Posted: Most Clicks of All Time

When I decided to link up with the lovely Sarah's new Posted. series, I wasn't realizing how much I would need to re-read the post she would choose. Sarah asked us to link to our post with the most clicks ever.

I had an inkling and I was right. It was this post about saying goodbye to the little one we lost to miscarriage just before we headed to the mission field. Clearly, the sadness and the hop in that post resonated with people. And today, after experiencing two more miscarriages in the last six months, I needed to hear that voice of hope, surrender, and resignation. 

As I seek to spend the year letting myself be KNOWN by God, these last few days I have realized how I have hidden the deep sadness and pain of those losses from Him. Of course He sees and knows all, but in my time with Him, I have not let myself go there, feel the hard feelings, say the sad things, wonder about His will. And I need to. Because on the other side of that lies reconnecting in intimacy with my Father, and that is the road to hope, the road to heaven.

The hope that will let me repeat these words again today:

For I realize, that even when my body is well past the age of bearing babies, even if I should live until I am 100, always, I will be an expectant mother, until the day I hold my babies for eternity. And the hope of that day makes the suffering and struggle and strength to do His will in the hard times all worth it.  For with every drawing near to His cross, we draw near to the glory of the Resurrection as well, and with every bowing low to His sovereignty, we come closer to bowing before His Holy Throne.

So I am thankful this little link-up let me re-visit a part of me I needed to be blessed by today. I hope it blesses you as well.

Why I Am Asking IF

Back in September at Idea Camp, I had the pleasure of hearing Jennie Allen  speak. And let me tell you something, I was all on board to sign up for whatever it was she was about afterwards. Her passion, her heart for Jesus, her honesty about being a woman and loving other women was a language I speak it deep in my heart. It is a language that has been beating its rhythm loud in my head since my friend Ann began calling us the #esthergeneration from the red clay of Uganda. Its song is being sung in my development of our social enterprise initiative and our St. Francis Emmaus Center.

So when I learned about Jennie's IF:Gathering, I got excited. If you know me, you won't be surprised that I leaped right in without looking at how deep the water was. I told you about the common ground established with people at Idea Camp. IF was an opportunity to really see that concept bloom, and I was all in.

When Jennie announced her bigger vision for IF and all the  ladies I like to read a whole lot started sharing pictures of those twinkle lights and that pretty white table, and I knew I could be a part of it from my little mountain top in faraway Costa Rica, I was doubly excited. But sad that I would be alone. So I boldly shouted that anyone who wanted to could come join me here for IF: Missions. I realize now that it is really easy to be all brave like the other girls when your proposal seems unlikely.

But then they said "yes". Ladies from varied backgrounds and different denominations said they would actually like to ask IF with me in this space and see where God led us. And then, as I tend to do when I jump into something with all my heart, I panicked a little. Not about having company. But asking myself if this was what God was doing, or what I wanted.

And so I did what I do when I am panicking about God. I prayed. I sat with Him. I searched my heart and I searched His Word. And He led me to the answer of why my heart simply must ask IF. That answer is three-fold.

1. My Morning Offering makes me an offer. For as long as I can remember I have prayed a Morning Offering that begs for the "unity of all Christians". But I have not every often asked myself what my responsibility was to what I was praying for. If we are honestly praying for unity, it seems to me that we need to be actively working toward unity, no? And how do we find unity if we never meet? Never sit at the same table and see one another for who we are. If there is no relationship, how can there be unity?

I want that unity. I want to be able to sit with sisters in Christ outside the lines and the boxes that have been drawn for us and see anew what unity could mean. I want to sit at a table that is about conversation not conversion to one way of thinking. I want grasp what is good and lovely and noble in the sisterhood of Christ and shake it up like a bottle full of dormant sparkles and watch it mix and float and become something breathtakingly beautiful. Because I believe in a God that unites. And I believe He does it in ways that are not systematic but surprising, in ways that are much less about what we bring to the table and much more about what He has to serve us, in ways that challenge the deepest parts of us and yet lavish us with love and generous grace. Because His purposes, His heart, His love are already triumphant. If we can just let Him win, the world will change. Hearts will heal. Stereotypes will crumble. Timid voices will find their vibrato and sing. And oh, how I would love to sing in the chorus of united sister love, in the #estergeneration's choir.

