Tag: Children

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.

Celebrating, Cheering, Rejoicing —Life (With Words, Always)

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

I had lunch with a friend last week and she said something profound.  Profoundly simple.  I just live everyday like its the last.

And I want to too.  So a good place to start is with celebrating life and all that’s worth celebrating about it.  Daily.  In the ordinary.  In the mundane.  In the big and in the small. In the minutae and in the grand.  The footnote asterisk moments, and the all out worthy of champagne and caviar celebrations.  The all.  The package.  The whole entire messy and grandness of it all.

Around here today, this momma’s heart is celebrating.

So I write.  I write to celebrate and mark the worthy and the good. To describe the layers of living and life.  Tear stained keyboard marking milestones. Sweet and bitter co-mingling on the tongue-tip places. Tasting the past.  Savoring time since birthing a firstborn son into a world where he becomes the teacher, an anchor, a place to look for inspiration. A place to go for contagious exuberant passion for life and all that it grants.

Time blurs in the remembering. So I write.  And the fingers, the heart, the mind, and memories meld together and weave in and around, back and forth, and swirl up the all good.

I write and remember.  Track back and gather up. Gather up moments, milestones, time and time spent.  Ways love appeared and  the ways love was shown. Beautiful expressions of love.  Deeply handsome gestures of care, concern, love, and compassion.

I write to proclaim and give voice to the story.  A good story worth telling in bold and in all caps.  A story starting with love in love and continually marked by love.  Bookmarked with good and great and worthy of being raised up.

A story of a boy becoming a man.  Growing in manhood.  Tenderly, kindly, strongly, compassionately walking out love.  For His God.  For His family.  For his friends.  For others.

A story of gentleness and a passion for life and creation.  For the small in the world, the fragile, all that God created with feathers, and wings, and fur, and skin.

A story of caring.  Caring deeply for others, always.  A story of a heart which seeks to nurture  and love.  To protect and pour into.  Standing firm in Faith.  Standing firm in Family.  Going long, running hard after friendship.  Always digging deep into work, into love.

Happy Day of Your Birth.  Happy you have made me.  Joyful, joyful I adore you.  

Your life is a beautiful praise song to God.  You love all His creatures and you love His people in a way that touches deep in me.  You have woven your love throughout our family, always caring and searching for the needs of others.

Thank you for walking back into this home, my man-child, your passions, your joy, your love and your hopes.  Grateful for your strong tethered heart to this home and this momma.  I weep with joy, I weep with gratitude.

Happy Birthday, my son, I love you.

When we celebrate life, we celebrate Him, the Giver of all great gifts.  Thank you Father God for pouring out so richly into this life, this home, this day.

And all God’s people say “Amen.”

Amen.

Its Like The Normandy Invasion But On A Larger Scale

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

This is Tuesdays story. And yes its Wednesday.

It rings.  Or vibrates.  Or more likely its muted and I see there is a call.  I reach for the lifeline in this life.  Its red phone, its  black box important. Its part of a multi-level communications plan that involves email, carrying  life plans delivering the latest top level security updates.

She is Patton. I am MacArthur. This is war.  This is their lives.

Red pen, push pins,  tools in the battleplans laid out in the heart and mind.  Marking the critical, identifying the hour by hour movement of troops. And we strategize.  We move pieces around the map of life. The map of their lives on this night.

We momma warriors plan out how to keep them safe on this night of their lives.  Point A to Point B movement is critical to safety and well-being.  Its a jungle out there, these roads of life.  Danger lurks.  Hearts and bodies, fragile with youth, must naviagate through decisions, confusion, temptation, and dark night.

She tells me a story and I tell her one too, this co-general momma planner.

Our boys, one half a step from manhood, are tall, grown in stature  and  raised in this community of believers. My daughter, one year behind these sons growing into womanhood.  These children linked up and doing life together. My son, her son such deep friendship carving out.  My daughter, linked in friendship.  These woven lives all threaded together in community of youth.  We have much to steward. The flowers and shrimp for the battle night are distraction wrapped in details of the pre-battle party.

She goes first.  Words paint story of three year old school kids off to the pool after three year old kindegarten.  And she, plunges down in and swims with the playmates. She caring for a child for these hours, whose life she has been a participant in from before the beginning.  She comes to the surface, all momma cleansed, her make-up and hair no longer as before.  And he stares, my wide-eyed one, blue saucers, blue orbs piercing her in numbing confusion.  He, always this recorder of events, never missing one.  And always, always speaking out in raw truth.

And after long pregnant pause of childhood wonder, he asks what he questioned all along.  Are you still Taylor’s momma.  Change so subtle, wet haired momma swimmer now could be someone else.  Now could be for mine a stranger in this pool.

She giggles and I belly laugh. This story of over a decade ago blurs time and space and races back and delivers simpler.  Drops her in my lap, simple.  The easy to explain.  Of course I’m Taylors momma.

Its my turn now.  Story rises up all warm, like white flour biscuit oven ready.  Story hot out seeking open mouth to savor her and enjoy how sweet, all honey-covered she is.

Do you remember?  Do you recall? The time my husband popped into your office eighteen years ago and you pointed him to Bethany Christian Services? His heart broken by my pain, and  his, and  ours. This battle with infertility. This pain of long wait for baby.He, seeking a God path out of the pain. Black tunnel life moments, the coming out seeing light.

And do you remember you were the one there on that day? He was a stranger.  We were from somewhere else.  This was before.  Before we were drawn to this place.  This was a beginning and you marked this community as one of Hope and Love.

And she, belly full of baby.  Working at the church.  She directing and moving push pin strategy plans of the heart, pointing toward hope, gently lead by the Spirit. Leading us to a place where family would grow out of and from.  Where comfort and blessing and our adoption story would be birthed.

