Tag: Forgiveness

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.

A Wink, A Blink, And A Nod From Heaven

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

Confusion bends the heart and warps the spirit.  And we cry for peace and we cry for understanding. And the tears like cripples crawl wobbly down the slow rocky path from the eyes  to the chin.

But oh, how His word soothes the soul.

The soothing repetition of God’s word sings sweet comfort to confusion in our world.  Over and over it speaks sweet truth.

And slowly confusion bows to peace.  And peace brings comfort and a restoration of hope.

I stare at the computer screen and try to unscramble the code that asks me if I am spam, am I human.  Confusion looks like that.  Letters warped, unrecognizable, sideways turned, oddly shaped, gross distortion.

And confusion blurs the focus, like this intentional  filter questioning before allowing you to pass go, continue on to the next step.  This code to filter out the bad, eyes strain at the distortion to make sense and attempt to get it right.  To straighten out and make it plain and clear.

Confusion rocks our word leaving a seasick queasy, lost and vulnerable uneasiness in our spirit.

I step outside and throw myself on white rope hammock, fall into the arms of the Master softly swaying on the netted bed.  He has caught me.  I am His .  My gaze goes up.

It always heals, this black lit sky presenting one ultra brilliant star, like eye wink from Him.  Winking, blinking Mercy.  Assuring me there is a way out of misunderstanding and confusion.

The looking up always restores Hope.  The gazing skyward always meets my eyes with Mercy.  In the moment of raw human need.  And raw human heart.  He stares back down to a hurting child, swaying slow and steady under His sky at night and whispers calm in the black of night.

And because He loves so deep and wide and all black sky cavernous, I speak apology.

I know the path out starts here.  So what love falls out of the sky at night to a busted heart seeking solace on the ropes of life, in the woven hammock must be extended horizontal now.  Given out as freely here as it came down from the heavenly eye wink from the Merciful one.

Confusion rocks.  But He steadies.  He gives gift of solid rock to stand firm upon.

Confusion blurs who we are, what we are, and WHOSE we are.  He loves through a lense of everlasting love, with a clear and pure abiding Love, always and everytime.

Confusion breeds pride and anger.  He gazes down with unfathomable Love and ushers in a spirit of humility, peace, and calm.

Steps from the front door of my heart and my home I run into His arms, caught in the black of night.  Tears wiped by the One who extends Grace upon Grace upon Grace.

Winking and blinking and saying from His throne, sweet words of Comfort soothing the soul.  Tender words of Mercy mending the brokeness.  Gentle words re-building Trust.

One black night, one sweet star, and one Tremendous God.

One fresh start with new Mercies leading the way.

Sweet Forgiveness

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

The prayer cottage.

A place to go and sit before the Lord in prayer and supplication. Small and welcoming.

But in this season the prayer cottage for this sinful soul, is one of the heart. My heart.

And this dwelling place needs dusting off.

Spring cleaning is needed in this place.

The get out the rubber gloves, the bucket of cleaning supplies, the harsh abrasive cleaning products and start with the baseboards kind.  A fresh coat of white paint and crisp linen curtains, exteriors would make this little prayer cottage look clean and white and prepared for prayer.Externals.  Superficial tending to will allow her to appear to be dressed in her Sunday best.  Ready for visitors.  Those in need of what she offers.

Freshly planted window boxes dripping with color, vibrant and showy take the eye off the truth, place it squarely on the exterior and the shell, the mask. The outer.

But  changing  externals does just that.  It doesn’t get down to the muck and the dirt, the soiled and the sin.  When what needs changing is a rewiring, a change in the fundamentals, the foundation.  The beating heart that pumps the blood.  The place of life. And all of lifes joy and pain.

Just as the Easter finery and freshly polished nails  can cover what lies within.

These heart places which need to be released of unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, distrust, disappointment need cleansing.  They need to be washed in the blood.  A paradox.  Cleaned by blood.  White by blood. The envy, jealousy, scraped off the walls of the heart and dumped in the trash, put on the curb, and carried off.  For good.

These dirty corners here in the dwelling place of the soul, the hearts yuck ,need to come clean. Room inspection is required, the looking under and over and around for all that is ugly and unpleasing to the One who made me.

We huddle over His word and with furrowed brow wrestle with forgiveness, the word.  The meaning.  God’s description and desire for us in this realm. God’s heart.  We process the weight of its importance to Him. We discuss  the kind thats all out, no holes barred.  The no holding on to any of it.  The surgically removing every cell of this cancer.  And the gift that comes with walking it out, forgiveness. Put words on what it bears and brings to the abundant life.

Hundreds of years of life huddle over the word, in one room in one house on one night. Many of us contributing a  half century or more of life to the count.

And its still there, the weight of forgiveness and unforgiveness.  And we still seek His Grace and His Mercy. We still want to receive it and offer it.  Offer it, give it–grant it.

I still need to jump off and jump in. I need Hope as a life jacket, and Grace as a buoy marking my way on this sea. And Mercy charting the maps around the rocks and the sandbars. I want nothing in the way of this path to the cross.

“The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened.  But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.” — Oswald Chamber, “My Utmost For His Highest”

Lord, blow sweet and gentle winds of forgiveness into the sails of this ship. And take me into the pitch and toss of seas safely to the harbor of your Love and Grace.

Merciful hands of God, Merciful touch of God, Abundant Life-Giver God.

I thank you for your Cross.


← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