, the Preacher, started taking his wooden bowls and vases to art shows.  Two years ago I began a training program and became a certified spiritual director and the Preacher’s daughter-in-love opened an Etsy shop for the wood creations. In all this slow journey of creating art with our lives, hands and words, the Preacher and I began to dream of a larger space to grow our art. We found some land and are wading more deeply into realizing our longings.

Following a heart longing is a slow journey involving lots of invitations to let go.  It means hanging onto the desire and letting the tears of impatience and fear flow. To create what is in my heart to do and let the results up to God; to let go of my timing and trust God’s time; to do it for an audience of a few and let go of my desire for esteem. To leave the security of what was my normal life for an adventure with unknown ending. 

We are far enough along in this adventure so that turning back isn’t an option. I have occasional meltdowns in my prayers when the doubts flood my soul. Even if I could get back to what was normal I realize I would be trading the sleepless nights of “What in the world are we doing?” for “”When will I have the courage to embrace the invitation stirring in my soul?” Both questions are disquieting.

Letting go of what is sure and safe is not easy. When I quiet myself and breathe, I connect with the spark of our dreams and experience Trinity’s assurance that all will be well.  I sense a whisper to trust the Hand that is holding us and keep walking, keep dreaming, keep creating. 

Lullabies and Love

 I’ve been reading about surrender to the Perfect Love of God.  I still don’t know how to perfectly walk out this surrender of control to God, to let God control my relationship with God, my other relationships, life, and world. It is scary to be utterly dependent on another. To say, “Have your way.”

Yet I am learning more deeply than ever that God is good.

 

I still don’t know if God will ask me to do something counter to my heart’s desire. I remember God says he gives me the desires of my heart. And I believe some of my longings are from God and part of who I am created to be.

I still don’t know how this Perfect Love works. Where does this boundless fountain of love come from? This fountain that never runs dry and loves every single breathing person on this globe. Who is this Trinity we call God, Jesus, Spirit? Can I trust this Love? This love that is for me. Will it sustain me?  Satisfy me? I get glimpses of it and taste it. When Perfect Love draws too close to the shadows in my soul, I shrink back.  Fear says, “Are you sure Trinity can be trusted?”

 

There have been God representatives in my life who tried to change me, fix me and fit me into their religious mold of uniformity.  They didn’t really see me.  This conditional love clouds my understanding of Perfect Love.

I find myself slipping into performing, into being what I think others expect me to be.  To please people is a temptation for me.  My resentment rises.  Feeling stuck follows.

I withdraw and wonder if God is like that? Will God ask of me what I can’t do? Will God ask of me that which gives me nightmares and puts me in the mold of “rightness” for that person, situation, denomination or employer?  The box that stifles my freedom to be me.  

No! It is for freedom that Christ has set me free. I am no longer a slave to culture, to religion, to patriarchy, or other people’s ideas of what I should be or do.

I still don’t know how to walk in this complete surrender, to Perfect Love, to God’s complete control. I take small steps into the expanse of grace and freedom. I remember that I don’t have to make anything happen in this life.

Then words or an experience knock me off balance. I shrink back into myself and grab the controls; back into the shadows of resentment, fears of failure and to shame over my uniqueness.

 

I hear a quiet lullaby in my soul.  It is a song that Holy Trinity sang over me before I was in my mother’s womb. It is a song of love and delight. I am invited to know myself and know God, to know God and know myself. I am invited to trust the control of my being to the One who knows who I am and loves me without boundaries.

I still don’t know how this Perfect Love of the Trinity works but I will keep listening to the song because what I have experienced is good.

 

New Shoes

I love the confidence I feel in a brand new pair of stylish shoes. I like even more my feet to be comfortably encased in my pretty new shoes.

I’m noticing that change is a lot like a new pair of shoes. Attractive and uncomfortable until the feet and the shoes yield to the other to support a comfortable journey for the shoe-wearer.

In a spiritual direction session I was bemoaning the changes in my life; the laying down of familiar rhythms of job and service. I left my nursing job of seventeen years and yielded to another teacher the Sunday School class I taught for twenty years. I am experiencing changes in relationships as our children are successfully launched and our parents retired. I’m noticing changes in what I am drawn to, as previously fulfilling activities are not appealing to me yet new opportunities are not very productive.

When my director prayed with me, she invited God to steady my trust in Him as He pruned away the old fruit to allow for the growth of new.  These few words lit a candle in my soul.  The discomfort with the way I was wearing change shifted to an understanding of a pruning process.  This new knowing is infusing this season with hope as I wait and grow.

 My season of pruning is uncomfortable, yet I am attracted to new fruitfulness.  Tentative tendrils of growth are unfurling towards what I’m not sure. It is enough to know that the vine of my life is in the Master Gardener’s hands and He is nurturing my fruitfulness.  According to Jesus, this will be for God’s glory and to show that I am His follower. 

 

 

Changing shoes for the next leg of my journey is exciting and scary. Some days I long for a comfortable fit, but mostly I embrace the invitation to surrender to God’s pruning shears and remain in Him.