Mother's Day...

It comes every year, this day. Every year I think it won't hurt. Every year I'm wrong. 

"You can't see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears." 
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

This year I weep for new reasons. I weep for the woman I am becoming that my mother never knew. I am learning, I am breaking, I am changing... She prayed for this, she longed for it. I weep as I come to know more of motherhood, I come to know more of her love for me. Her unbelievable love for me that I could not have fathomed until now. 


Will this day ever not hurt? I think not. For as I clutch my baby girl, I cannot help but think of how she must have held me so. And it's too late, too late to tell her, "thank you." 


I know I am surrounded by women aching as I... my dearest Kelley, this precious sister, and so many, many others. They understand. We are motherless daughters. 


“I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I believe it's alright to still grieve. To groan for heaven. To wish I could have her back. 


You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. ~Psalm 56:8

“When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’”

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief ObservedI think she'd be so proud. I think she would love you, my precious friends... and how she'd love your babies. She'd love them all. I know she would love the Cafe, its mission and the exciting things on the horizon. She'd love the desires that are growing in my heart that I never knew were there. 

She'd be so proud of my siblings, their growth, graduations, lessons learned, performances, challenges, business accomplishments, auditions, & stumbles... So much is because of her. We all "rise up and call her blessed."


Yet, I acknowledge - this breaking, this learning, these knew passions - might all in fact be due to her absence. Due to the Lord's gentle and constant love, His all knowing and beautiful care of me.


My little one, bringing joy to all she meets...

Joy through Spinach Basil Pesto with Garlic Tops

When we were first married I didn't know how to cook at all. I truly mean this. My mother tried for years to instruct, but in my pride, I wouldn't have it.

Over the past four years I have worked hard, with comical failures along the way, and now I can manage. I am so thankful for this. Many of you know how I love to share a meal with family and friends. I believe there is something about food that draws us together, begs us to linger, and soothes our frantic souls. Now that I am able to contribute to that aforementioned food, my joy has doubled.

This past week a dear friend held a birthday party, requesting her guests bring only wine and a favorite appetizer. This pesto is that. It's not always an appetizer, of course, but became one. And one of much talk; seeing as another dear friend had given us garlic tops the day before. You can read about garlic tops here. What fun that this simple food became a conduit of laughter and birthday happiness.


Thank you Kelly for the beautiful photo, now here is my simple version of this classic recipe...



Spinach Basil Pesto with Garlic Tops

Ingredients

• 3 - 6 cups baby spinach leaves (depending on desired flavor)
• 3/4 cup fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (freshly grated is best)
• 2 tablespoons garlic tops, chopped (can substitute 4 cloves chopped garlic)
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

1. Blend 3 cups of the spinach along with basil, Parmesan cheese, garlic tops, salt, pepper, lemon juice, lemon zest, and 2 tablespoons olive oil in a food processor until nearly smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary. Add the remaining spinach and drizzle the remaining olive oil into the mixture while processing until smooth.

A Letter from my Father

My Daddy sent me this letter yesterday... I am posting it in hopes that it might encourage you today.

May you, my dear friends, be free to enjoy and love as Christ did.

I love you daddy. Thank you for being such a beautiful example of parenting to both Adam and I.

My Dearest Lauren,

As I was reading today's chapters in my 'reading through the Bible in a year' plan (remember when Mom used to do that?), I was assigned, among other chapters, I Samuel, Chapter 1.

I know you have referenced this story and these passages numerous times over the last few months and I imagine you have pondered them deeply in your heart as well. They speak of many things, don't they? That God really cares for us. That sometimes His answers are not 'No', but rather 'in My time, dear child'. That He really does delight in bringing us joy. That He truly hears our prayers...It's remarkable how the trajectory of life sometimes takes off in unexpected and strange directions. Even more astonishing (to me anyway) is how quickly it all seems to pass.  'Poof'- like Brigadoon - it vanishes.  Just like that. Where did it go, I wonder?

God has been pleased to bless you and Adam, yet another time, with Beatrice. I think you know I couldn't be happier for you both! It's been a while to be sure, but I remember quite fondly the days of playing peek-a-boo and reading books and changing dirty diapers. Such thoughts bring me smiles...many of them. I look forward to reliving some of those moments with Beatrice.