So story reminds of beginnings of friendships between boys.  Hers on the way into her home in her warm ripe belly.  She a directress of Hope and Encouragement. Ours, nine months later birthed through a precious life-giving birth mother who would lovingly release our cherished and prayed for one into my arms.

And now the warrior mothers plan and scheme of safe life travels on the night of Prom.  Planning all Normandy Invasion, how to feed the troops, what tanks will carry these young people off into the night. How will they move from Point A to Point B to Point C. What happens when the enemy lurks on the highway, dark night covering their paths. How will they find their way home to us to the mothership? Dodging each obstacle in their path with skill, on their own in this night.  Her son and my daughter, traveling companions on this jouney, paired up she with his best friend.  And my middle off with another group.

This battle, this plan has dimension and depth that challenges a momma battle planner.But we have each other.

Whether mother or not.

We have community in life.  Ones whose gifts come alongside and lend strength and comfort.

We have the other story-tellers who tell of their messy and their struggle.  Who shine bright light on the you are not in this alone. Who tell of over-coming challenge, pain, grief, and disappointment.  Who tell of times of rejoicing and flat out Joy.  Who shout the Mercy times and the Grace times when just before they stumbled hard they were caught in Love.  By community.

He wove this momma warrior back into my life.  He weaves these threads of support in kind word tapestry.  Ones who tell story of life where we see clearly He carried us.  He fought that battle for us and with us.  He prepared.

And we’ll release these young brave-hearts into this night and this life.  Covered in His love, covered in prayer.

And the mothership will keep watch for safe return. Always longing for their return, from playdates in swimming pools and first prom nights.

And trips home from college.

This is not the end of the story.  By no means is this the end of the story. Because its Wednesday’s story and Thursday,  she will have one too.

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When You Simply Can’t Believe What You Just Heard— That Was Then And This is Now

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

Its in moments like these that Momma writers write.  That choke with emotion and rip and tear at the heart with a splendid mix of joy and well, joy.

Because we were just here.  This place of lap sitters and all three fit and we could cozy all up in one green rocker.  This is where we were. We lived in this place for a season.  Of small and growing.  This world of teddies and double strollers, cheerioed floors.

This place of babble and missing teeth and a cookie in the hand solved all the worlds problems, if just for a minute. Of primitive glorious childrens art taped to frig, framed and hung, propped and celebrated.

And now we are someplace else.  We’ve done life for such a long time now, as family.  Our launching pad into life is sending out and its painful joy.  Today we are two colleges a day in the mailbox people.  One for her and one for him.  Or it seems that way and that’s what matters.

And today she is leaving home to drive to a big city and I’m breathless with anxiety about the leaving home at all.  A new zipcode is a new zipcode.  There are bridges to drive over.  The ones she did a school project on in sixth grade.  Now hurrying out the door bag in hand to go over the bridge to a far away land.  The city where I met her father– the Patient One.  Its too fast.  And its too soon.

But punctuating this moment, this blur of time in a tidal wave of what happened to the green rocking chair lap moments, middle son calls out to her, wait.

Door cracked, sunny day cool air rushing in, words between these two, twelve months apart come sweetly up the stairs and waft into my need.

He slows her down.  He hugs her tender and big brother gentle covers her small frame and my bulging heart.  ” Remember, God then Family.”  And I ask him why he said it.  His reply, “Because momma that’s what you always say to us.”

Time, you are a funny thing.  You race.  You slow.  You creep.  You blur fact.  You deliver good.

So recently a friend shared this parental covering and I had recently, so recently covered mine with this.  This admonition to remember whose they are in all they say and do.  And he picked up the parental mantle and chose to wear it at that moment.

Some how I now know that words are heard, words are penetrating, words matter a lot.

These two walk tandem through my world now and sixteen and seventeen cross-over prom and friends and college queries.

She’s off to a city with an international airport just for the night.  Just to explore and experience life, as she should.  My pain and my grieving fade in the background as I shout to her, I am so worried and I don’t like this at all.

I have barely recovered from my momma trauma when he announces he’s headed off to the river with a friend.  These tandem teenage moments  knock me like a second wave knocks down swimmers in the surf as they barely recover from one crushing blow. Doomed by fatigue from wrestling  the undertow and incoming waves.  Their combined force is power and it is might. Staggering to get up and recover, only to be sent face down into the grit of sand and sea. Spinning wildly under the cruel crush of water and wave. Pairs of life moments.  Waves of emotion.

And hours earlier its prom fittings and giggles on the coach.  My lap empty.  But my heart full. Plans for tuxedo fittings and color matching kick youth out of the way.  The now is a bully and she is here.  She kicks baby toy memories out of her way.

Phone calls to set up college visits hang in the air as that refrigerator door taunts my past.  They were just piled up on that Easter day with diapers and missing teeth and white knuckling graham crackers. Time teases.  Memory sweeps in with her blurring of years.  Baby ducklings, swingsets and trampolines take their place in another time and place.  College applications, SATS and campus tours push and shove their way.  Childish toys are retired.  Summer jobs elbow their way to the frontline of life.  And prom.  Two proms.

Long gowns replace smocked dresses. And its all as it should be. My heart will catch up one day to this day.

But for now I know that words were heard.  Words of love, of discipline, of teaching and encouragement.  Cautionary tales were told and penetrated the heart and the head. Words that strengthened and supported and walked us to this point. Words that undergirded and called out to build character and trust and faith. Words that told of Jesus.

All because middle child said, wait, then hugged , then said, don’t forget “God, then Family.” In love, with love, because he was loved.