To muse is to be engaged in the present moment, observe something noteworthy, and to say so. I'm a southern girl who notices beauty in every day life and endeavors put that into words.
Joshua means Jesus saves. My Joshua turns 11 today. He lives life 110 miles per hour and gives 110% to everything he does. The last eleven years have been far richer with him in my life!
Eleven years ago today, I slept in an uncomfortable bed at Baptist Hospital. Matt had missed the Brickyard, some NASCAR race, so that he wouldn’t miss the birth of his son. He was a little mopey about it and I did not understand that altogether. But boy I bet he was glad when little Joshua decided a little past midnight to make his way into the world.
Joshua sat breach in my womb so a C-section had to be performed. Dr. Growden, a seasoned surgeon and OB/GYN, lifted Joshua out of me at about 3:00 in the morning. As he lifted the baby up, Joshua grabbed a hold of a blue surgical rag. All the way, up up up, he grasped it. Dr. Growden proclaimed, “I have never seen anything like that in all my years!”
That dogged determination still marks Joshua on the soccer field, in the swimming pool, at Scrabble. He is a competitor. Yet, he is tender. Because he is eleven, I can still say this. He still gives me hugs and while he is beginning to prefer not to give a lot of public affection, he is a snuggle bug in private.
God uses my children to wrap my story in on itself and to bring healing to parts I did not even know were broken. Recently while I spoke with a friend of a de-railing life event, I asked her what she wanted for her daughter in the area she was struggling. Sometimes, I said, we know better what we hope for for our children than for ourselves.
In my life, God has used my hopes for Joshua to remind me what I myself need. As I have boldly hoped, in the face of odds hoped, God has shown me that to hope for him is to hope for myself. If I cannot trust that God can heal, lead me, how can I hope that He can heal, lead Joshua?
On this, the hallmark of the birth of my son Joshua, I give thanks to the Lord. The following verse was on his baby announcement.
the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Matt found this little nest in a fern hanging on our front porch. He said he went to water it and two eyes looked back at him. We actually discerned two little birds in the nest. They flew away but left one egg.con-verg-ence: noun \kən-ˈvər-jən(t)s\ : the act of converging and especially moving toward union or uniformity; especially: coordinated movement of the two eyes so that the image of a single point is formed on corresponding retinal areas
The reason I want convergence in my life is my desire for my life to point to ONE THING. The one egg in the little nest on the masthead of this blog is symbolic of that ONE THING. It is captured in the psalmist’s heart in Psalm 27:
One thing I ask 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 gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. verse 4
One way I seek this one thing is to bring all the parts of me to the bountiful table of grace. Early on in my life and walk with Christ, I only allowed the parts of myself that were “together” to come feast hiding those more unattractive, needy parts. The Pharisee in me ruled this table. Through pain and suffering, God has allowed me to become more grace-filled to invite all of me there. Sometimes when I see a particular area of sin or a “me” that I don’t much like, I visually invite that version of me to the table of grace.
Before you freak out, this is not a Sybil-like experience, but the realization that I am made up of various parts. There is the part of me that is so terrified of snakes that I left a toddler (safe in a pack n play, ok) and ran for my life when one flopped out in front of me. Matthew (now 20) played while I cleaned up the yard. About 15 yards away, I unwrapped the spigot that had been covered tightly for winter so that it did not freeze. As I unwound the wrapping, a snake fell out of it. No conscious decisions were made, I just fled. I looked back after about 30 seconds and saw my toddler in the pack n play and ran back and grabbed him. Screaming. Flailing. Crying. In that moment, I had to face the facts that given life-threatening situations, I may or may not protect my children first. Scary. True.
So that scared mother who had failed her baby... she has to come to the table of grace. The ugly parts of me that love to gossip. The liar. The manipulator. The smart aleck. The cynic. These parts must partake. In fact, the pharisee must come and eat.
As these parts converge at the table of grace, I experience wholeness in Christ.
As the arroz con pollo rounded the table, each person spooned a mouthful of Honduras on their plate. With the taste buds stimulated, our memories came alive. In this way, we honored the fifth anniversary of our return from Honduras on Tuesday, August 2.
We lived in Honduras for a little over four years and over that time four boys lived with us as foster sons: Franklin and Edgar (brothers now 21 and 19), Rodolfo, 12, and Junior, 9. We deeply cherish our experiences there. In fact, this blog exists to honor it and share the hope we have gleaned from it. You can find another post on the fourth anniversary of our return under “remembering honduras” posted August 2, 2010.
And so on the fifth anniversary of our return, dear friends we met while in Honduras shared a delectable Honduran meal to honor the day. Jennifer and Denny dropped in on their way from Austin, TX to Washington DC. They ooohed and ahhed over the chismól, a Honduran relish. I marveled at God’s providence in providing dear friends to accompany us on this important day.
Earlier that morning, overwhelming gratitude had greeted me at 5:00 and I sat with the Lord on our patio and told Him how thankful I was for all He had done. I recounted the people who have walked with us well through loss, grief and finding hope. Some of the ways He has healed me floated across my mind and I opened them like a loaf, gave thanks and ate of the bounty spiritually. He spoke back to me through His Love Letter with Psalm 21:6-7:
Surely I have granted you with eternal blessings and made you glad with the joy of My Presence. For my daughter trusts in Me, her Lord; through the unfailing love of the Most High, she will not be shaken.
As I got ready for bed that night, something in my gut said that this day was incomplete. I did not want it to end. Curious about that, I asked myself some questions. I realized that while most of me felt that gratitude and joy, part of me still held some deep sadness. I had honored the majority but avoided the sorrow. Honoring sadness and sorrow is a conundrum of hard work, discernment and just plain difficulty.
