Telling The Story In The Middle: A Study in Wait & Pause – Living In The Waiting

December 5, 2012December 8, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 7 Comments

If there is a protocol for blogging or a template for writing blog posts or a committee of oversight for writing, they may tell me this one is coloring outside the lines too much. Well at least the long and winding title. In which I tried to say too much and didn’t opt for the pithy. The brief. The succinct.

And who has time to read through a long title? Today things should be brief and catchy and short and simple is always better, right?

How incredibly ironic and frustrating and so very timely is the spinning chrome ball forcing me to wait as I write a post impatiently on waiting. Pausing.

There would be no reason to write on waiting and patience and finding myself in the middle of much if I didn’t know in my deep down places that it is a core human struggle.

And in the writing, in the sharing, there is a collective group sigh or exhale or head nod— I know this place too. Or there could be. If you can make it through this long post. If you feel up to waiting for the end.

And yet in the middle of it all are such deeply personal and individual lessons from God for me that it feels like a sacred tutorial. He is sanctifying my heart and soul in a season marked for me. A something I need to really get and embrace and be challenged by. And grown by.

So who tells stories in the messy middle before there is closure and a neat and tidy ending? Who leaves the reader hanging, saying why did you tell me this if you couldn’t also tell me that?

I know only that I write from the heart what I feel lead to share.

And there are things upon which I wait. And it feels like a first world problem, and yet I know He cares to speak to me in all of my living. And He cares deeply about all the details of all of our lives.

As I wait for a return to a call and an email and a text from a woman, I wonder why the delay. The Patient One says I have made her mad. I can’t think how or when or what caused the quiet from her end.

So I will tell you how it ends when I get the return from my call in which I said I need to apologize to you. I don’t know what I have done but please tell me so I can say I am sorry.

I don’t know the ending but I know the peace in the middle. I told her I needed to hear her voice. I hope she calls. I have a measure of peace. I want complete peace. Don’t we all.

I have a child with a desire to be accepted to a specific college. We wait. I pray. We feel like there is a pregnant pause in the air. And God and I are tethered to One another in a way we would not be if a child’s future didn’t hang in the balance. He knows me well. He keeps me hanging. He keeps me waiting. And I know these periods of waiting well.

Of waiting for long cycles of infertlity to end. And being lead to adoption and receiving the gift of another biological child, a daughter after the blessed adoption of a son. He meets me in my waiting. I should long for periods of waiting with Him. They have marked my life with the beautiful. Building my family through waiting, just the way He intended it to be built.

One of the most precious people in my world, my inner inner world, is going through a painful divorce. And I want it to end. I want the pain to stop for her. I want closure and finality and decision. I long for her suffering to end.

She is in the messy middle and she texts me and calls me and I hurt for her. But God will sustain her through the dark period. I reminded her yesterday to hold on to her Joy and not to lose sight of her “what is good”. She has four beautiful children. She texted me thank you for reminding her not to lose sight of the Joy. I wasn’t sure she heard me through her pain. I should listen to my own advise.

We wait for healing in our church family and in my small community. For a new day and a rebuilding of our body after division.

I long to receive a letter from my Compassion Sponsored child in Peru. There are, I believe, long delays in correspondences between Peru and me, typically normally. This will be the new normal through the years of corresponding with her. But much more importantly, she must be waiting on me. I am overdue a letter to her. It saddens me to think I have left her waiting. I have caused her to wonder where the letter is from me.

And I wonder if God is waiting on me too. I want to be obedient in my living and in my writing. I wonder if I haven’t heard Him clearly. What does He intend for me to do and when with this writing. I am working with a friend on a poetry project, Adagio. And we wait to discuss the next season for this our fledgling poetry project. We wait a little.

My daughter wants her room redecorated. Its in process, unfinished. A stark reminder of the physicality of waiting. I walk in to make the bed and its a work in progress. And that is it. That is really a large part of it.

We are in process, we are a study in waiting, we are unfinished business and unfinished creatures and souls daily. God is refining us. And working things out through us and in us.

I lean into the understanding of this and seek to know it all better. We are unfinished until we are perfected by Him. And the right here is full of things to embrace, to learn, to hold to, to study, to enjoy, to celebrate.

On my porch sits a Christmas tree, our second tree. I received a gift which I want to unwrap and use, a box of ornaments from my parents. But there were so many they needed their own tree. And a wide eyed teenage daughter said I really want to decorate the porch.

The tree is lopsided and propped up. I can’t figure out how to “install” the tree in the newfangled tree stand. It is a mess of beautiful. A mess of white lights waiting to go up on the horizontal tree. Maybe the tree could lay on the ground and I could color outside the lines. Hang the ornaments from a laying in wait tree. Maybe that would symbolize the waiting.

We wait for Christmas Day.

But isn’t so much of the joy in the days leading up to the day.

Fining joy in the right here right in the messy middle.

The tree on the porch and I have a lot in common. We wait.

I want to be beautiful in the waiting. And learn from the pauses.

Wait with me, pray with me, learn with me.

It would make the waiting even richer. To wait with one another, in community. As we work through and work out the days of our waiting.

The chrome colored ball has gone for the moment. But I know it will pop back up and make me pause. I hope I rest and pray and find peace in the pauses.

And the disposal is broken and the sink is clogged up and I am waiting on the electrician. Maybe I can spread some Christmas cheer while he is here. While I am waiting for him to fix my brokeness.

Amen? Amen.