2.  Acts 2 asks for all. "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them." That is what His Word says.

I believe that if ALL the disciples were in one place the day the Holy Spirit set them on fire and the church was born, that there were women there too. And the flames dances on their heads and their mouths opened and they were ALL IN ONE ROOM and they left from there and set the world on fire. Acts does not tell us their stories. And rightfully so. It is named Acts of the Apostles for a reason. It has a purpose and it has its story to tell. 

But who is telling ours? Because there is a story left to be told, the story that we are writing, the distant daughters of the women with flames dancing over their heads and the fire alight in their hearts and their tongues loosed with the power of God and the whole world waiting to hear what they have to say. And I want to be one who tells that story because I know in my deepest being that it is full of the glory of God and the kingdom come and heaven's hope. 

And I think it has start right there where it did in Acts 2. "They were ALL together in one place." In the days before division and denominations built walls between us, the Spirit came in full force when they were all together in one room. And the world was a changed place because of it. And I know from my own life that the Word of God is extensively repetitive. We go back and do what He did and what they that named themselves His name did, Christians, and the Word is alive again and our God lives and the flames dance and the fire falls and the world changes. And I want to be there waiting.

3. Romans 8 yokes me with an obligation.  If we are the distant daughters of they whom the Spirit descended upon and we claim life in Christ, then we live governed by the Spirit. My favorite book of the Bible then says in verse 6 that "The mind governed by the flesh is death,but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace". A mind governed by the flesh is death. Sin, division and fear have their origins in death. Life, peace, love, and unity are the thoughts of the mind governed by the Spirit. And so in verse 12 Romans tell us that we have an obligation: an obligation to live according ot the Spirit. To live life and peace and good and hope and unity and fire dancing, life changing risks. 

And Romans ends its brilliant treatise of life in the Spirit with this: "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God...Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." 

And for this we will gather. We will suffer through the unknown and the strangeness and the things that divide God's children with our Jesus. We wonder why about one another and find things hard to swallow in our differences. We will feel the brokenness in the Body of Christ and wish there were away out of it. Because we know that there, in that place, his glory will shine. 

And wherever the glory of God is, I want to be. And I want to lift my hands and hear the wind of the Spirit rise and watch the flames dance in eyes of my sisters and speak the words of life in their foreign tongues so that they will hear. And I want them to do the same for me. 

So, me, I am asking IF. But I think God is already giving me a glimpse of the answer. 

A Letter to Emma (and Her Mama)

Dearest Emma,

Your mama, she saw Ann  hugging Katie today, and she got scared again. Scared of you, dear. Do you know why she's scared of you? She's scared because she sees a girl so ready to let God wreck the young life she's living and by default, wreck her mama's. She sees a girl with a fire in her heart and the flames dancing in her eyes, big dreams, big hopes of faraway places and blessed feet bringing the Good News. And she wonders how to help you live where you are now, how to pour everything into you she wants you to have, how to connect you to home enough that you'll always long for it. So that when the time comes for you to run away with Jesus and wreck your life, and by consequence hers, you'll know who you are and where you come from. And you'll take it all with you and come back to it all when you need it.

And this is what I want to say you, darling. Let her. Let her your mama love you and teach you and lead you and guide you. Do the dishes when she asks. Camp out in the backyard with your brothers and laugh at their goofy jokes. Go on dates with your Dad. Share confidences with your sister. Plant a vegetable garden for you mom. Serve the poor in your own neighborhood until you know them by name. Do algebra and geometry problems with vigor. Read about history. Learn the lives of the saints and some solid theology. Make the waiting worth the while.

Because in all these things, the real lesson is this: Submit. Be obedient. Be faithful. And find joy in the ordinary. And do you know what, beloved girl? You're going to need to those lessons. If there is anything I wish, it is that I had allowed myself to learn them better than I did. We, the girls with the fiery spirits and drifting dreams and the wide eyes full of distant shores, we sometimes lose the forest for the trees. We sometimes forget that if we save the whole world and lose ourselves, it is all for naught. We drop the ball on our own sanctity in pursuit of the will of God. We worry so much about God's plan for our lives we forget to live it, to enjoy it. We strive so much for the extraordinary that we lose the grace of the ordinary. We forget that we serve a God who makes himself present to us in simple bread and wine. The greatest miracle in the most ordinary of things. And that we must live equally. We are hounded by the feeling of "not enough".

But, sweet Emma, whether God calls you to the married life, the religious life or the single life, living it will be all about those three lessons: submission, obedience and faithfulness. You will always be stuffing down the desire to do what you feel like doing in order to do His will. You will always be fighting the desire to rebuff wise counsel you know is right for the doing in the now. You will always be tempted to look for more, to want to be somewhere further doing something bigger, than to love what and who there is to love where you are in the moment. And the only thing that will keep you where you need to be is the daily discipline you have practiced over and over and over again of obeying the will of another.

