of carpets and broken hearts {a Good Friday story}

Today I heard a story that broke my heart.  

We were outside washing carpets, my new helper and I.  With overturned tea bowls, we scrubbed circles in soapy lather, shoving the warp and woof this way and that, collecting clots of hair and fuzz.  Brown water and soapsuds ran in rivulets down the driveway.  

This was her first week of work; the neighbor who’s been helping me for two years recently found out she’s pregnant with their fourth baby.  This new girl, Mikayla, the wife of one of James’ workers, is kind, cheerful, energetic - a perfect and timely answer to prayer.  She arrived just in time for spring cleaning, and we had been waiting all week for a warm day to tackle the carpets.  

  

We squatted on our haunches in the driveway, scrubbing away, our backs warmed by the spring sunshine, and she told me her story.  

I knew she had a two-year-old son at home, so I asked, innocently, if they wanted to have any more.  

“Not yet,” she said, sprinkling more soap on the carpet.  

“The doctor told us we should wait two years, and then we can try again.”  There was something I wasn’t understanding.  

“When my son was a year old, I got pregnant again,” she explained.  They underwent the usual three ultrasounds throughout the pregnancy, but it wasn’t until the last one that the doctor noticed anything unusual.  

“The doctor told us the baby’s head was too big,” she said. She pushed the broom in long strokes across the carpet, squeezing off excess water.  “He told us it would be born deformed.  That it would be very hard on us, and on the baby.  He said we should consider aborting.” 

When I finally understood this last sentence, I stopped scrubbing and jerked my head up to look at her, my eyes widening.  

“Really?  He said that?”

She nodded, still scrubbing.  

“What did you do?”

“I cried, and said, ‘No, no, I won’t do it, I’ll have the baby, I want to keep it.”  Her arm moved in rhythmic circles.  “But then I went home, and my mom talked with me, and she said it would be really hard on me later and that I should do it, and my husband wanted to do it too… what choice did I have?”  

“You were eight months pregnant already.”  She nodded.  I’m in disbelief.  I’ve never heard of a doctor recommending an abortion that late.  I want to ask whether they had tests done, whether they got a second opinion… 

“So what happened?”  I already know I don’t want to hear the answer.

“They gave me some medicine.  And then - the baby stopped - moving.”  There are queer little stops in her voice.  She manages to get the sentence out, but only just.  There’s a long, heavy pause.  A huge hand is squeezing my heart.  “I was in the hospital for ten days, and I cried every day.”

I’m crying now, too, my face crumpled up, the tears running down.  Around and around go the tea bowls, upside down, all these rivulets of dirty water running off.  I’m silently screaming at God. This is upside down!  This is backwards!  This should never happen!  Why, God?  Why?

People here don’t like to display emotion, and my tears are embarrassing her, but she doesn’t say anything, and I wonder if they are validating her too. 

Out loud, I say, vehemently, “That doctor put himself in the place of God.  He decided your baby shouldn’t have the chance to live.  That is God’s decision, not a person’s.”  

“Yes. I know.”  She agrees.  She scrubs another minute in silence.  “But what could I do?  Everyone was telling me it was the only thing to do, and I believed them.”  

There’s a long pause.  She stands up and reaches for the hose to flood the dirty water off the carpet.  I want a hose that will flood her bleeding heart with grace.

“So… did you have the baby?”  I almost can’t bring myself to ask.

“Yes.  They wanted to give me a caesarean but my mom went to bat for me and convinced them to let me deliver naturally.  It only took me 4 hours.”  

And then?  And then what?  I simply cannot imagine the pain of knowingly delivering a dead child.  “And then… you… said goodbye?”  Now I’m the one who can hardly get the words out.  It’s hard enough just to breathe.

She nods, silently.  Water pours from the hose, washing away all the grime.

“I’m sorry,” I say, vigorously wiping my eyes on my sleeve.  “You probably don’t want to think about this or talk about it… I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah, you don’t want to think about it, but of course, you do…”

A minute later, I find a way to encourage her, even just a little.  “At least you know he’s in heaven, with God, and he’s perfect.  He’s playing, and laughing, and happy…”

She nods again, meeting my eyes.  “I had a dream that my grandmother, who’s dead, came and patted me on the shoulder one night while I was crying, and said, ‘It’s ok, he’s with me, we’re looking after him.’”

Internally I’m having all sorts of theological difficulties (I have no idea whether her grandmother was a believer or not), but I don’t mention any of them… I just nod, and sniff.  

“We’re going to give his one-year nazir (memorial service) this year…. 

“A way to remember him,” I say.

“Yes.”

