You Were Looking for Something?

Oh again I sit here because I need to write. Windows open and the sound of late summer crickets outside in the yard. One child sleeps, the other is at school, the dog is curled at my feet, slowing licking her paws. The morning is easy and quiet and I'm restless. I need to write not simply for content, for clicks, for shares or likes, comments or tweets. I write because I desperately need to see what I think and to put some words as a placeholder for the myriad of thoughts that meet me this morning.

Someone searched “affair” on my blog recently. I don’t know who. I only know that was the only word they searched for on my site. I don’t know if it was someone I know, someone who wanted to read my story again, or someone looking for dirt on me.

I suppose it doesn’t matter.  I’ve written very publicly about my past, so it’s no secret. When people whisper, “I know what you’ve done,” it’s very freeing to whisper back “So does everyone else on the internet.” Being open about the ridiculous redemption of my life, from grave to cradled, has been one of the most fruitful journeys from the Lord.

But to know that after 12 years, that that’s still the word that follows me around wherever I go still feels like a punch.

Early on, I felt that I had the choice — I could move on and not talk about it, and still enjoy the beauty of redemption for myself. Or I could brazenly tell the story of God’s relentless pursuit of my ragamuffin heart in all of its hard truth and watch how He used it to set others free.

I went with door #2.

So in the face of the enemy who would love to use my past to continue to shame me, I'm going to remind him that Christ won and Christ continues to win. The only happy ending to my story is that Christ is my defense. I've cried about this shadow — I've asked friends "Why won't this just go away?" But how quickly I'd forget if it did. By continuing to write and speak about it, I'm raising my tired, bleeding hands toward my Savior to say that He fixed what I thought couldn't be fixed. He saved what I thought was lost. He rescued what I thought was dead.

My story is a reminder that God is merciful and running after the hearts that are prone to wander. My past is a reminder that sin is destructive, the local church matters, and that there is no perfect person. Jesus comes for the sick, not the healthy, and he found me starving to death in my kingdom made of straw.

Every now and then, I think about blowing the dust off of the book. Last night, my husband and I sat by the last fire of summer and while the embers faded from red to black, we talked about what all those stories and pages mean. Are they worth revisiting? Is it worth telling? Is it worth rekindling the fire of memory? The book wasn't meant to be a tell-all; it was a brag on the graces of God. The one I started three years ago and shelved for various reasons has resurfaced in my head and heart and I’m thinking of taking it down from that proverbial box and sharing it in pieces. Maybe here. Maybe I'll see if there’s anywhere to go with it now. Or maybe I'll just remind myself that my past isn't under a cobwebbed lock and key, and that Jesus showed up in every area of my life that needed a Savior (which, for the record, was ALL OF IT.)

Maybe you have a word that's following you around. Maybe you're tempted to think it has become your identity. 

This is what is upside-down about following Christ. Our greatest failures become his trophy. While the world may try to tie a word to my identity until the day I die, and it might always be linked to my name in search bars, whispered behind closed doors, and in public statements about what I did once upon a time, there’s only one word that is stitched into the fabric of my soul, put there by the engraved hands of Christ, and it’s this — redeemed.

The Only Cure

I remember the year the trees were taken up with the gypsy moth. Wrapped in shrouds of a foggy grey web, branch by branch they died. Subtle and fatal, all at once. Tree after tree along our streets, back roads and driveway. "That one is next," we'd say, pointing at the adjacent healthy tree whose leafy arm brushed against the white web next to it. 

No one told me this is what death would feel like. Like a slow grey hue, subtly pulled over your eyes, arms, legs. I found out at 20 when a friend died of cancer. Death and grief come instantly and slowly, creeping in a fast fatal blow to any green limbs you have stretched out toward life. 

No one told me this is what sin was like. Like a shroud that seems innocuous at first but is the first bell of danger. I found out at 22 when I saw the web around my feet. It will spread. It always spreads. 

I remember the year of the gypsy moth — how they came and devoured our foliage while we watched. It was beautiful and devastating all at once. The end is deceiving and seemingly triumphant. 

But it's not. Don't be fooled by the shroud. In a garden, it was pulled back and folded up, shown to be defeated once and for all. 

Hope in Christ is not an analgesic. It's the cure. In him, death and sin are never the final word. Not in the balmy summers of my childhood. Not when I was 20. Not when I was 22. Not today. 

When a Moment Becomes a Memory

I've been going through all of my old documents lately. Digging up thoughts and piecing them together, finding old stories and remembering the places and people I've put in to words over the years. I've decided this year I'm going to post a mix of old stories, words that haven't been perfect and thoughts that aren't adequately formed. But bit by bit, I'm going to get it done and out, and whether anyone reads or not...well, that's secondary. 