Because you know what I want you to know, Emma? The mission field is more often like the drudgery of daily life at home than not. Only on steroids, Emma. The bathrooms stink more and more quickly. The dishes get dirtier and there is no dish washer. The clothes have to be washed earlier and put on the line and brought back in before it rains and if you forget to pay attention, you have to start all over again. And if you do that twice in a row, you find yourself at Mass in someone else's fuschia velveteen sweat pants and your husband's polo shirt. Ask me how I know, Em. Ask me.

You know what, sweet girl? Most days saving the world is a lot more like solving an endless string of algebra problems that it is like being Wonder Woman. Most days it looks a lot more like sore feet and itchy legs and toilet paper than needs to burned and someone at the door right when you were about to take a shower. And you have to have practiced a lot to know the order to put things in. To know whether to add inside the parentheses of your home first or multiply your giving first. To know whether to subtract time from chores or prayer before you divide yourself to serve. Know how many chapters to read and how many chapters to write and how many chapters to live in one day before you implode into emotional mush. You have to see the comprehension questions in the Word of God and know how to answer them, for the love. And you have to know when life demands a comma, a period, an exclamation mark or a question mark. You can't just live in all caps and never take a break.

And, Emma, your mama, she knows a thing or two about that. And she wants to teach you. Let her, sweet one. And don't regret a moment of it. Soak it all up. Because if God is doing in you what we all think He might be doing, one day you might be far away and full of the the world's pain and the love of Christ to the point of bursting, and you will want nothing more than a warm bath to soak it all out and someone to talk to. All you'll use the newest to gadget to send an S.O.S. to the world out there for a little love, a little encouragement to keep going and you'll hope and hope that your mentors and your friends will show up to cheer you on. And they won't, Emma, they won't. And your eyes will sting with the tears of loneliness and your whole body will hurt from the desire to just be held. And you'll have practiced. You'll have done your homework.

So you'll run to Jesus and you'll read His word and you'll sing His praise and you'll see Him in the simple bread and wine. And your faithfulness will be what gets you to other side. And your obedience will be what keeps you in the place He has you when you want to run. And your submission will be what lets you sit in that place and wait until He moves you rather than going your own way and screwing it all up.

And then, your little gadget will light up with a ray of encouragement to cheer you on. Someone will reach across the miles to be the balm your lonely heart needs. And do you know, what, Emma? 9 times out 10, it'll be your mama.

See this girl right here in this video? She is me at my core. She is who I always dreamed I would be. I'm forty, Em. Do you know how many of my days have actually looked like this? Only a fraction, my friend, only a fraction. But do you know what? Every time I get to live one, it makes the dishes and the mopping and the walking dusty roads and getting blank stares in return and the pain of loneliness and the suffering and the struggling so worth it. Do you know why? Because those things make me look like more like Jesus and less like me. They force me to give me up until He can shine through. And how awful would it be if I finally got to a day like this and brought them me instead of Jesus? I've done it enough to to know, Emma. It sucks. The pain of repentance is so much harder to bear than the waiting and the learning. Ask me how I know, Em. Ask me how I know.




Oh, and Emma, one more thing. Get ready, girl. Because after all that waiting, when He does finally move? Girl, it's like you don't what the heck hit you. You're all, "Wait, wait, wait a minute, Lord. I just need to get a few things together and catch my breath. I didn't finish Algebra yet!" And He's all, "Oh no, honey, we're going. Now." And all I can say is, hold on for the ride, Emma. Cling tight. Because it will be wilder and more glorious than you have ever imagined. And it will good, Emma. So, so good. And I hope I am  there to see it.

And, Em, if you're reading, will you let me make letters to Emma a regular part of my writing? I like talking to you. You help me think. You help get my thoughts together and get them out of my head where they're driving me crazy. And you know, Emma, I've got enough crazy to last me a lifetime.

With the greatest of Love, the peace that surpasses understanding and the highest Hope of all,
Mrs. Mitchell
aka

If I Got to Pick

The life I live here in missions is a life that places me, for the most part, totally dependent on the Lord, His provision, His timing and His holy will for our lives. It is good. It is the way I really, truly desire to live.