We’re almost done with the last two carpets.  I take Ruby inside to change her wet clothes.  I pay Mikayla her first week’s wages, wishing I could give her the Gift without price that will soothe and save her wounded soul.  Please, Lord, I beg.  Please, one day soon.

I see our Easter mountain in the kitchen window, the cross tilting lopsidedly on the top.  Good Friday floods over me afresh.  It had slipped my mind while we were outside scrubbing. 

Into my mind floods a vivid memory of walking through the Good Friday story this morning with the kids, and how Ben had to get the hammer so I could tap the nails through Jesus’ pierced wrist into the little apple-twig cross.  The boys went perfectly quiet while I did it, except for Ben saying mournfully, “I don’t like this part, Mommy.”  Will’s eyes were wet.

My stomach twists, remembering. What you had to go through for us, Jesus!  The brokenness you endured, so you could heal ours.

The empty cross is dark against the window.  The women are weeping as they leave the tomb. 

It’s Good Friday.  And my heart is breaking.

But.  Sunday is coming.  There is hope.  Hope for all the brokenness.  

And suddenly, I’m flooded with a rush of gratefulness: that we ourselves were broken, but are being healed.  And that we get to live here, in this broken place, next to broken people, with Sunday’s healing hope inside our broken hearts.  

Happy Birthday, William! {a belated birthday letter})

November 29, 2013

Happy Birthday, to my sweet William!

You are six years old today!  I love watching you grow.

Your character has really grown and blossomed this year.  You are developing a compassionate heart, especially for Ruby and Ben.  You play so well with each of them, and love to do what makes them happy (most of the time), like letting Ben win, and playing peek-a-boo with Ruby.  You are becoming sensitive to their needs, which is very different from a couple years ago.

I love how you look forward to listening to G.T. Bible Verse songs or Mrs G stories every morning, and then you tell me something new you learned about God.  You already understand how important it is to start the day with Jesus, which makes my heart so glad.

Yesterday at lunchtime I asked you what you listened to that morning, and you said it was about self-control.  “Yeah, I need that today, for my mind,” you added, buttering your bread.  “Why?” I asked.  “Because before, when Ben did something I didn’t like, I thought of something in my mind I wanted to do to him.  Something bad.”  I was so amazed you realized you needed self-control for your mind - a pretty advanced connection for a six-year-old to make and verbalize!  So we talked about “taking every thought captive” and learning how to grab that bad thought and quickly give it to Jesus.

Even though we had to travel so much during your sixth year (NZ, USA, Thailand, Central Asia, Turkey, more Central Asia…) you took it all in your stride!  You stayed calm, and you really enjoyed all the different places we went - the food, the sights, the fun things we got to do.  It wasn’t until our second long visa run (our third three-week trip this summer) that you finally started saying, “I miss our home…”  You did so well!  You are really maturing, and we are so proud of you.

RIght before Christmas, you finished the 100^th lesson in your reading book!  Congratulations!  You did so well persevering, even on the the hard days, when you hit a mind block, or you just didn’t feel like doing it, but we worked through your attitude and Jesus is helping you.  If you put your mind to anything, I know you’ll be able to do it.  

This Christmas, you wrapped up your reading book and gave it to Jesus, saying, “I want to give Jesus my mind, and what I read this year, and I only want to read things that make Him happy.”  That makes me happy, and Jesus too!

My favorite time with you each day, Will, is our quiet time together in the afternoons.  You’re such an atmosphere guy - you love to snuggle up with a blanket and do our reading together, and afterwards have a cup of tea and play a game - UNO, Checkers, Connect4, Memory… 

I couldn’t ask for a more wonderful firstborn son, William.  I am so thankful I get to be your mom, and help you grow into the man God created you to be.

My prayer for you this year is from Jeremiah 29:11, a verse you came and told me about one morning after listening to G.T., saying, “Mom, God has plans for me!  Good plans!”  Trust God’s plans for your life, Will, to give you a future and a hope.  Seek God with all your heart, and you will find him.  

Happy Birthday, sweetie!

Love,

Mom

aware of wealth

{A flashback from early September, starting our second three-week wait for visas…}

September 1, 2013 

We are, all five of us, sleeping in one room for a cluster of nights as we embark on our third trip this summer, waiting for visas again…

Never have I felt so vulnerable, never has my foothold in this cleft of rock, this tiny corner of the globe, seemed so tenuous.  I feel powerless to provide my children with what I long to give them, what I know they need: a home.  Stability.  Routine.  Consistency.

And yet, as the darkness deepens here in this funny oblong triple room in a guesthouse in a strange city in the middle of Central Asia, I am aware of wealth.

