life: acoustic & amplified

of mothering  

“Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50).

My love, do you hear that music, the one where we dance and your steps are light and you swing?

You mother in the quiet places and in the moments when it is loud and it feels impossible to hear. You mother in the choices, the choices to love beyond yourself, the sacrifice that comes with friendship, the nurturing of an arm across a shoulder, the carrying of beauty within you, the permission for Me to care for you, to pour love into your heart so that the ripple of my love continues.

A waterfall begins with a drop, and then a cascade, a drifting through quiet places, a collection until the drops pour past, all together. Mothering happens in the combination of Me holding you in my hands and letting my fingers open a bit to let you pour out what I give.

You can only mother from what I give.

Mothering is a collection of hopes for the future, a belief in good things and the willingness to go to the hard places for those you love. It is the shepherding of children, the gathering of expectation for a future that is to come.

It is faith in possibility for people beyond yourself.

To mother is to press in and give out and never give up. It is to hold on tight and let go, all at once. It is to walk beside and listen close and not fall away, even though the pain comes and it is hard to stay.

To mother is to stay.

And the staying isn’t what you think it looks like sometimes. It is the supporting of the one you hold close while believing it isn’t always you who knows the way.

In mothering, without Me, you don’t know the way.

To mother is to trust and laugh and cry and wave good-bye. It is to come again, despite rejection. It is to provide, when you feel you have nothing to give. It is to look beyond yourself for strength and feel frail and helpless and fall and believe that you will be caught so that you can lift your knees and see what is before you, the Son.

Mothering is not just about bearing a child. It can be that but it is not just that. You mother through loving whom I bring your way. Come on, daughter, look whom I bring.

http://www.gatherministries.com/loop

So, I really didn’t want to do this blog today. It’s a hard one for me. I tried to do something easier, lighter…anything but this, but it was insistent…

The past few weeks I have found myself in conversations with 6 or 7 grieving mothers. Mothers grieving, angry, disappointed, hurting, ashamed over the loss of their children. All different stories, all the same feelings. 
I know those feelings well. I wrote the following piece a few years ago about my own loss – I began the grieving  process in 2006, 9 years into my loss of everything I ever loved, and that work continues every day. I am sharing this in hopes it may help someone going through similar pain. 

💔

I try to clean up

pick up pieces of myself

from all over the frozen ground

Who knew hearts can turn into

Slivers of glass

dangerous to handle

Slice my fingers

I rub tears from my eyes

and find toxic rivers

Red flows 

Staining all of life

Small killing shards everywhere

Thousands

Maybe millions

They stick to the inside of my chest

My throat

Puncture my lungs

Settle in my stomach 

as I try to eat breakfast 

It’s getting harder and harder to speak

To breathe

To stand

I fall face first into a pool 

Of freezing water

The glass becomes ice 

Eventually I crawl out of the water

but the ice remains 

a solid block I live with

for 9 years 

Containment my highest priority

Walking dead 

until that box breaks open

I begin to grieve

and begin slowly melting 

Fusing shattered pieces

absorbing them into 

the fabric of my living

Im still working on it

Still looking for the fire of love

to refine the gold

Scars show the hearts broken places

for glimmers of light to shine through

As grieving begins it’s healing work

And I become human 

for the first time

❤️

AL

I have no quick fixes, or advice, here. Just a thought of hope, of choosing to stand strong in love and the blessings mothing brings. Go deep with your grief. Nurture yourself. Allow yourself to heal. Never forget:

Love always wins….

photo sources @ www.pinterest.com