However, it is totally contrary to my personality. I am a girl who likes to have a plan. I wake up in the morning and within the first two sips of coffee could easily tell you how I would prefer the day to play itself out in 15 minute increments. I can plan a vacation in my head complete with packing list at the mere mention of it over a dinner. I am the kind of girl who makes lists for fun, who would willingly pack for someone else simply because I enjoy the opportunity to organize. I once spent the night at a friend's house after a recent move. Our husbands were both out of town for work. There were boxes everywhere and she was totally overwhelmed. By the time she woke up in the morning, I had moved all the boxes to the correct room, labeled her closets and unpacked her kitchen and bathrooms. She had to call me for months afterwards to ask me where things were. It was some of the best fun I have ever had.

So you see, this life I lead can be hard for me at times. The trust it takes to leave timing and planning in God's hands is a huge leap of faith from my natural temperament. So is having five sons, but that's a story for another day. At the time that we left to take up our mission here in Costa Rica as the St. Bryce Foundation, one of the greatest challenges for me personally meant that it left leaving my oldest brother and his wife and his children and the rest of my family as we united with him in his fight against ALS. It was a sticking point for me with God.

My big brothers and I on our first night back in the States
February 2013

But my brother had always one of the most faithful servants of God I have ever met, and I knew he, more than anyone else, would want me to do what God was calling me to do. He assured me of this himself. Shortly after we arrived in the field, he entered into a medical emergency that threatened to end his life. I was horrified that it would happen that way, that God would take Him home just as I had left. That all my family would be there at his side and I would not. He did not go home then. He fought back, chose life and kept battling.

So many days it hurt that I did not get to pick the timing of things. That I didn't get to be there when I would've chosen. But I did get there. Last July, we spent quiet evenings together enjoying my sister-in-law's kick ass cooking and holding hands and watching So You Think You Can Dance. We had Skype sessions where I laughed at him sipping Red Stripe through a straw and he laughed at me sitting on a tree stump to get good internet reception. In February, we launched our candidacy for the papacy (There is no logical way for me to explain this to anyone who did not know my brother. I can only be sorry for you that you missed out. It was big fun.)

And in March, I headed home to see him again, this time with my whole gang at my side. Our first full night home we went out to dinner. Both my brothers and their families and us. It was glorious and heart wrenching at the same time. I was so happy to meet my sweet niece for the first time, to hold those big brother hands again, to hear my sister-in-law's laugh, to watch my boys giggle maniacally with their cousins, to share quiet conversation with the man who is my first nephew and open my eyes to what a stellar human being he is.

Cousins at dinner

But it ripped me up inside to watch my brother fight for every breath, to see the look of panic in his eyes, and to realize how tired he was. I went back to our guest house that night knowing deep in my soul he was ready to go home soon. And with a panic in my heart. I was there. Then. But I would leave again soon. What if the timing God chose happened to be the one that left me far away in that moment? What if I would have to leave knowing I would never see him again here on earth? And I was angry about the lack of control my life demanded of me.

Cousin Dinner

In the days that followed, my brother entered the hospital and we began to realize that his battle with ALS was drawing to a close. Difficult conversations had to be had. Hard decisions made. A birthday had to be celebrated. And seafood had to be eaten. And a family had to come together to figure out how to live, laugh, love and say goodbye. And do you know what? If God had said to me, "Colleen, I am going to take your brother home and you have no choice in that matter, but all the other details, I will let you plan", even in my eager to plan brain, I could not have come up with a more perfect scenario as we experienced in the days surrounding my brother's going home.

So many of the details are too intimate. Words are great tools to express certain things, and for others, they are cheap. So much of what happened would be cheapened by them in this case. But here is what I would like to share. I do not have a family that has followed a cookie cutter path. We touch every point on the spectrum when it comes to personalities and temperaments, life choices, and religious, spiritual and moral orientations. But I am blessed beyond belief with a family who knows without a doubt how to love fiercely and stand in unity despite those differences. And I believe a large part of our ability to do that was won as we watched my brother live and fight his battle with ALS with that as his only priority -- to love well, to point people to the love of Christ, and to live with unbounded joy.