I pick up my baby from the bottom of her cot, her limbs splayed out, heavy with sleep.  While she nurses, I perch on the side of my bed, listen to four other pairs of lungs besides my own, breathing in, breathing out.  One boy sighs in his sleep.  Another rustles his covers, stirring in slumber.  

I give her the other side, and then, since she’s too soundly asleep to suck, I gently lay her back down.  I pull over her chubby bare legs the summer blanket of pink gingham edged in eyelet my mother made for me when I was a baby, lovingly stored away away against the day when her baby girl would have a baby girl of her own.  

I step across the room to my oldest son, pull up his sheet, smooth his forehead, ministrations a thousand thousands of mothers have performed before me, and will perform long after my mothering days are done.  

I stoop to kiss my second son, the one we all love so much it hurts, the one who hurts us with the violence of his passions, his loves, his hates, his frustrations.  The boy whose blue eyes fairly popped with joy, two inches from my face, as he shouted earlier in the garden, “Did YOU see THAT, Mom?  Didja see what I can do??” as he cavorted and gamboled gleefully with his brother.  

The boy who, tonight as Daddy was tucking him in, moaned in a voice dripping with mournfulness, “But Da-ad, if I close my eyes, I can’t see anything!”  

The boy who exhausts us with his exuberance, levels us by loving us, shouts and sulks his way through each three-year-old day with such reckless abandon as to make me cringe at the thought of him at 13… and 23… and… 

I tuck the covers in around this boy, kiss his babyish three-year-old cheek, listen to him sucking on his thumb, feel my heart swell with maternal pride.  

These four human beings, the ones I birthed and the one who sired them, we are bone of bone, flesh of flesh.  Our soft collective breathing fills this space, and I suddenly revel in this one set of four walls containing the whole of us.  Our family.  That there would be such a thing in the world as the miracle of a family, that I would have one of my own, created out of two become one, birthed from my womb, entrusted to me to nurture...  

Wealth.  Untold.

And I realize the answer to my unspoken, wordless question, my longing to provide them with security, stability: here, within these four walls, is God’s plan for doing just that.  He planned for each human being to be placed in a family, with a certain, special set of human beings to belong to, to own, to love.  

I sit quietly in the dark, feeling complete.  Knowing I am home, in this hotel room, as home as I’ll ever be on this planet.

Home isn’t a place: it’s being part of a family.  

And my heart suddenly wells up with a desperate ache, for all the broken ones, the lost ones, the separated ones, sleeping lonely, crying… Alone in the dark.  

Lying flat on my bed now, under the covers, silent tears trickle into my ears and drip onto the pillow as I pray, with all the love in my heart, that God would draw near to each lonely one, touch each broken heart, adopt each orphan, take the hand of anyone who’s lost, and lead them…

...Home.  

If you're lost and lonely today, longing for family and home, 

cry out to the God who is Father….

"For He is good;

His steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations."

(Ps. 100:5)

And leave a comment or send me an email - I would love to pray for you!

Four years old today!

October 26, 2013

Happy Birthday to my sweet Ben-boy!

You were born four years ago today, at 5:03 in the morning.  I remember when you arrived in this world, underwater, and Daddy lifted you up out of the pool and said, "It's another boy!"  We were so surprised, and so happy to have two boys in our family!  Now you love swimming underwater... maybe it stayed in you from your very beginning!

We named you "son of my right hand" and "one who seeks after God", after your Grandpa Tim.  We pray you know your special place in our family and in the world, and that you are one who seeks after God with your whole heart, just like your Grandpa Tim.

We've seen you grow so much this year.  You are still working on obeying, but every day you grow a little more and are able to control your temper and your body a little better.  You've been learning to pray for yourself, that Jesus would help you use self-control, and slowly you're beginning to understand that Jesus really does live in you, and He can help you.  You still struggle to submit your heart to Him and let him help you - we all struggle with that!  I pray you learn this lesson early on, and it will stand you in good stead the rest of your life.

We love having you in our family, Ben!  You are so perky and happy and full of life.  You are always looking for something new to climb on, to test your body on.  You have great balance and are always thinking up new tricks to do - like putting a 2x4 through the rope in our backyard and using it like a balance beam, or putting your whole body through the rope and zooming around in circles like an airplane.  You catapult yourself over and under and around furniture, people, buildings, trees - you love to be in motion!

And you have such an active imagination!  You are constantly making up stories and giving Will dialogue parts: "Ok, Will, you say: 'But I don't wanna leave!'
Will obliges, same inflection: "But I don't wanna leave!"
Ben: "Then I say, 'But you have to, Big Red.  You can always come back--' and then I drive away, and you follow me, ok?"
Will loves to act in your stories because they're so exciting.  (I remember doing the same thing with my sister when were little!)

