Tag: Family

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.

Let’s Go Out To The Porch

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

We disuss this piled in family time.  Time with families.

We plan, we mothers directors of the play, contemplating our moves of time, like pieces of chess.

And we lift up this pilgrimmage to the porch where memories of babies and children and heart talks seep into the boards like the battleship gray stain.

Life is marked here.  This porch.  This memory repository for us.

Why do we long to go there.  What is this siren’s song calling us to come.  The breeze off the waterway calms and soothes and rustles up the past.  It stirs the heart to release here in this place.  Dump burden, dump worry here.  Its a sanctuary for pain.

Is it the sleeping porch knows how to rest the mind and the spirt.  Bibles stack here and start days here.

The palms billow like sails and whisper their rustling sound to the burdened soul, the tired soul.

She has seen weddings and witnessed crashing in of conversation.  This porch, like the matriarch tested through trials and tears.  She has wiped them, caught them.

We know to carve out time here, we momma planners.  We memory holders and keepers can tell stories of belly laughs, wicker rockers crazy rocking and generations piled up on laps while the world stopped here.  Stopped for us.  To catch up with ourselves.  To catch up with each other.  To fill the storehouses of life with story.

And we know that the giver of all good things, Father God, has more for us.  He always does.  So we carve out time and make time.  To start scavenger hunts here, to dye Easter Eggs with grown and semi-grown children.

Time to generation huddle.  To brush off the day in story.  The fish caught, the shells found, the sun burn worn like battle wounds of days battling the surf, the sea, the salt. The dinner bell rings and we feast on food and more.  We feast on life.

And we know as mommas that stories linger and die to be told.  The ones of love and life.  Dragonflies frenzied pace win the title of fastest moving creature as we linger.  And stars may fall or stars may stay pinned to the sky.  Either way we witness.

We pick story out of black dark night and early morning still.  We rockers and readers and dwellers in His word.

We launch boats into the sea with children here.  We welcome home the ones caught in the storms that blew in, from the sea, from this life.  We embrace them on the return.

The porch calls us to come here.

She calls to the weary to rest.

The joyful to celebrate.

The Glad of Heart to testify.

The discouraged to find encouragement,

The sea-seeker to delight in the salt of life.

We long for this respite place.  This stage set for living.  This place where laps are filled with friends or children, doubled up and rocking.

Where laps hold babies and bearded off-spring of the womb too.  The never too olds to call for mommas.

The laps hold promise and encouragement.  They hold tender touch of word and hand.

This porch for us says come to me.  And talk of Him.  And all He’s done.  And all He’ll do.

And bring your baskets, your eggs, your treasures.  But prepare your hearts for the more than they could ever hold.

Let’s go out to the porch this day.

Do You See The Gifts – Nestled and Tucked Away

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

Nestled – to settle snugly and comfortably, to lie in a sheltered position, to draw or press close, lie or be situated in a half-hidden or obscured position.”
Nestle – To lie or be located in a sheltered spot, to be naturally or pleastantly situated. To house in or as if in a nest.

Do I see them there, the nestled gifts in my life?

Do I count and name and mark as packages of life and love from Him all those tucked away goodnesses?

Do I see myself in that nest of His creation, the secure, safe position of closesness to Him.  The place of resting close to Him.  Of being pleasantly housed in the safety and security of His love and shelter.

Will Trust walk along side and adjust my lense to see my beautifully gifted circumstances, no matter what they are and what they bring.

If I invite him.

Will Trust re-align my heart so that all is always viewed  through the lense of His Grace, pointing and leading toward His plan and His will.  Will Trust do that for me if I soften and release and bend to that place of surrender?

Will I permit my heart and my life to rest in His loving grip? And house my life, my childrens lives in the nest of His provision.

I can see them there, all of them,  most of them right under the bridge of my nose, lent to me, given to me and placed on the silver platter that is His provision.

They are wrapped in laughter, surrendered to sleep, marching defiantly through the door.

They are in need of love and forgiveness and patience.

They are in need of a clean shirt, pants pressed, longing to be clothed in properly fitting and styled garments.  Longing to be clothed in love, mercy, grace and forebearance.

They are belly-laughers, and belly-achers.  They are puffed with pride and laid low by humility.  Hurt and beaten-up.  Loved up and weary.  They are fatigued with fighting and striving.

