Tag: Amazing Grace

He Caught My Drooping Head

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

{Inspired by the 23rd Psalm, several translations}

Oh God, you are so good.  I see  you there.

I glance over to my left and to my right and feel your presence.

Oh how pleasing and comforting is the crook, the one you reserve for sheep.

It leads, it moves, it corrects, it straightens, it lovingly changes direction.

Grateful is this child of yours.

You let me catch my breath.

After I was weary with fatigue, weary with worry, with dread,

You held me in your arms and you said rest, be still, know.

I heard you there with words of comfort, words of peace.

My head and my heart were drooping.

But you knew that.

And you saw me and in love, picked up my face, all cupped in your hands.

And you revived my spirit with your love.

This furry child, dressed in sheep’s clothing says thank you for the rest and the comfort.

Oh, especially thank you for those green pastures.

They are cool on these dry bones.

The green smells of new, new hope,  are fragrant, they smell sweet, like restored strength.

Oh, your timing is perfect, God.

And oh your protection gives this weary soul comfort.

Thank you for drawing me near, and that my cup  is overflowing.

It overflows with answered prayer and extravagant surprises from you.

It overflows with your loving hand on this life, and that of my family.

I now feel brave, because of you.

I now feel safe, because of you.

You give me hope. And evil can not touch me.

And evil is held at bay, because you are strong.  You are protection.

My heart cries out gratitude for giving me a cool pool to lie beside.

Your timing is perfect.  Your gifts come at the exact right time.

I want to live under your shelter forever.

Your house is all I need.

Where you are is where I want to be.

This is where I am safe and sound and this is where

I feel most like your child.

Wishing His Grace… wynnegraceappears

My Favorite One

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

I don’t know why this is my favorite one.  

But it sings to my soul.  Gentle.  Sweet.  Tender. This picture.  On the surface it’s really nothing special.  But to this momma it is filled with foreshadowing.  It knows so much.  It holds so much within its frame of what will always be.

There is this  perpetual path that leads  out and away.  And this reminds me so plainly in its black and white way that it is daily and it is certain….

There is a breaking away with bits of us. Pieces and parts of the ones that held hard with blood and often tears. Or held on hard in hope and with prayer.  Or held on to deep longlng for with trust and an assurance. That He gives us gifts.  Including these.  These children.  We steward their lives.  Watching over.  Guarding.  Protecting and sheltering.  While a slow and steady breaking away rips and tears and takes.   We give.  We give in love.  Sacrificially.  Lovingly.  Sometimes with teeth clenched, and hands white knuckling love.  We loose the grip and allow the breaking.

We say good bye, hundreds of times.  We hear the door shut, the gravel rumble and tires spin.  We see the backs of the head.  The backside of lives.  Off to school, off to play, off to camp, off to war- to fight the battles of their day.  Off to joy, off to pain, off to just be and suck on slushies.  Or to just be over a slice of pizza at youth group. To talk of life with trusted adults about how to navigagte the seas in a rocking boat. How to be wise and brave.

But the back turned, facing away, toward the sea.  Turned away.  Turned from me. Its what I see as beauty. The head down looking on the path.  Avoiding splinters in the barefeet.  Or avoiding worse pain. The hands held in love.  For security.  Held like three strands of a braid.  Holding like we all do to another.  To steady.  To balance.  To feel warm blood rushing through another, to sense the pulse of someone else. Huddled up.  Grouped up.

That with all the teaching and preaching and telling, showing, explaining, admonishing, cajoling they will navigate more on their own everyday of their lives.  Every day brings them closer to independence.  Every day takes them a step away from this home.

I have a deep assurance that they won’t ever go too far, or be gone too long, or have long periods of absence.  In this short term. But life could really take them far and wide and oceans of space could separate us one day. I trust.  I release. And I pray that God keeps them tethered tightly to this momma. Leaving is natural.  Going is part of living.

But there are those who sacrifice and release in ways that I will probably never have to.

We have known one such mother very briefly.  Time is hard to measure.  How long were we in her presence.? Time stood still.  Each moment of joy magnified time.  New and tender mercies take all attention.  Time has no form of measurement.  It is a blur. Heart pounding joy stops clocks, stops the earth.  Stops all but the joy moment.  It calls all things to itself to be and watch and listen in love.