You are also learning to love books.  When things get really quiet, I always go see what you're doing, and you're often completely absorbed turning the pages of a a book, usually a Richard Scarry one.  You love his pictures because they tell a story all by themselves.  And when you're coloring a picture or working on a puzzle, you are great at sitting still and concentrating - it just has to hold your whole attention.

One of the other things I love most about you, Ben, is how cuddly you are.  You've always been the one who loves to curl up on my lap for a cuddle, or have me crawl into bed next to you, or put your face as close to mine as you can, so we're breathing the same breath.  You usually have your thumb in your mouth, and you stop sucking long enough to grin at me and give a delighted chuckle, and then you snuggle even closer.  I love my cuddle-bug!  I hope you never think you're too big for me to hug (I will never think that!)

You have had a challenging fourth year of life, Ben.  Last birthday, you were in New Zealand, and you had just received a new baby sister, which rocked your world.  I was no longer available to spend much time with you, and we had left our home in Central Asia, which was all you knew.  You rejected NZ at first because nothing was the same - different house, different car, different people, different language... Eventually you grew to like it, but it took a while, and after Christmas we got ready to travel again, to America.  It was dizzying and tiring for you, and you expressed your frustration by acting out and trying to control the few things you could control.

But we did end up in Thailand for a few weeks in March, and there you learned to swim underwater all by yourself like a little blonde fish, with no floaties at all!  We were all so proud of you, Ben. Will (who would barely put his face in the water) went around saying, "My brother can swim all by himself, and he's only three!"

Then we came back home to this house, but we only had a couple months here before leaving again for Turkey, and then a trip to another city, and then another trip... we've been traveling pretty much this whole year, and I can tell your little heart is tired and very glad to be home again now in your own space, in your own bed.  This country really is home for you right now, and I pray as you grow up you understand why we're living here-- to tell people who have never heard about Jesus the good news that God loves them!

May you keep growing in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man, Benjamin!  We love you so much!  Happy Birthday, my sweet son!

Love,
Mommy

on the dangers of comparing... [for all those brand-new homeschool moms out there]

I read this post, the day after the day we started “real” homeschooling for the first time.  The artist in me began to ache as I scrolled down through her gorgeous images of perfect green apples, beautiful bunting, full-size world globes, “Nooks” for Science, Reading, Nature, elegant art supplies… I felt ridiculously envious, and like applauding at the same time.  Maybe by the time my eldest graduates from homeschool, my schoolroom will look like that… I caught myself thinking.  If I even have a schoolroom…

In my dreams, maybe.  But in my reality?

I look up from my computer.  I look around, take stock.  Sigh.  At this present moment, we are squatters in a small guest apartment, in a different foreign country to the one our house is in, away from our [borrowed] house in our [borrowed] country, for the third trip this summer.  It's the beginning of September, and as I was preparing for this (hopefully last) trip, I decided I can't put off starting off any longer.  After months of philosophizing, curriculum shopping, ordering books, having my sweet Mom send them thousands of miles and then trying to find time to read them, I still don’t feel ready.  But I'll have to be.  If it's even just to have stuff for them to do every day, we have to start this thing.  

I pack bags of homeschool books into the back of the car, along with a box of teabags, a canister of sugar and a half-finished carton of milk in the cooler bag.  I want to be sure I have the makings of a good cup of tea upon arrival - I’m sure I’ll need one.  

Six hours of driving plus a border crossing later, we arrive at this apartment which is God's gift to us for this trip [our second unwanted visa run in the space of two months].  Reasonably priced, owned by foreigners, meant to be a blessing, the apartment just fits our family (with all three kids in the bedroom and James and I on futons in the living room).  The building is enclosed in a gated compound, and there is a simple playground right outside the front door.  True, all the equipment is sitting on plain dirt - like most of the parks in this part of the world, if there is any grass it’s for looking at, not playing on - so my 11-month-old bottom-shuffler scoots around on a continuously filthy bottom, but I’m thankful I can send the boys outside every day for "Outside Time" without needing supervision.  

I have my cup of tea, allow a day or so to settle in, organize a tentative schedule, stick it on the mirror by the front door.  I ask my gracious husband (valiantly persevering with his work while surrounded by bickering kids) if he can have “Daddy/Ruby time” while I do school work with the boys for half an hour in the mornings.  I pray fervently.  Wrack my brain for things Ben can do while I work with Will.  

[Ok, did you click on that link yet?  Here it is again.  Go click on it.  Now, keep those beautiful photos in your mind while reading the following:]

For Will (almost 6), I have (drumroll please): the Student/Teacher books for MathUSee Alpha, a copy of Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons, a wipe-off whiteboard and a black dry-erase marker.  That’s it.  