These apples don't fall far from the trees, y'all
Cousin Shenanigans

So in the moments surrounding his going home, that is what we did. We laughed loud and loved strong and teased relentlessly. We drank too much and ate too much and talked too much (so much so that we were "shushed" by the ICU nurses while we were still outside in the waiting area). We cried and we embraced and we figured out where our strength lay. So that in the moment that Kevin ran into Jesus' arms, we could leave all of our differences behind and stand hand in hand singing. And cheering him on his way. I have no absolutely no words to describe what that moment felt like. It is forever suspended in time for me. The woman my sister-in-law was in that moment has forever changed me. Being the daughter who first lost a child of a mother who now sent her little boy home is the most breakingly beautiful title of womanhood I now carry. Standing in the embrace of my remaining siblings is a moment I will take with me forever. The faces of nephews and nieces and their expressions of love for their father and their uncle and the love shared by our children, the great big band of cousins that make up this family is for me a joy beyond all belief, a hope for a future that shines with radiance. These young people that we raised? They are good, y'all. So, so good. You will thank us one day for our procreative gifts. I promise you.

Celebrating Kevin's birthday in the ICU waiting room the day before we cheered him home to heaven
Me with some of my favorite people on earth, my sister, my niece, and my cousin

I look back on that time and feel overwhelming gratitude to my God. I didn't want my brother to have ALS. I don't want him to be gone. But these are things God does not consult me on. However, I did want to hold his hand and be next to him when that moment arrived. And I was. I did want to feel a tight part of my family circle and share that experience with my mom and my siblings. And I did. I did want to see him one more time outside of the hospital when he was still "well" and I did. I did want to be able to tell him all the reasons I loved him and was so proud of him and I did. I did want to celebrate with joy when at last he had beat the beast and won the crown. And I did. I did want to sing to him the songs that had beat in my heart for him while I was far away and I did. I wanted my sister-in-law to know how deeply beautiful she was and how much I appreciated her. I wanted to say out loud to her that we supported every choice she had made in this difficult journey and we supported her as she began a new phase of life. And we supported her relief that the battle was over. I got to say those words. And I did want to laugh and have a good beer and eat fried stuff from the Gulf and talk in my New Orleans accent. And I did. I wanted a piece of my brother to take with me forever. He left me that. That man, he knew how to live well, and you know what, because of that, he knew how to die well. I know that sounds weird, but anyone who witnessed it would unequivocally agree with me, I know.

Crawfish and beer. It's how we live. It's how we love. It's how we roll.

I didn't really know how to write a to-do list for my brother's death. I didn't want to. But when the moment came, I knew, he knew, we all knew, how to live it. And if I got to pick, this is how it would have been. If I get to write the script for my own going, I want it to be just like his.

And just to keep reminding me that this was just a sweet tender mercy and not to let myself get used to it, God went back to his usual ways and put me back in my place of humble submission, when, on the morning of the funeral, I found myself late and lost and in the midst of an utter panic attack, screaming at my older sister on the phone for help. And then the brunt of the pastor's joke as I walked into the church having scorned my poor family into beaten little pulps in my grief and pain and the anxiety of things being out of my control again. Crying and laughing at myself, and seeing that once again, He had worked it all for good even when He didn't give me a say. And me, back to my sheepish little apologies and promises of greater trust in the future.

And do you know what? I'm pretty sure I could hear that man, my big brother, giggling at me from heaven. And I think he might have been tying my baby's hands to his shoes too. But that, too, is a story for another day.