In fact, I would rather iron than sit with my sadness. On the anniversary, I had some quiet time and I could have chosen to attend to the sadness of soul. Instead, I pulled out the iron and caught up on about a year’s worth of ironing. I mean, it was ok and all but really it reveals to me the lengths I will go to in order to avoid feeling sorrow.
Haven’t we already done this, Lord. Haven’t I cried enough tears already? Do I need to be sad again? Is it ok for me to forget the loss, the feelings of desperation?
Over time I had walled off the sorrow and for the sake of survival, given in to letting it sit behind a shell unattended. To truly honor the day and the preciousness of the loss, I had to knock a little hole in the shell and let the sorrow leak out.
This morning, I wrote a letter to Junior who will turn nine in October. The youngest of our Honduran boys, he was almost four when we left. Couch it however you will, our leaving inflicted a deep wound to Junior, our other boys and maybe even other people. We as a family have certainly suffered and grieved. Grace and perhaps time will re-frame our sons’ losses and one day I pray they find healing. But the pain in my heart asks, why did we have to leave, especially young Junior? Why isn’t it enough that we want him and he needs parents. I won’t be able to answer those questions today. In fact, understanding is not required for me to trust God. Surrender is imperative. Naming the pride in me that says my plan would be better is compulsory. But understanding is a luxury I won’t have this side of heaven.
Dan Moseley writes, “losing someone significant involves a loss to the body as well. Loss is a physical experience. The body has ways of knowing that seem to ignore the mind and heart... When we spend time telling the story of loss, we are trying to cause the body to come to terms with the loss.”
I am telling this story today in hopes that my body, my spirit, my soul can converge in more healing. I am telling it to honor our time and experience in Honduras. I am telling it to bring glory to the Sovereign Lord of the Universe. Grief or sorrow over the loss will always be with me but perhaps I can avoid self-pity and a plethora of other pitfalls by the telling.
Moseley goes on to say, “It could be said that through remembering we come to ‘full body’ knowing. When we tell of the one we have lost, we are integrating our body, mind, heart, and soul so that all of who we are fully experiences the truth of the loss.”
I wrote the letter to Junior more as an exercise for my heart and soul. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to give it to him. Writing it honored him as a human being and as a son I had the privilege to mother for a season albeit brief. May God help us as we attempt to walk out His will and love from a place of wholeness and truth.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6
rhythm: noun; a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound : Ruth listened to the rhythm of his breathing.
Every year growing up, we traveled to Destin, Florida, early in the summer to the finest, whitest sand known to man. Now, as an adult, I feel incomplete if I don’t get to the ocean at least once a year. And such is my rhythm.
And so this year after the City Swim Meet on July 23, our sweaty and smelly family of five loaded up our van and turned south. This kind of traveling requires commitment and stamina. Thank goodness Matt has the stamina. You put him behind the wheel, and kind of like a bull, he will get there or bust. We got there at 2:00 a.m. For an hour, we came alive and took in our little condo on the 22nd floor. Then we collapsed in the beds for a few more hours of sleep. Most of us had slept in the car too.
For a week, we enjoyed the beach, the fresh seafood, the view, the ocean and body surfing, the quiet. We unplugged. We rested. Another rhythm. Since returning last night, I have concentrated on finding a new rhythm: re-assembling our home after the madness of re-entry, re-stocking the fridge, re-establishing a daily routine of meals. Re-orienting myself to normal daily life helps me find my rhythm again.
In Sacred Rhythms, Ruth Haley Barton suggests some practices for helping us keep our lives on a path of spiritual transformation. She addresses topics like solitude, reading scripture through lectio divina, prayer, self-examination, discernment, sabbath and establishing a rule of life. The rule of life helps us answer two questions: Who do I want to be? How do I want to live?
At the beach, I spent some time contemplating what I want my rhythm to feel like. Silence must be part of my days. I’d like to intentionally make Sabbath more about rest and play. My Bible will become more of a love letter and less of an instruction manual. Undoubtedly, a yearly trip to the beach is something my soul and spirit must have.
Hammock and rest go together like oreos and milk.This morning I woke up with a sabbath highway expanding in front of me. Both of my younger boys are in Mississippi with my mama. I could have slept in. Instead my eyes flew open at 6:20. I attempted to sleep longer to no avail.
So Skip, our dog, and I were on the patio early in the cool of the morning with birds singing us awake and good strong coffee to ensure the job.
As I began the Sabbath thus, I thought about the rhythms of life and why rest is so necessary. I’ve been reading Ruth Haley Barton’s Sacred Rhythms. She describes a way to live and settle into a rhythm of work and rest.
Barton writes:
There is something deeply spiritual about honoring the limitations of our existence as human beings - physical bodies in a world of time and space. A peace descends upon our lives when we accept what is real rather than always pushing beyond our limits. Something about being gracious and accepting and gentle with ourselves at least once a week enables us to be more gracious and accepting and gentle with others.
I realize that sometimes I ignore my human limitations. I work past the point of exhaustion thinking that the world will somehow cave if I don’t keep on going. Rest eludes me. Often illness forces the rest.
As I am maturing, this happens less and less. Part of the humbling work God has done in my heart is repentance in this very area... a shrinking of myself and an enlarging of who He is. I am learning to acknowledge my need for rest and to allow it. When rested, I am less likely to grab at things of this world to fill me. I am more likely to let the Spirit instruct me on the next steps.
I want to give from a place a fullness and when I am empty, let the Spirit fill me to give again.
08.7.2011 
Joshua means Jesus saves. My Joshua turns 11 today. He lives life 110 miles per hour and gives 110% to everything he does. The last eleven years have been far richer with him in my life! 