For Ben (almost 4), I have a dry-erase Numbers workbook, a fat Alphabet workbook, and a new pack of crayons.  That’s it.  

No frills, no extras - barely the basics. 

We sit at the tiny rectangular table, me on one side, a boy on each end.  I pull out MathUSee and we attempt "Lesson 1: Place Value".  Will catches on quickly despite my stumbling along in the teacher's manual.  Ben gets frustrated, doesn’t want to do his workbooks, doesn’t want to do anything.  He perks up when we put "Decimal Street" on the floor and get out the manipulatives, start building 3-digit numbers.  That lasts about 2 minutes.  When he’s tired of it, I try to engage him with his new number workbook, hoping the novelty will last long enough for me to finish the lesson with Will.  It doesn’t.  He can’t figure out the directions, can’t work page by page, gets frustrated and gives up if his first tracing of a number doesn’t cover the lines exactly…

The second day is better, with Ben enjoying his workbooks a little more and both of them enjoying the number game at the end of Lesson 1…. 

And then, during a tea break on Day 2, I click on that beautiful post.  And I almost feel like giving up.  It takes me two read-throughs (with a session of serious dish-washing-thinking in between), before I catch what her post is really about.  

It’s about GRACE. 

It’s not about the apples, the globes, the books, the trappings, the paraphernalia.  Homeschool - learning at home, wherever home is - is about my. kids. learning.  

And there is grace.

Ann says it right there, halfway down:

“That’s the bottom line: Your sins aren’t enough and your strengths aren’t enough. You are not enough — for this parenting gig, this marriage relationship, this homeschooling year, this work project. 

Write it on the wall, ink it on some skin, because Christ wrote it with His blood: 

Grace is the only thing that is ever enough.”

That is the truth.  And I take a deep breath, and let it sink right in. 

I am not enough, and this life of sojourning may be challenging, but He is always enough.  He can meet every challenge.

The Holy Spirit takes this prime opportunity to replay a few scenes in my brain: 

The way Will’s face lit up when he registered how to read a 3-digit number for the first time.  

Ben’s big happy eyes when he looked up at me after successfully followed the zigzag maze to get the zebra to the zoo.  

The way they both fought over who could pick the units, tens, and hundreds cards in our number game.  

Will’s dawning realization that he. is. Really. Reading!  even after just 25 lessons in his book… 

I am teaching.  I’m actually doing it!  They are learning.  They really are!  And having fun at the same time.  Who cares where we are, or what trappings we don’t have?  Isn’t learning what homeschooling is all about?

Yes.  It is.  Much as my beauty-loving soul would thrill to a spacious schoolroom with lacquered oak furniture, wall-to-wall bookshelves, organizers galore, and fresh bouquets of school supplies, I’m realizing it isn’t where they learn, or what they use to learn, but that they learn that’s important. 

And with Christ in me, and Christ as our Home and our Constant, wherever we go, by God’s grace, they will.  

"Pearl of great price" {a vignette from our sojourning this summer}

{Thank you for grace for this long silence... we are 5 days into our third trip of over two weeks this summer.  We've been away more than we've been home, and life has been made of lots of waiting and trying to find joy in the moments, despite feeling like wanderers... }

A vignette from our first couple days in our temporary apartment, God planting us each place we go, even if it's only for a short time...

She tells me her name is Pearl.  “Pearl, like the stone, you know?”  She’s wearing a sky-blue spandex T-shirt and denim capris, her dark hair pulled into a messy bun on top of her head with a black velvet scrunchie.  I notice her pretty earrings, gold with blue stones, her matching pendant.  She doesn’t look more than 25 or 26.  She introduces me to her kids: the baby she’s swinging, a little boy 14 months old; his sister, 4 years old; and the older brother, 10 years old.  At this point I stop her, kid her.  

“Wait - you have a ten-year-old?  That can’t be possible!”  She breaks into a broad grin.  

“How old are you, anyway?”  I tease.  I offer my own age.  “I’m 31… you must be - “ 

“Thir-ty fife - no, thir-ty ayte, I’m thir-ty ayte!” she carefully corrects her English.  We’re speaking a mixture of English and Russian - she has about as much English as I have Russian.  We’re managing.  

“Thirty-eight!”  I’m incredulous.  She really looks just out of college.  I tell her I should call her my “Tye-tye” (Russian for “aunty”), and we both laugh.  I look at her beautiful children.  We talk about age gaps.  I introduce my kids, Ruby on the ground eating dirt, the boys chasing each other around the jungle gym.  She chuckles when I tell her how tired I am, pantomime pulling out my hair.  We share quiet, maternal pride.  

