Markers
I drive past it at least once a week. Anytime I head to Walmart, Home Depot or across the north end bridge. Just as the road curves. The cemetery where we had researched burial plots for our daughter.
About a week ago driving past there was a gathering of people, huddled in close with overcoats, breaths hanging in the air, the casket of one being laid to rest, and tears on my cheeks.
Before Bella’s birth, during that long pregnant summer, I could hardly round that corner with dry eyes. I wondered how I would be able stand there, still swollen hollow belly, toddler in my arms, husband by my side, life friends nearby. How could I breathe as they buried my little one with no breath? Try as I might, I couldn’t picture living through that day. All there was were tears and fears that I would be called to stand on that ground, to stand over that freshly dug dirt.
This morning for the first time I put Eliana in the dress. That dress purchased for a somber occasion, and decorated with tears. The dress that was hidden in the corner of the laundry room for so many months, a dark foreboding of what might be to come. It was unearthed as we cleaned and packed up our home, and hung with the rest of her clothes as a reminder of what could have been but is not.
There is such a mixture of emotion with these markers. There is overwhelming thanksgiving, rejoicing at the grace, at the gift that has been given. A renewed sense of awe at the working of the hand of the Lord. A sense of wonder that eclipses and shrinks the daily burdens of raising little ones, the tantrums, the poop explosions, the stress of still trying to figure out the extent of food allergies. It has a way of transforming…in some moments…the challenges into blessings. And oh how I need that transformation. Because there are plenty of times during the day that I want to throw up my hands and throw in the towel. To escape this monotony of motherhood and dishes and sticky hands and laundry. Oh yes, I need the reminder to see these days as gift.
But then. Mixed with the joy and the gratitude and the wonder is a shadow of grief. An ache of the heart. A knowing that while I was spared standing beside a small freshly dug hole, there are so many mothers who were not…who are not. A knowing that when I tuck in my daughter in her bed, her bed set up at her Papa’s because our old house is closing and our new house will not close for at least six weeks, a knowing that across the town and across the seas there are mothers who have no blanket, who have no bed, who have no home to tuck their child into. And I don’t understand. I don’t understand how His goodness and His plan and His loving-kindness is at work in all of it. At work in the refugee by the gate, at work in the tiny casket lowered, at work in a holiday season darkened by grief. And my heart cries out for all to be healed, for all to be made well, for all wounds to be bound up, for all graves to lie empty.
And I return to the prayer I shared here several years ago.
With the energy we have, we begin the day, waiting and watching and hoping.
We wait, not clear about our waiting.
But filled with restlessness, daring to imagine that you are not finished yet–so we wait, patiently, impatiently, restlessly, confidently, quaking and fearful, boldly and daring.
Your sovereign decree stands clear and we do not doubt.
We wait for you to dissolve in tender tears.
Your impervious rule takes no prisoners, we wait for you to ache and hurt and care over us and with us and beyond us.
Cry with us the brutality, grieve with us the misery, tremble with us the poverty and hurt.
Attend to us–by attending in power and in mercy, remake this alien world into our proper home.
We ask in the name of the utterly homeless one. Amen.
These words come from Walter Brueggemann’s book, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth. And that is where I find myself this Thanksgiving week. Awed of the hints, the foretastes of Heaven’s rule come true in this world, but feet rooted in the dirt of this Earth, aware of the many places that rule has yet to conquer. Tomorrow I will squeeze my gift of grace a bit tighter, and whisper a bit more urgently, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come.”
One source of meaning & inspiration during Advent (in addition to your blog, Katherine!) is Ann Voskamp’s devotional book, “The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas”. Today’s reading encouraged me to be “ravished with wonder at His infinite goodness, wisdom and power”. The first question for reflection was “What in this whole blue marble of God’s world causes you to pause in wonder?” I immediately had my answer: Bella!