Words

So many words, so few the opportunities to capture them.

It’s been words, words, words since Tru was born. So many inner dialogues and I’m just not able to stop long enough. Or, I stave it away because of the enormity of it all. Where do I begin…again? Ideally, I’d have it all filed away in categories like recipes or perhaps home school lesson plans; study material, up-coming tests and lessons-learned. If only life could be so easily compartmentalized. But mine is far from it. My real life stuff slops all over the place, drawing this sphere into that one which can make for a pretty obscure collage at times. I just hope it’s beautiful. I can live w/out compartments but I can’t live without beauty.

Tru is many things. She’s a good and perfect gift from the Father of Lights. She’s, undoubtedly, a reflection of the Father’s heart, as well. There was a moment as I was doing the labor some work of pushing her out of my body, that Tim spoke three very powerful and profound words aloud to our baby.

“You’re welcome here.”

No sooner did my midwife bow her head, graciously crowned with the burden of intercession, and reply,

“If so many children could hear those words.”

And then it fell. His presence fell in that moment and my womb swelled, yet again, with just a fragment of the Father’s heart. I felt weeping sweep over my body. I did not resist it. I could have heaved for days under it but it hurt too badly to cry with that sort of depth. It was but a few breaths and tears but so finite and concentrated in it’s intensity. I knew we were birthing more than a baby.

The stretching…the expanding…the pressure I felt when squeezing this not-so-little-one out was, well…foretelling. It paints a landscape for what’s to come. There is great pain and joy ahead. There is the complexity of destiny, this pushing and pulling all at the same time. There is this tension that upholds all things while tearing them away simultaneously. This is where I am. I believe this place is called, His hands.

I can hardly bear to hear my baby cry. I could not understand it at first. Being my fifth, it seemed that I should not be opposed to some old-fashioned crying here and there. But her cry…it’s so very vulnerable and weak and…just plain sad. She has a sad cry and to hear it just causes my heart to thrash. In her cry I hear the cries of so many; whose tears are filled with longing and desperation, whose cries fall on deaf ears and echo through the soul. And the same story for her brilliant blue eyes. They reach deep inside of me and make a fist around my heart. They grip me and beg me to love until it hurts. They pose questions that I am not ready to answer. They plead with me to love, as He loves. I am no match for Him, in her.

I embrace Tru and in embracing her I embrace His plan, these ideas that frighten this fearful one not yet perfected in love. I can wrap my hands around her and feel the density of destiny but I cannot get myself around this love that the Father has for his children, the same love that He has for His son, Jesus. It is greater than my grasp. And I feel Him asking me to run head-on into this life-force of love, allowing it to drive out fear and make up all that is lacking.

But I fear being consumed by Him, this jealous, raging flame of love. It is my heart’s solemn prayer and yet I know it will mark me forever. Am I willing to bear the markings? Am I willing to wear the stench of the fire like a perfume and have my life so poured out, I don’t own a single right? I’m convinced that there is only one way to do this and it’s absolutely and totally head-over-heals ‘in love.’ I will do it for nothing less and there is of course, nothing more. There is nothing higher than the Father's love; to know it, to receive it and to give it.