Joining Ann, Emily,Emily at Chatting At The Sky, and Jennifer

A Letter To My Son

November 9, 2012November 10, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 17 Comments

Dear Son, loved and treasured One:

When you go to the movies,tonight, with this sweet sweet young girl, young woman even, remember these things.
Dwell on them, never forget.

It’s hard to wrap a lifetime of learning into a very short letter. But I shall try.

And I’ll stammer and struggle and try to bleed my love for you as a man, in days now, my son, on this white page.

And what I want for you in all your relationships, but most especially with women.

Be gentle, be strong.

Be both.

Be a rock, a strong place to lean on. With big ears and an enormous heart. With room to grow and room to love.

Your Dad wooed me from the very beginning with his strength and gentleness, his compassion, his caring.

I never told you, and you wouldn’t care much before now, but early on, very early on, as we sat in a restaurant in New York with friends, he cared in the smallest of ways for me and about me. My memory fades like early morning fog, but I remember my hair in my plate or something similar and he loving pulled it out. He is gentle and attentive that way. He still married me.

Be attentive to the small.

You have watched your father cherish and care for your sister.

Care. Every time.

Do not follow the crowds, the throngs of people following the culture and all its siren song ways. Just rest in who God created you to be and be yourself. Comfortably you.

You, my son, are witty and funny. Enjoy that, but don’t be a peacock, calling attention to yourself. Use your gifts gently.

And you are creative, oh so creative. This is a gift to use for God and His glory.

Look to Him and His beautiful plan. Look in His eyes and ask and seek. Ask, be bold, ask. Then listen.

And listen well, my son.

Your Daddy does that so well now. Watch him listen and bend an ear to me.

And be selfless not selfish. In all you do.

Argue, not. Demand to be right, never. Be a peace-maker. Discuss with a gentle spirit. There is no need or time to fight. A gentle tone will take you far, strong one. Stand firm, yes. Find your balance with your words. Stand on what is right, noble, honest, pure, worthy of praise, and lovely.

You don’t have far to look, my son. Your oldest brother is tender and gentle and strong with his girl.

Follow these men, be yourself, be a gentleman, you were raised in the South, the premium on this is huge. Its our tradition. Carry it on.

Think of your grandfathers. They loved you and love you. And all their ways. Carry on traditions of kindness and gentleness and strength.

And look ’em in the eyes. Always. Everyone. Don’t look away, or look astray or wander off, not in their presence. Be fully present. Your beautiful blue eyes have always been so big, so unimaginatively handsome, these windows to your very soul.

Be right where you are, in the beautiful moment and savor it all. Remember the details as they unfurl.
Your father is my memory. He remembers often for us both. He has seen and he has remembered the details of a life, our life.

Pay close attention, such close attention, to the details, that are your life.

Listen to music, enjoy art, walk on the path outside our house that leads to the shore, often, daily, savor that salty place. Share your love for where we live. It’s glorious, its gift. It’s the ocean and the river, it’s God-beauty all around.

And get into those words God wrote for you, for us. And linger there, you man, you son, you child of God.

Your pecan pies and all your masterpieces, offer them in love.

And know that you were always loved by us, by Him.

Enjoy the movie. And be a gentle-man. Be respectful, so full of respect for others, for women, for all people, always. Shower others with a spirit of respect. And dignity.

Hold your shoulders back, your head up, wear your seatbelt every time.

Loving you this day and always, your very verbose,

Momma

P.S. I wrote you once before. Please remember those words too, of love to you. I wrote them in the summer months. These words from down deep in my soul.

Poetry Calls

November 7, 2012November 8, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 36 Comments

(photo courtesy of wikipaintings.org)

She twists, she turns, she tumbles and falls.

Like green Gumby rubber-man/ child wide-eyed in wornout toy box,

Nimble, pliable woman,

Is she.

When the wind blows, the cradle may fall,

But mother catches baby, husband, parents,

And all the rest.

In the middle of raising parents or is it raising kids,

She yearns to sit at the feet of the master acrobat,

Learn the art of dexterity,

Living nimble, bending, twisting, turning

Corners of her life, with skill and ease,

Stretching limbs to meet the needs

This world of hers throws at

Her, life, a whirlwind, whirling dervish, world.

She, Mary Martha ambidextrous hybrid, serving and loving

Longing to learn the art of balance.

To live and love and serve in the right measure of, mix of

Both. The proportions just perfect.

Art, not science.

Caring for self, she bends back into the page and writes

A love song to the world, her passion bleeding on the page.

And hears a cry, piercing knife-like in the night

To walk outside, plates and balls all tossed up in the air.

She longs to fold back on the white noise page and write,

Right where she lives.

Folding laudry, folding bedsheets, folding words.

They mix and mingle, they tug like moon at tides.

The words call,

Come play with us today.

The tempting taunting call of passion on the page,

To write.

The tension tears.

Joy comes gently in the sweet release

Of words.

She bends her ear to hear, what’s right.

And leans her head, blood rushing to the brain.

To write the words, her playful playmates posturing for a position

In her life. Right beside mother, sister, wife and other.

To write the balance out, the story,

That is her life.

Words winning, winding their way down the rows.

Poetry calls come play.

Joining Emily & Jennifer.

And at Thought Provoking Thursdays.

And I’m joining the folks at Tweakspeak Poetry for this month’s word prompt, Surreal. This is my offering on the prompt. (More to come, this is “fun”, sort of). #TSSurreal on Twitter.