It’s not until later that she tells me.  This is, after all, only our first conversation.  But in this part of the world, the hard stories often come sooner rather than later.  Because everyone has them.  They are a bridge into intimacy, shared experiences spanning the gulf between strangers.  I often feel a mixture of guilt and relief that I don’t have any tragedies of my own to tell.  

We are talking about our sons, how my eldest is serious and studious, my second-born rowdy and active.  She tells me then.  “I had another son.  My first-born.  He was serious, like yours.”

I want to make sure I’ve heard her correctly.  “Another son?”

“Yes.  He died.  A… cat-a-strof.”  The Russian word is the same as the English one.  Catastrophe.  I want to know, and I don’t want to know.  I’m already bonded with this woman.  “What happened?”  I lean closer, instinctively trying to comfort her with some kind of nearness.  

“I was driving, we were going to the lake.”

“You were by yourself?”

“Yes.”  The details are few, the language barrier frustrates now more than intrigues. “My two sons were - “ she waves behind her.  I fill in, “Behind you.”  

“Yes, behind me.  My son, the oldest, he was crying about something, I don’t know what.”  At this point, her ten-year-old comes up on rollerblades, and she stops.  Asks me if my children can have ice cream, gets out money, sends her son off with a stream of instructions.  I, too, get out money and offer to pay, but she waves me off with a mock-serious frown - “No. No!”  Unthinkable, to let guests in your country pay for their own ice cream.  I give in, smile at her son as he rolls away.

When he’s out of earshot, I ask, “So, what happened?”

“I was asking my son, ‘Why? Why? Why are you crying?’  I was - “ she motions with her hand again, whacks at an invisible child “ - like this, behind the seat, trying to get him to be quiet.”  Her youngest is tugging at her T-shirt, so she  blandly whips out her breast and he begins to nurse.  She cradles him across her body, continues her story.  

“And then, the car - “ she makes a twirling motion in the air with her hand. 

“You - you rolled the car.” 

“Yes, yes, I rolled the car.  Two times.” She tells me this with an almost immovable face. Only her eyes betray her pain.

“You rolled the car twice - “ my hands are over my mouth, I can’t breathe.  I shake my head wordlessly at her.  Finally I ask, “Was he wearing his seatbelt?”

“I told him to put it on,” she says, making a helpless motion with her hand.  “I told him, but… he didn’t listen.  I was stupid.”  The English word sounds abrupt and harsh, bursting from her mouth.  Chastising herself in a foreign language.  She says it again, and again.  “I was stupid.  Stupid.  I should have stopped the car.  I should have wiped his face, cleaned his face, comforted him - “  By now, my eyes are watering.  I’m looking wordlessly at her, both hands over my mouth.  I still can’t breathe.  The noise of the playground swirls around us.  

“I should have said, ‘Quiet, quiet, my son, what’s wrong?’”  I think, if it were me telling this story, I’d be crying so hard I couldn’t get the words out.  

Finally I ask, “What happened?”

“He was sitting beside the window, he was thrown out of the car…”  Her son returns with the ice creams, hands them out.  I get out wet wipes, call the boys over, scrub the palms of Will and Ben’s hands, open the ice cream wrappers.  I do this automatically, numbly.  My mind is with Pearl, in the car, on that horrible day.  

“How long ago?  When did it happen?”

“Five years ago.  And five years have - “ she makes a stroking motion over her heart. 

I fill in. “...done a lot to heal your pain.”

“Yes.  I have two more children, a daughter, and now another son.”  She pats the baby at her breast, looks fondly at her four-year-old, pigtails bouncing as she bounds up the slide with her ice cream.  

“But…” I stop, feeble.  I want to say, But there is no one in the world like your son.  No matter how many more children you have, you can never replace him.

“He would be thirteen,” she says this softly.  Almost apologetically.  As if she’s not supposed to allow herself to imagine him as though he were still living.  

I try to say my thought, try to express my sorrow for her loss.  She nods, only partially understanding my broken sentences.  Our eyes meet.  Impulsively, I lean in.  I reach an awkward arm around her shoulders, around the nursing baby.  I plant a quick, clumsy kiss on her broad, brown cheek.  Her skin feels moist.  My heart leaps towards hers.  I pull back, and our eyes meet again.  There seems nothing more to be said.  

We enjoy our children enjoying their ice cream.  Ruby screams for licks from Will’s stick, mouths little bits of chocolate.  She tilts her head up, gives a cheeky grin, displaying all six of her tiny teeth.  I make a joke, try to crack the sadness with mother-empathy: “With my first, I didn’t give him any sugar for two year.  With my second, I think he was maybe a year old before he had sugar.  With the third…” I trail off, and motion to Ruby sucking on the ice cream.  We both crack up laughing, she knowing exactly how the standards go out the window.  

