Trust

A thousand times I've felt the weight of my laboring through this season of my life, felt its jagged edges scrape against me, the burden of carrying six souls through this world, hoping that they make it relatively unscathed. Hoping that they are not marred too much by its ugliness, and in particular, not by the failings of their haggard, desperate mother.

A thousand miles I've tread the path in stark silence, memories aching to be expelled, worries drowning out my inability to just do the next thing. Just staring into blank space.  With joyful feet around me, kid-noise echoing, and I, too unwell to even crack a smile through my pain.

I wrote once that I used to think God made a huge mistake in giving mothers just two arms to care for their babies.  I wrote this at a time in my life where that weight and the shifting grief within me over a life I had to let go of, was heavy on my mind.  When the few children I had then already felt like too much for me, and I wasn't sure if I was capable of living the life I was called to. 

Motherhood.

Of course I could live it.  Of course.  But could I live it well?

I look behind me and see the tiny toes in the sand which follow their mother's path out to sea, to the raging waters of this life where the world is vast and often dark, the depth of knowledge and understanding and love not quite known..  Those little toes stepping lightly into the weathered boat made in the crooks of arms encircling, trusting and seeking and ready.  And I, unable to shove off, to let go.  To take their small hands in mine and set sail.

I cry out:

What if I lose sight of the beacon?  What if even in the calm, angry gray clouds threaten on the horizon, and I become lost? What happens to these babies of mine?

The Lord's answer:
 

Ah! But I do not make mistakes, and it only takes two arms to clasp your hands in prayer.  Stop wringing them in worry, stop faltering upon the shoreline and focusing on the horizon, imagining things that have not yet even come.  My lighthouse looms, always in the peripheral, the light of My Love a clear direction even against the raging waters.  The silence is for rest, rejuvenation. It is not for staring into the darkness, seeking out the jagged edges felt sweeping past raw feet in the surf.  Never mind those.  Never mind the hastiness and urgency welling up inside. Let go and realize that the I, the One who made those babies and called them out to sea, also made you, their mama, strong enough to bring them safely back to Me.