Wounds

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

- Augusten Burroughs

This is us, really. In our natural, sinful state. Flaws, sins, shortcomings, insufficiencies. And we try, so dilligently, to hold all these pieces together into something that resembles wholeness; something that will fool others into thinking we "have it all together."

I tried last night - when the dog bit Wonder Boy in the face and he needed three stitches on his nose. He chose me to accompany him to the hospital for the stitches. I would have rather stayed home while Daddy went. It was late and I was so tired, having gotten up at 5:15 for our trip back home after a week away. We walked up to the hospital (a benefit of living here is the surgeon is our neighbor, and the hospital is a 2 minute walk away). We waited while he and the nurse readied the place and the equipment. Wonder Boy was so brave - asking only: "Tell me when he's gonna' stick the needle in."

But me - not so brave. My stomach started churning. I got flushed and dizzy. The doctor/neighbor noticed that I was not doing so well and had a stool fetched, while I squatted on the floor, trying not to faint. He kindly reassured me that I should not be embarrassed: "this is a very normal reaction," he said. But I was embarrassed - believing that having a panic attack / fainting spell while my SON was the one in pain and having stitches somehow made me less of a mom, less of a person. Where do these voices come from? The Enemy, I know, whispers into our weakest moments: "You are garbage. You are not worthy of being a mom. You are a failure for not protecting your child."

I did fail, last night - not by not keeping the dog from biting - that was an accident, and the wounds will heal. I failed to keep the ragged, ugly edges of myself stitched together, despite my good intentions. Most days, I keep things well sewn-up. But I think God writes difficult pages into our stories precisely so that we will be unable to stay in one piece. It is in our brokenness that we cry out: "Save me, Lord, for I am sinking!"

When I called, you answered me;

you increased my strength within me.
Psalm 138:4

And he answers. And we survive, more broken, and yet more healed than before. That is grace.

Gratitude goes on . .

52.  Little girl's giggles as she discovers the joys of planting beans.

53. Hard work well done.

54. Learning together.

Just a thought

From iGoogle's Quotes of the Day:

In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is.
  - Gertrude Stein

I think this is part of why we find life here sometimes challenging.  We are used to the idea of space.

One place I'd rather not eat . . .

No. other. comment.

Random Thoughts

The weather has turned cold here.  Two nights this week have reached 60.  The children wake up and shiver, rooting around for blankets in the hidden corners.  How used to the heat we have become.  But the poor feel the cold most of all.  They do not - cannot - eat enough to produce extra body heat.

My garden is growing.  Beans are reaching for the sky, lettuce trying to peek through.  The tomato plants are gorgeous - sprouting new leaves nearly every day. But the carrots are being rebellious.  They seem to prefer dying underground to growing toward the light.

School is nearly finished for the year.  Songs and prayers, sums, wars, alphabets, and radish sprouts all studied, ingested, retold.  And we are changed for the doing of it.  Perhaps the teacher-mommy most of all.

A local girl, without a father, and with a mother whose new husband does not want her around, has found in me a soft spirit.  She is certainly in need.  Her grandfather, upon whom she relies for shelter, is badly disabled with leprosy.  But I am limited by how little of her need I can understand.  She had no shoes, it seems.  She has no sweater for these cool nights, or so she tells me.  It may very well be truth, but I can not read between the lines.  I can not see into her soul.  I must ask others to do this for me.  So I have given a little - our eldest's  sandals, too small for her by a bit, but something; a little food; some clothes for a younger sibling.  But mostly, I wait to see what our co-workers can discern of her true need.  It is hard to know how to help best.

A 4-year-old-girl's evening prayer brought a chuckle:  "Dear Jesus, thank you for Mommy and Daddy and me and everybody in the whole world and my brothers and the neighbors and my friends, and that man to get out of jail (she refers to a colleague).  And thank you that they live in a wood house and everything is ok. (??? perhaps the beavers in the Narnia book we are reading?) And Amen.  I said AMEN!

Little moments stitched together.  This is life.

Thankfulness

So many things to be thankful for, yet so few written down.  Here are a few from today:

49. Companionable silence

50.  Holding hands

51. Today's sermon

Letting go

of dreams of a picture postcard life is not easy.  We all have them, I suppose: those mental pictures, reinforced by the idol-images of Better Homes and Gardens, parenting  magazines, or even Today's Christian Woman and (dare I say it?) believers' blogs.  Someone called a brand of this "Mommy-porn":  perfect images of celebrity moms, perfectly fit, in their perfect rooms, cradling perfectly dressed and mannered children. 

But I think it is idolatry.  At least in my own life, these images, ideas, even dreams become idols:  my rooms should look "like this;" my children should behave "like this;" my meals should taste "like this;" my life should be lived in "this way."

Where is authenticity? Where is reality?  Life is a messy, complicated thing.  It is not, can not be picture perfect.  The ugly, the loud, the failure teach by His grace - as surely as do the beautiful, the  peaceful, and the gentle.  To live in the "someday my life will look like this" dreamworld is to miss the tangible evidences of God in TODAY. 

Yet the dreams persist, creep back again and again to tempt and to taunt.  The dream of "perfect" lures me away from being perfected . And still He calls, beckons me to leave my idols and return to Him.  What grace!


Grateful thanks to Ann whose thoughts and prayers led me to think and pray also; who shares the ugly along with the beautiful. And that is real.