Later, when it’s time to go, I tell her: “I prayed and asked God for a friend, for these two weeks we will be staying here...” 

“Really?” She seems surprised one would pray about that.  “Well, I’m new too,” she admits.  “We just moved in a week ago.”

“Only one week!  But you seem so natural, so at home!”  Suddenly all the pieces click: her desire to strike up a conversation with a stranger, wanting to practice her English, buying my kids ice cream, impulsively telling me her story… she needs a friend as much as I do.

She’s a sojourner too.  Even though this is her home.  

Before, she had described their house in the country, how they want to find tenants for it, and I thought it was just another property they owned.  But no, that was the home they just left behind, so their children can go to a good school in the city.  And here she is, sharing her pain, in a foreign language with a foreigner on the playground… I like this woman.  I like that she shared herself with me, risked something on a friendship that can only last two weeks at most.  It could be just callousness, that she’s numbed to her own pain.  Maybe she tells everybody her story.

I don’t think so.  

I tell her what I think.  “I think God arranged this, our meeting.”  

Light breaks over her face.  “Yes!  I think so too.”

even though it's quiet on here...

...it;s anything but quiet where I've been living!

I'm hunt-and-pecking this post with one hand, while my left arm cradles my squirming, fussing nine-month-old baby girl.  I've already headed off four typos while she chews on my face and loudly reminds me that SHE is supposed to be the center of my attention, not that black box-thing with the tappy keys.

A moment of quiet as she perches, bare toes dangling off my lap, briefly mesmerized by my flying fingers, and I quickly touch-type the rest of these words to you:

We have been traveling ceaselessly this summer: 3 weeks in Turkey for a conference, one week at home to catch our breaths, and five days ago we drove six hours in the car over the border to a neighboring country for a visa run of undetermined length... patchy internet, even patchier thought-patterns - all in all, a dried-up season for blogging.

But that doesn't mean I'm not living.  Elephant animal cracker thrown on the floor, my little girl is making her presence known, and I've realized, staring into her beautiful, mischievous, up-turned blue eyes, that it's more important to BE, really be with her than it is to stuff cookies in her mouth with one hand while making sure she doesn't put my cell phone in her mouth with the other.  It's more important that I enjoy the way her two tiny teeth stick up enchantingly from her bottom gum, and the way she gets inordinate joy out of crunching a crinkly packet of Ramen noodles, than it is to make sure my blog stays up-to-date.

So if the next few posts are sporadic, you'll forgive me... I'm giving myself permission to just live life for a little while, and not pressure myself to write about it all.

I know you understand.  :)

for when you're feeling weak and heavy-laden

Have you ever been giving advice to somebody, and as it’s coming out of your mouth you realize you need to take your own advice?

It happened to me yesterday. 

I’ve been feeling really tired and discouraged.  Lack of routine, coping for almost five months on broken sleep, clusters of things swirling around in my head that I want to do, be: memorize Scripture.  Exercise regularly.  Drink more water.  Read a verse with the boys in the mornings.  Be more patient.  Serve my husband better… the list goes on.  

I just plugged in to the ScriptureTyper community a couple days ago, and yesterday, I quietly posted my first prayer request, timidly stepping out into this new community.  

Thirteen people responded.  

Thirteen people I’ve never met.  Thirteen hearts are graciously lifting up my quest for routine, my sleep depravation, my walk with God.  Thank you so much.    

During my naptime yesterday, I couldn’t put this down.  I checked email (bad idea at naptime), and my Dad had sent this pre-Easter link.  I was supposed to be sleeping, but I just couldn’t stop scrolling.  The words held me all the way to the very end, scrolling down through pure Truth.  It was like my soul took in great draughts of fresh, clean air.  By the end, Jesus was pulsing in front of me in all His glory.

I got up with my heart full of Jesus.  (Probably more refreshed than if I'd slept!)  I made a cup of tea, went out in the hall to let housekeeping know we were up from our naps.    

Now, not all of the Thai cleaning ladies in our hotel can speak English, but yesterday the lady on duty could speak more than most.  As she came into our room to make up our bed, I was sitting down changing Ruby on the floor.  She smiled at Ruby, so while she was plumping the pillows and changing the sheets, I asked her if she had any children of her own.  Just making conversation.

She said, “Yes, one.”  

“Boy or girl?” 

“Boy…” 

I asked how old he was.  

“Fifteen,” she said, glancing over at me as she snapped the sheets into place.  

“Wow,” I said, “he’s a big boy!”  

“Yes,” she said, a little sadly.  Before I could ask if she wanted to have more children, she filled in the gap.  “His father leave when he one month old.  I no know where he is.  Like... dead.”  