And I also want you to know that I understand how bittersweet this is for you. I've told you at least once (I believe) how Mom was brought to tears at the sight of a young grandmother holding her grandbaby as she and I waited together in a lobby at Virginia Baptist Hospital. She knew, even though I was still believing for a miracle, that she was witnessing with her eyes one of the few blessings of life that would never be hers to enjoy. It truly broke her heart.

But because I knew your mother better than anybody else in the world, I knew exactly what she was thinking as the tears started to roll down her still beautiful but sadly taut and emaciated face. She sized things up quickly (as she was always able to do). Mom didn't take any more or less time then than she ever took when faced with a situation that was not to her liking. Disappointments to your mother, like most other things, were in short order run through her remarkably tight theological grid. Your mother, although imperfectly, truly attempted to allow her theology (how things REALLY are according to Scripture) to inform her actions and attitudes.

She cried as she watched the young grandmother caress and embrace her grandbaby. But she regained her composure. Not because she feared how she might look to the strangers and onlookers about, but rather because she already had processed her feelings - theologically. Some, and I sadly fear many, would say that people don't really do that. But they do, Lauren. And God's Word tells us to, as you well know. Your mother did it.

Mom believed that we didn't DESERVE anything, except that is, the condemnation that our sin and rebellion brought upon us. And so, even through her tears, even in the midst of her pain, she subordinated her emotions and feelings to the Sovereign Creator in whose presence she knew she would shortly be. For above all things she knew that she had been 'translated from darkness into the Kingdom of His marvelous light.' And measured against this unspeakable blessing, save being in His very presence herself, every other desire or want or hope or wish or expectation simply paled.

Regardless of what her culture insisted, irrespective of what her emotions and feelings were creating inside of her, despite what her Christian friends with poorer theological training might say...she KNEW that her God was good and that His goodness was not to be measured by (just) the pleasant and favorable things He brought to her. I know for a fact that being a grandmother (especially to your children!) would have been one of the supreme honors of her life. But I also know for a fact that she didn't feel as though she deserved it.

Thus, she was not left the option to pout, whine, whimper or throw a 'pity party'. To do so would have been an extreme display of ingratitude for her. For she knew that she had already, in fact, been handed the greatest blessing of all  -- Christ in her, the hope of glory! She believed that the habit of presuming upon God's goodness would truly break the heart of her Lord who, through His death, had already made her a joint-heir of His kingdom! And so it was against the truthful statements found within the pages of Holy Writ that she decided to weigh all of her expectations and wants and desires and even the disappointments of this life. She knew her Bible well enough to know 'that the present sufferings of this world didn't compare to the glory of what was awaiting her.'

Furthermore, if her theology wouldn't allow her to feel sorry for herself, neither did it allow her to dwell on misfortune. To choose to linger too long on the questions of 'WHY?' (sin of commission) or to not earnestly enough seek to get beyond the providential ordering of our lives (sin of omission) is to imply of the One Who loves us supremely that He, in fact, must not. For if He did love us, we are tempted to ask, why would He allow such things to happen?

For your mother, such questions and attitudes were...well, yes...theologically inappropriate. Scripture taught her that her Heavenly Father is not arbitrary. NOTHING, she believed, could happen to her unless it was for her own good as well as His glory. She knew all too well that those who spend too much time asking 'WHY?' have that much less time and energy to look and watch and anticipate the good which He providentially ordained would spring forth. Or worse yet, preoccupation with one's own misfortune results in an inability to feel or notice or enter into our neighbor's pain.

Trusting God when things go as we would have them is a rather simple thing, don't you think? It's when things don't go our way that our character is tested and our understanding of God is heightened.

What your mother grasped so well, again according to Scripture, was that our peace and happiness is found neither in having what we want, nor getting what we think we deserve. Happiness and joy are found in obedience and trust. There is a marked difference between the two perspectives. For, as the Good Book states, 'His ways are not our ways'.

And then, of course, there is the 'flip side' of embracing good theology. And this, I think, is where Mom really benefited. Good theology begets good theology. If your mother truly believed that she didn't DESERVE anything good, then she was free to fully ENJOY everything.  That was her secret, my dearest Lauren. Nobody knew that better than me.