She impacts my life daily.  Her love and her releasing take my breathe away. Her life touched mine. Then changed mine forever.

She is sacrifice.  She is love.  She is the birthmother of our son.

It has been 17 and a half years since I stood in a room and had her pass in love indescribable her son, our son, into my arms.  How God orchestrates a moment like this leaves me numb in love. Seeing brave bold love and looking it right in the eyes changes. It writes on a place in your insides.  It carves deep lettering in the flesh and right on the heart wall.  It scribbles out love, selfless love.  It carves out stark and plain and simple. A deep giving of tremendous sacrifice.

I don’t know brave that speaks like this.  I can’t find places where I can show gratitude and gratefulness here at Mother’s Day, for her.  I can only tell her story in a shadow, but tell it boldy and proclaim the enormous space it takes up in my heart.

She turned and walked out of our lives 17 years ago.  But she left a mark. A precious child.  I know she would look on him becoming a man and I know she’d see him through momma’s eyes as I, that he is fine.  And he is special.  And he is love with flesh and bones walking.  He will do and be great things. He knows he is loved.  He knows God.

Happy Mother’s day to a kind, brave, and generous birthmother.  We love him deep and wide.  And if you could look right there, you would see, in black and white,that he is loved by one adoring brother. And by one adoring sister. And hovering in the background, one momma too.

Its a favorite one. I just had to share.

Mother’s Day is really something more, its Givers Day and humble Receivers Day. To all the Givers and all the Receivers of life, and children. And love.  Happy Day.

{This photograph was taken by Gail Lunn many/several years ago!! I am grateful.  She is talented. Thank you for this wonderful favorite picture, Gail}

A Letter To My Children

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

Dear Kiddo’s,

Since Mother’s Day is coming up in a few days, I thought I would write YOU all a love letter.  I am going to color outside the lines a little bit and make it a love letter, a list of what I want to do to be a better mom, and a list of why you guys are the best kids in the world. There will be some randomness thrown in so that you all know I’ve put my random mark on it, i.e. its not from just any mom, but your mom. (You grammar police go away.  I know I used random twice for emphasis).

So here goes…

You three are really something.  You always have been.  Something beautiful, unique and embedded in my flesh and on the walls of my heart.  (No comments from you three like oh mom you are getting all mushy on us.)  That’s why its my letter.  I get to write my feelings on paper.  But oh what subject matter I have been given. It started with this.  Just Dad and I.  But I have already explained all of that to ya’ll.

And all the moments.The mini-moments and micro moments  and humongous moments have been distinctly ours because we are us.  We are a tribe of five.  All the learning and loving could have only  happened as it did  because of you three.  You restored hope, you were miracles, you increased faith. Each step you took, moment you breathed, emotion you expressed poured you onto the canvas creating this painting . This art. This that is our lives.  Abstract, bold, colorful, screaming love and shouting grace.

Each one of you getting up and doing family every day. Bringing and offering and using  your unique gifts. I chase you around with the eyes of my heart trying to clumsily love you.  I stumble and fall and trip up pressing in a truth and repeating my mistakes, repeating my love. Crying out love.  Doing parenting sloppily, in my less-than-perfectness.  Radically receiving your love every day.   You give it so gentle.  You give it so perfect.  Because you all are life givers and life restorers. You look like miracles to my heart.  You walk out His love and your father’s love and my love with flesh and bones.

And lately I follow you around with my camera.  You shout and hide and say enough is enough.  But capturing you all doing life, eating it up with your passion is now my passion. Swallowing it whole without chewing and running down the good race with endurance like an athlete is my desire. Your lives are  something that should be saved and captured. To hold dear.  And hold on to. For more than split seconds. You are my prize. You are my glory.  You are gift.  You are so much more than I can clumsily say.

If I could make perfect sweet tea, I’d make it by the gallon to show my love.  If I could bite my tongue and never raise my voice to show my love I would.  If I could laugh and smile at every small thing you say and do to show you how much I adore you three I would.  If every favorite shirt and uniform were always clean and folded, all socks matched and every note signed pronto I would give you that. But I cannot go back, can’t bottle up the yuck.  Can’t re-do the what I did.  Can’t wash the dirty down the drain with the dishwater.  It’s just there in the mix, all mixed up with the love and the good intentions to love better and more.