My heart nearly stopped.  

She doesn’t know where her baby’s father is.  She raised him all by herself.  

She keeps talking, the words stumbling out of her.  “Your country not same.  Your husband, he take care baby for you.”  James had been holding Ruby until I was ready to change her.  “He help you.  He good man.  Not like our country.  Woman do everything.”  

The thought flits through my mind: How. blessed. I. am.

I ask if her son lives with her.  She says no, he lives with her mother in North Thailand.  She only sees him for his two-month summer break every year.  Her son can’t live with her.  She only sees him two months out of twelve.  She has to stay in the big city to earn a wage that’s enough to support all three of them: herself, her son and her mother.  So she works and lives alone, and sends money home so her son can eat and go to school.  

“I worry because... my son no speak English.”  English is the ticket to a good future.  She makes a wry face.  “He have many girls talk to him.”  She laughs, shrugs her shoulders, but there’s a tinge of frustration.  Helplessness.  She’s not there to do anything about it.  

I nod.  Listen.  Ask simple questions.  I fight the urge to offer platitudes, try to fix her life.  I can’t fix anything.  I can just be here with her, sitting on the floor with my baby, while she makes the bed.  I’m feeling a little helpless myself.

She coos at Ruby, makes her smile.  “Your baby very cute.”  She’s not bitter at me for having three children.  For having a loving husband.  For being from a country where life is relatively easy.  My heart is breaking for her, but she’s resigned.  This is her life.  It’s just the way it is.  

I go into the other room, ask James whether I should tip her.  I’m longing to help her in some tiny way.  He agrees, and I pray, bide my time, wait until she’s done mopping the floor, pick my moment.  I pray again.  Lord, give me Your words.

I follow her to the door.  I make eye contact, ask her name, avoiding a glance at her name tag.  I’m asking her as a person.  As a woman.  

“Hom,” she says.  Home, without an ‘e’.  

Her name is Home.  

I look her in the eye and slip a small bill into her apron pocket.  “Khap-kun-kaa,” I say, “thank you.”  And then, I go on, my words tumbling over each other.  

“You know,” I say, “I want to tell you something.”  I hold her eyes, bravely.  “God sees you.  And He loves you.  He loves you.”  I try to hug her with my eyes.  Something wobbles behind hers.  

“And when you feel… weak,” I drop my arms limply by my side, charades, “He is strong, for you.”  I make muscles, laugh.  Still holding her eyes with mine.  I want her to know, really know.  

“Do you… have you ever read - the Bible?”  I’m hesitating.  Unsure of her English level, unsure of myself, out on a limb.  

“We believe Buddha,” she says simply.  “We good people.”  How can I argue with that.  I  can simply offer what I know.

“We believe in Jesus,” I say, “and he says in the Bible, when you feel weak and have heavy burdens - “ more charades: I mimic a heavy load on my shoulders, point to her.  I know she’s carrying a load.  She knows I know, nods.  Smiles.  “Jesus says, ‘Come to Me and I will give you... rest.’”  I slump my shoulders, close my eyes.  “You can read His Words in the Bible…”  

Just then, another foreigner walks by in the hall, en route to his room.  I’m suddenly acutely aware of my non-PC-ness.  Standing in the doorway sharing the gospel.  Who really does that?  And how shallow am I that I can be suddenly flooded with shame over offering this Most Glorious Gift to this needy heart?  

She’s meant to be cleaning his room… she blushes, thanks me, nods, bows, smiles again apologetically… I ask her quickly if she’ll be cleaning our room again next week, and she says she switched shifts with someone just for today.  Just today.  

I smile at her, say goodbye, close the door quietly.  Let my breath out.  Thank God for Hom.   

And she stays on my heart.  The boys pray for her at bedtime.  “Dear Jesus, pray for Hom, pray that she would come to know you, Jesus…”

This morning on the treadmill, finally getting up early enough to exercise, I have a new lease on life.  The encouragement of my new friends at Scripture Typer and the words of Romans 1:16 are racing through my brain:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, 

because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…”

Lord, bless Hom.  Water Your seeds.  Make them take root in her heart.  Forgive me for being ashamed of you in front of that foreigner… maybe he needs You too.  

Gungor’s music accompanies my beating heart, and I realize: I've been needing to take my own advice.  Come to Me, and I will give you rest.  

When I get back from exercising, the boys have finished breakfast.  I dole out vitamins, flip the kitchen verse calendar I dug out of the suitcase last week to the page for today.  My heart skips a beat.

March 6

I will refresh the weary

and satisfy the faint. 

Jeremiah 31:25

A promise for Hom.  And me.