I pray that you'll feel your mother's 'freedom' during the last eight weeks of your pregnancy. I pray also that you'll realize how to best honor her. I think she would tell you not to dwell on the fact that she won't be here (physically) with us and Beatrice, and to rather pray that God would use this experience to somehow give you a profound ability to see, feel and minister to the pain and hurt of your fellow man. I think she would say to focus on (and verbalize back to God) the innumerable blessings of your life and not on the profound but singular disappointment of not having her present. I think she would warn you that to many women who have never even known their real mother (or whose relationship with them was abusive) you might appear rather spoiled, self-absorbed and ungrateful. I think she would remind you to be sure to count your blessings in light of the millions of women whose lifelong dream of having a baby will never come true.

Your mother believed with every fiber of her being that God was not obligated to grant her anything good. And she embraced fully the sovereignty of God in all things. That was her secret to ENJOYing 'all things richly.' And it is something that she desperately wanted all of her children (and husband) to embrace.

Let's honor her, my dearest.

Daddy

The Arts and My Beatrice

Because of my mother, I have a passion for the arts. Oh, I pray, Beatrice might share this same love.

Today I had the opportunity to watch 29 children perform in a production that I was blessed to choreograph. What joy it brought me to see their smiles as they created living art. For the past six weeks I have also been able to teach the beauty of ballet to 3 & 4 year olds. How splendid it was to see their eyes sparkle as they danced their own versions of famous ballets such as "Sleeping Beauty" and "Petrushka".

Our Lord is the ultimate creator, all we must do is look around to see the "performances" that surround us. The thunder of His storms, the songs of His birds, the light of His sunsets.

My husband and I share this artistic passion, and for that I am so fortunate. Beatrice, may you grow up surrounded by beauty! A most favorite quote of ours is by Jerram Barrs, and it reads:


"Our work in any field of the arts will be imitative. We will be thinking God's thoughts after Him—painting with His colors; speaking with His gift of language; exploring and expressing His sounds and harmonies; working with His creation in all its glory, diversity, and in-built inventiveness. In addition, we will find ourselves longing to make known the beauty of life as it once was in Paradise, the tragedy of its present marring, and the hope of our final redemption. All great art will contain this element of being an echo of Eden: Eden in its original glory, Eden that is lost to us, and Eden restored."


How appropriate this statement is after my earlier post this week. This world in which we live is tragically marred, and here I am, longing to know the beauty of what once was. May the art I create always lead back to Eden! Sweet Beatrice, may you long for the day when Eden is restored. 

I need her...

Here I am... with only 8 more weeks... and I need her. I need my mother so badly.

I am overwhelmed. I don't know what to do. I don't feel ready. I don't know how to be a mother. I've never thought I'd fear this... but now, I do. I want to know that when Beatrice comes it won't matter if I don't know everything, because she'll show me and teach me... one little thing at  a time. And I'll learn.

Oh, how I want her to hold Beatrice. How I want to see her joy as she rocks her to sleep. How I want to know that she'll be there for us both... when I don't know what to do.

But Beatrice will never know her. And she can't be here.

But I will tell my sweet daughter, oh, I will tell her stories. She will know how much her grandmother wanted to be here, how much she wanted to hold her. How beautiful she was, how gracefully she danced, how generously she loved, how eloquently she spoke.

I need her words.

Please forgive me, but I've taken the liberty of altering this beautiful poem by Anna Hempstead Branch by putting it in the past tense... for it has been soothing to my soul. 

Her Words 

by Anna Hempstead Branch

My mother had the prettiest tricks 

         Of words and words and words. 

Her talk came out as smooth and sleek 

         As breasts of singing birds. 

She shaped her speech all silver fine 

         Because she loved it so. 

And her own eyes began to shine 

         To hear her stories grow. 

And if she went to make a call 

         Or out to take a walk 

We left our work when she returned 

         And ran to hear her talk. 

We had not dreamed these things were so 

         Of sorrow and of mirth. 

Her speech was as a thousand eyes 

         Through which we saw the earth. 

God wove a web of loveliness, 

         Of clouds and stars and birds, 

But made not any thing at all 

         So beautiful as words. 

They shine around our simple earth 

         With golden shadowings, 

And every common thing they touch 

         Is exquisite with wings. 

There's nothing poor and nothing small 

         But is made fair with them. 

They are the hands of living faith 

         That touch the garment's hem. 

They are as fair as bloom or air, 

         They shine like any star, 

And I am rich who learned from her 

         How beautiful they are.