And they are emptied out and proud, turning back to the heart of Him.

They are seeking and struggling, yearning and longing.  These gifts are hungry and battle-scared.

And like bird in nest, they squawk squeak, cry out beak open for nurishment, sustenance from sustainer- God, provider-God.  Gift-giver-God.

They are dressed in uniform, ready to run the race.  To wear the victory, wear the defeat.  Shed the tear, celebrate the victory with the cries of happy warrior.  Arms flailing, spinning in joy of moment of celebration and song.

And I can hear them.  Gifts all loud and happy.  Loud and mad.  Loud and pressing in with defining self, and growing up self, and finding self.  I hear the flesh asserting, demanding, crying out in hungry need.  For this and for that and for those things.

And I sense like soft, gentle cheek breezes, gifts under nose and gifts covered up.

Lost under shuffle of life and hurry.  Gifts under confetti sky of lunch with friends while fruit trees drop spent blossoms on noses like He  announces His presence, as if we doubted He was there.  Invitation goes out in Grace, Lord be in our conversation.  Lord be in our moment of fellowship.  He came, as He does.

Gift-giver.  Lover of respite.  Lover of community and friendship and linked hearts.

And I see them, these beautifully wrapped gifts,  long like unending jet stream streaks in blue sky, sky streamers, heaven ribboning. Long, conversations. Long, life ponderings and musings. With these soul sisters, red lipped momma friends. Deep down gut laughs.  Deep un-masking, authentic presentation of life journeys. Safely harbored, safely moored in moments of linked momma hearts.

Extending ear, lending heart.  Preceeding conversation with safely guarded sanctuary of trust and acceptance.

And I see these gifts in furrowed brow, angry tone, loving smile, extended ear, apologetic offerings, prayer on phone, sweet good byes, abrupt hello’s, news of pain, and news of joy, moments of correction, parent-speak, momma pleas, disappointment, second chances and messy life.

So my thank you notes, penned, spoken, whispered, muttered, under-my-breathe and out in the open are these words in part —- the gifts are precious, they are many, and I am blessed.

And each is kissed by lips of humility. Written by broken flesh, and unworthy hands.

Yet sealed in the shadows of the cross.

Thank you for all.

Thank you for each.

Grace-fully Gratefully Yours,

wynnegraceappears

Knit, Woven, Loved

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

I ride down the familiar road,  Highway 17, my home away from home in this one zipcode town.

It comes through the radio, her voice a bit shaky.  I am used to half listening to her words, waiting instead to enter into heart singing or true singing with the next praise song.

She tells of a movie she has previewed which has left a mark on her. It is obvious she has been touched, moved by the story. I bend my ear, and listen, really listen.

And as she tells of the film, the charachters, the storyline I am a bit punched in the gut at the familiar places in my life.

This Weaver-God Creator-God has built with love like a mosaic of glorious stained glass my family, our family through adoption and through biological birth.

What a lavish, extravagant gift is a child.  A child entering into the heart of the home through a gateway of love.  Released in love by the arms of a mother.  Into the arms of a mother.

It is the DNA of my family.  My heart rests on this movie plot as it is shared by a audibly moved film-goer.  The familiar chords it strikes resound and playback in my head and in my heart.

It is always, everytime without fail, a word that remains tender so tender to me, adoption.  And yes, oh yes, I want to see this story on the big screen about how God has chosen and woven and moved in multiply lives, multiple families with His Grace and Mercy.

As I drive I try to discern the levels of tenderness of this particular story from just a short review on the radio.  And I see an amazing prelude  to my yearning after this story, having posted the music video here on this blog just days earlier for “October Baby.”

There are likely many differences between this story and ours, mine.  But the very strong chain which links families touched by adoption is there. The common thread, it weaves, it binds, it sews.  It stirs the heart.  Like the  two extra large knitting needles knitting one, pearl two form a masterpiece blanketing warmth of love and family. Two moms touch one life.

I light up and link hearts in a distinctly unique way with other moms of adoptive children.  It binds hearts.  A community within a community exits. And I am grateful to be, to humbly be, a part.

Psalm 139:13-  14 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God– you’re breathtaking!  Body and soul, I am marvelously made!  I worship in adoration — what a creation!

Jeremiah 29:11-13 I know what I’m doing.  I have it all planned out–plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.  When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen.  When you come looking for me, you’ll find me.

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