Musings of Motherhood

Usually I don't post something from my journal unless it's been a while...but today is different. This is from this morning:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

So many things, Jesus; please let them all come forth in light of Your love and let me know freedom in Your truth.

Galatians 2:20

Christ…loved, and

gave Himself up

Ephesians 5:2

Christ…loved, and

gave Himself up

Ephesians 5:25

Christ…loved, and

gave Himself up

Echoing now in my mind are the words of many mothers…

Cindy, Jess's sweet mom, saying to me in her kitchen,

"Not many people love sacrificially without having to."

And also, my thoughts along Hill Road in Mumbai (fitting),

when the young boy yelled for me,

and, knowing what he wanted,

I kept on walking,

not even turning my head in his direction,

entrenched in the bitter thought of,

"you all have taken enough from me already."

But Your thoughts were so much higher. Much higher, and much sweeter:

"No one takes My life, for I give it up on My own accord."

John 10:18

Hours ago, my dear friend's words in the night at an hour she couldn't sleep,

but only cry with sorrow for the sadness of her mother's heart

that knew her daughter would be leaving soon:

"Mothers give so much without getting hardly any of it back."

And Jess Paulraj…

on a blog about her own mother,

emphasizing how she didn't try

to makeshift a life preferable

to her desires on earth,

but rather

stored up treasures in heaven

by imparting Christ to her daughter,

who, in following His lead,

left her nest

and went far to the

other

side

of the world.
And now she is a mother
to two sons.
One, to whom she gave birth.
The other, grafted in
from the corner of a small rural hospital
in northern India.

((Interjection:

f you haven't read about their journey, please do.
Over $100,000 was donated
by friends, strangers
within a week
to give Adam
life-saving surgeries.

This coming spring his little body
will undergo more surgeries.
And they will need more help.
Please, if nothing else, read
and be blessed by the love they are living,
and the story He is telling of His redemption
with their very lives.))

I consider all these things and think --

I have much more to know of love,

much more to know of You.

Voluntarily sacrificial…

all these thoughts emerged when Suzei asked to borrow my car again,

and to ask if I "could go on one more adventure."

Flashbacks of sitting idle in parking lots while their mother ran inside, knowing that three seats plus four boys led to my breath being spent on words they did not heed, and how often I was not slow to anger…how often I didn't have or ask for the energy to do something playful with them in the moment so we could do more than just get by…though never wanting to use manipulation or bribery as incentive for them to obey me, but only love…thinking of the Good Shepherd who leads from the front and entrusts the choice of obedience into His followers…because He wants to be chosen…and my body reminds me how much earlier I sleep on the days I spend giving myself to them…and I look now at the mound of dishes in the sink that need to be washed again, so they can eat again, so they can play and learn and run again, so they can be tired again, so they can sleep again, so they can wake again and we can all do it all over again.

From glory to glory.

OH how I need eyes for You!

The many layers and folds of love are appearing before me

like the treasure room beneath Parkington Lane

in the movie "National Treasure."

I think of my friend Darcy, a world traveler turned stay-at-home mom.

I think of myself, and wonder.

Love is a choice.

And it can be over all, through all, in all.

I think of thoughts writ earlier in these pages,

originating at the home of Emily's mother --

"…A living sacrifice of love…

You are currently shifting my mind, refining it with love,

with Your very heart.

Joy. You designed love to be a joyful thing.

Let me know joy through the veil of sacrificial love.

And more than anything, let me know Your heart."

What else? Let me know such exuberant joy in loving sacrificially. And yet…is asking that sort of backwards? You made Yourself NOTHING and humbled Yourself to the point of death on a cross…

for the joy set before You.

Okay. So I will refine my request. ;)

(But You will do what You want.

But I know You love hearing from me

and giving me the desires of my heart.

You told me to ask anything!)

So…while I want to know joy, I don't want to know it

more than I want to know You.

(Yet…it comes from and has its source in You!)

I ask for times of unexplainable, nonsensical joy

when the world would lament.

I ask that I would know Your heart

when mine knows sorrow

as a result of how I have loved.

I ask that You would protect me

NOT from searing pain,

but from choosing against love,

from not knowing You.

Let all that happens cause me to love more,

never less;

to trust You more,

not less.

Protect that part of me that wants to love,

let it always be further cultivated,

never shriveled.

I ask that I would always believe that it's worth it.

Even if I cannot see how.

Because the end-all of love being worth it

is not my own reward.

It is You being known.

And even if You are only known to me

in those acts of love,

it is still worth it.

Because You died for me too.

I will need help in my belief and in my unbelief alike.

Let Your love be the governor in all of my decisions;

give me grace, tenderness and utmost compassion

to believe You when it's hard,

to keep me walking forward in Your love.

Thank You for loving me so care-fully. Always.

Thank You for the way Glen loves Julia.

For how it shows me Your love for me.

How You are so tender…so patient

and so much more concerned with

the condition of my heart in a matter

than the matter itself.

Relationship. Marriage. Oneness…Us.

You are letting me muse and wonder

and You are letting me hear Your thoughts.

Motherhood or no motherhood for me,

You are making it about the journey WE have

and the relationship that is deepened

as You disclose Yourself to me.

I digress; I rest.

Nothing is sweeter.

Thy will be done.

Thank You <3>