Quickly moments pass into memory. In an instant what is becomes what was and it's so bittersweet, sometimes I can only fight to just stay present. We are coming up on our anniversary in a few weeks. With a 6 month old on one hip and a loquacious 8 year old on the other side, it’s easy to forget what was before I said "I do." Those years were full and hard, beautiful and fast. That’s why I write sometimes — just to remember. I write because I know that in a few years I won’t remember stories like this one. I’m sharing this with you today because maybe you need the reminder that life goes by fast and 1 a.m. girl chats with your eldest are necessary and sometimes over before you know it. And sometimes you don't know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.

---

November 19, 2014
 

Last night, her six-year-old body was tucked in next to mine. She normally sleeps in her own bed, the one down the hall with the purple tulle draped around it. The one covered with stuffed animals and pages and pages of drawings that she creates night after night. Pictures of tinker bell, rainbows, leprechauns and mathematical equations (yes, you read that right). But every so often, when she wakes from a nightmare or if the house feels especially colder than usual, I find her body next to mine. Her hair is always knotted into a bun and slight curls wrap around her still perfect cherub cheeks. Last night she was awake when I crawled into bed. I was feeling especially sentimental. It’s a mix these days. She asked me to cut her hair because the responsibility of brushing out long, twisty curls was the cause of too many tears. So now she swings a long bob, and the just-too-short pieces are laying against the nape of her neck. Her eyes are big with glee when she sees that I too am crawling into bed.

“Your hair is just like mine, mom!” she points at the lopsided bun on the top of my head. Under the white blanket, she grabs my hand and invites me to share a pillow with her. She is growing so quickly, I think. Most parents have this moment — the one where you look at the babe you once birthed and realize they are quickly running out of the reach of your arms, but never your heart.

Early this evening, the man who has been winning our hearts and slowly, gently moving into a place carved out for him in this home, we talked about marriage. We talked about the days ahead, commitment, changes, the possibility of more children, all of the things couples talk about when the future is laid out before them as a vast unknowable thing. We reached our arms to each other across the couch and dreamed a bit about the nights when I won’t have to kiss him goodbye at the door but can kiss him goodnight on the pillow. We talk about covenants, fears, broken hearts and all of the things we’re laying out on the table of promise. 

But now, it’s just me and her. Just her head on my pillows. Just her tiny voice filling up the dark space of my bed. 

“Let’s have some girl talk,” I say. It’s well past 1 a.m. but that doesn’t matter. Not when time waits for no one, not even your mama heart. 

She squeals, pulling the blanket up over our heads. She rattles off about the “cutest boy” who waves at her across the hall, some questions about life and what I love about the man who just hours before swung her upside down. It’s nothing life-changing, but maybe life-building. Maybe not the conversation that shapes her dreams and choices, but the kind that hopefully will lead to more that give her time and space to share what can only be shared by the quiet whispers of pillow talk. 

But these days, these six years of endless mom and me time, hours and hours of knowing there was no one else to compete for my attention, and an unknown future of questions — they’re slipping more and more into memory. Parts of these days are ending. The exclusivity of our relationship is slipping into past tense. “Remember when it was just us?” she’ll ask and we review story and adventures before a men held our hands and swung our hearts and bodies high into the sun. Memory leaves out the aching tears when she asked why she didn’t have a father here. The nightmares of abandonment. The questions I couldn’t answer when she asked why she can’t feel God’s hugs. Memory pushes these away into tiny fragments under the blooming memories of train trips, plane rides and movie nights. 

Today I sat across the table from a mother who has been where I’ve been. Once upon a time, she was the single mother. She cradled her baby alone for years until God saw fit to send her a man to step in as husband and dad. Now more than 15 years and three more kids later, she nods and listens as I tell her that I feel a tinge of sadness in all of this joy.

“You have to grieve the loss of what was,” she says. “To lose one thing for something greater is a good thing. But to acknowledge that you’ve lost it is an important thing too.” As Dr. Seuss said — sometimes you don’t know the value of something until it becomes a memory. 

We are making room for a man in our lives. We’re learning about expressing love, receiving love, opening our home, couch and hearts to an answered prayer that each of us has sought God for many times over the years.

And here he is, texting me that he’s arrived safe back at his home, and for this night and not too many to come, I’m holding just her at my side. She is giggling about the boy who waves and I’m kissing her matted curls. I’m savoring this even as it slips into the dark and the days of old, knowing soon enough she will be waving goodbye at my door, making promises to someone else.

Someday we will hold these six years as a golden bubble of provision. Years of fighting for repentance, receiving grace, seeking restoration, hoping for better, believing for good, savoring the best. Not long from now, my bed will not be mine alone. My pillows will not be reserved for girl talk only. But here at my side, where a scar remains from where she was pulled from me, red and passionate, screaming and waiting to be held, here she will always have a place. Here where my body still aches to remember what it was like when I held a soul apart from me but somehow part of me. Here, even when the man reaches for me across the space, do I find the place for her. Here in the beauty of memory. 

---