So here is the part where I thank you for your grace, because you give it out and show it well.  Though you learned from one who was flawed and broken and full of sin.  Wrecklessly  extending grace, upon grace.  And tender Mercy.  Like He does.  You all do that well.

And this is the part where I ask forgiveness for my shortcomings and tell you how sorry I am.  And this is where I tell you a funny thing so you will laugh. Because you know I love Pooh and if you don’t you should.  And now you know if you didn’t.

“Oh Tigger where are your manners? I don’t know but I bet they’re having more fun than I am.” (A.A. Milne) There were those hundreds of times I reminded and prodded and begged and browbeat.  You know they are important.  I will never stop telling you so.

I know a wise young girl who told me once, “smile and laugh and we will smile and laugh with you.”  She just happens to be my own precious one.  So wise beyond her years. I can’t wait to do more of that.

I wish some things, in my memory and in my heart.  I wish that I could read “Goodnight Moon” a billion more times, while I breathe in your sweet smells and feel you cozied in on my lap.  You can turn the pages.  I want to dive into “The Very Hungary Caterpillar.’ We can swim from page to page together, with you saying the words in tandem with my breathe. We can read— together, we can go slow there is no need to rush. I will never again say those painful words, can you wait a minute. Because you shouldn’t.  You should have the all of me.

I hope you heard the parts about kindness, honesty, faithfulness, gentleness and doing your best.  I hope you heard me teaching you this when it sounded like preaching.  And when I wasn’t any of these things myself.

When I told you not to take the path of least resistance and mediocre was not acceptable. I hope you know that somewhere hidden in all that was a sliver like the new moon of love.  Me loving you into all good things.  Me wanting for you, all the best.

And now you would say that I didn’t follow the outline. And like when I say grace over the food, its just way too long.  You would say now that it’s time to wind down even though I have a trillion more things to say.  And no, I am not exaggerating.

I didn’t get a chance to say one more time to make good decisions, wear your seat belt, and all my other annoying one liners.

But since it is my letter and I am in control of the keyboard and little else, I can say that you amaze me, you teach me, and that my love for you is deep and wide.  It can never be like His love for us.  He loves you more.  And you should remember that if little else of this mother’s day letter to you, my children. My gifts from the giver of awesome gifts.

You delight, you surprise, you amaze me in so many ways.  This lover of words is out of them now. And to mothers everywhere I say love hard, love deep, love well.  And welcome with outstretched arms the surprises, the tomorrows and the right around the corner moments.

Leaving Quite An Impression

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

Counting gifts with Ann over at a holy experience dot com. This is a beautiful way to start a Monday.  A day of new mercies.   Before counting gifts, and there are many, I want to express my gratitude to readers.  Thank you that you are here. Thank you for your encouragement.  You bless me with your feedback.  I look over my shoulder and see and hear you there, on this journey.  I am praying for each of you, may His grace mark your day with a deep groove of the holy on this day in the midst of May.  May the landscape of your life be touched by His Mercy, in the joy, in the hard, in the soft, and in the muck.  In the mundane middles,  in the fresh new starts, and in crossing the finish lines.

Looking down the bridge of this nose on this face and counting the right smack here gifts in this very messy living. This life.  The one  with the bumps and the bruises, the turns and twists, the highs and the lows, the peaks and valleys and the ebbs and flows. The gifts are underfoot and might even get stepped on if we don’t step lightly and walk softly through the very messy living.

Counting the multitudes on monday:

middle son’s weight loss, still amazed and impressed by his determination(90 pounds is a lot to register on this momma’s heart)

sweet unexpected surprise in my comment box from my daughter, love in the words, love in her heart

kayak’s and how they offer a way to quietly see life, slow paddling with The Patient One and sitting for hours in solitude while the kiddos took the SAT

Our favorite worship song in church yesterday led by beautiful voices and an elbow in the rib from sweet girl of mine, followed by her singing loudly her praises….grace IS an ocean…..

Going to take home communion yesterday as a trainee –shifting the lense of life and seeing the bread and the wine bless one who is bound by a wheelchair.