Family bonfire in my brother Stephen's yard

On Growing Up, Grief and Grace: Part 2, Grief

I wrote recently that I have been processing a bit about our past missionary experiences compared with this one and why I seem so much more able to cope this time. I wrote a little about how how I've grown up a bit since our first mission last week.
Another reason I think I'm coping a bit differently this time is that the experience I've had in losing my sixth son Bryce 3 three years ago and suffering two subsequent miscarriages since then has changed me. I am a different woman in many ways that I was before. But I think the thing I have seen most in our time here in this mission post is that grief has taught me how to be lonely.
This mission life is an inherently lonely life. No we are not the missionaries of old who waved goodbye to their families, stepped onto ships and were fully prepared to never to see their homeland or families again. I mean, just since our last spell in missions six years ago, the availability of internet, Facebook and Skype have drastically changed communication. I can daily peek in to life back home and check on a family member in the hospital or a friend about to give birth to twins. I can readily communicate with supporters and people helping to meet the needs of our ministry. It is a huge difference in the level of isolation we feel.
However, regardless of how much easier communication is now, the missionary life is an essentially lonely one and battling feeling lonely and forgotten is part of the daily struggle of this life. I think it is in God's design for this life, really, because that daily hunger for something that you can't quite put your finger on (and not the hunger for a bacon cheeseburger and margaritas -- that's a different issue altogether) can, if you let it, keep clinging to the grace and the love that is meant to fill you with only good things, that is the only way to keep walking this missionary road without completely falling apart. Ideally, the loneliness should draw you to prayer, and into the heart of your marriage if you are a married missionary, which I am. Ahem, let me stress, ideally.
You leave behind a lot when you go to the mission field, including real face-to-face contact with your family and having the encouragement of a friend a text message away. You also leave behind the happy chatter with your sister on your drive home from the grocery store and the chance to recharge from a stressful day by hanging with mommies on the sidelines of the football field or the lobby of the play rehearsal for a couple hours. Days are long and stressful and often lonely. You chat with your neighbors and it helps, but it's not the same. You feel the terrible sting of disappointment in your friends because, well, their lives go on and are not all about keeping you happy on the mission field. And then you get over it. Ideally. Ahem, let me again stress, ideally.
Because, you see, last time, six years ago, I never really got over it. I am an off-the-charts extrovert who has long dealt with stress and trial by seeking a little socialization and the company of others. A laugh with a friend, or to be quite honest, a perfect stranger, is like pushing the reset button in my brain. And it can be a good coping strategy. However, there have been times in my life when I have clung to that need like it was oxygen. Like I would die without constant contact with others. In times of difficulties, sorrow, or trial, I am tempted to use the company of others to placate the wounds.
I didn't quite have the self-awareness I do now six years ago. I couldn't put my finger on that hunger and call it loneliness and tell myself, "This is you looking to cope with stress in the way you are accustomed to, and that's not going to work here. Slow down, settle in, you'll figure out how to cope." Instead, I became increasingly panicked about that nagging feeling that something wasn't right. I frantically searched out the company of others. I built resentment toward my husband that he couldn't fill this growing thing inside me. And I was completely ignorant of what it really was and that it was and would always be an inherent struggle for me.
In the growing up I've done in the past six years, I've come to see this tendency in myself. I can't say I've learned to rein it in. It's still a daily struggle for me. But when I was plunged into grief after the loss of Bryce three years ago, I was plunged into a lifelong sense of loss and loneliness that I have had no choice but to learn to live with. And that has made the transition back into missionary life a bit easier to live with this time around.
Don't get me wrong, the loving support of family and friends was essential to my survival after Bryce's death and my subsequent losses. But the truth is, grief drives a wedge into your heart that leaves you always feeling a little disconnected from the rest of the world, always a little bit apart from everyone else. Your internal dialogue is constant and intense and it's not something you can articulate regularly to others without risking getting a reputation for being the new crazy lady in town. I mean, when the phone rings and a friend's voice rings out sincerely, "How are you? What are you doing today?" you can't well answer, "Well, I just convinced myself to take the last ten breaths! In a row! And then shook each of my kids in their beds to make sure they were breathing. Now I'm cooking breakfast and counting to 100 while I stir to try to shake my brain free of horrific images. What about you?"
So you give away little pieces of your heart to make sure you don't implode. But you come to live with the reality that this is an essentially singular process. And that the hunger and loneliness you feel is largely for the person you lost and the future you won't have and, well, that's not going away no matter how many good conversations with friends you have or how you fill up your days with constant interaction.
However, if you can look at yourself honestly and recognize the hunger for what it is, it can drive you to honest communication with your Heavenly Father, a real clinging to grace, and to baring the most vulnerable parts of your heart to your spouse, which is how it should be.
I think in my initial grief, I did pretty well with this. As time went on and I experienced the two miscarriages and the pain of reality became a little much to bear, I slid back into old habits, filling life with hustle and bustle and laughter and joy, but leaving my real interior living and processing, and the chance to heal, on the back burner. And running from the very person for whom I should have reserved that vulnerability, my husband.
But an incredible grace accompanied me into this mission along with that new grown self-awareness. I knew I was going to be lonely. I knew it was going to be terrible intense. I knew I would battle a rising hunger, a craving nothing could seem to meet, and I knew what it was. Loneliness was no longer foreign to me. I surrendered to it this time around and admitted that, if I was honest, I had paid the price of clinging to others to feed that hunger and it just wasn't worth it. I'd rather be lonely than disappointed, hurt, and betrayed, which are the inevitable results of giving too much of yourself away in the search for the company of others.
That's not to say I haven't felt its pangs here. I have. Desperately at time. I've cried for loneliness and I've laid myself at the feet of Jesus over and over again. But what is different is that I have not rushed headlong into the frantic illusion that it can and must be fixed. When I throw a lifeline out to a friend via e-mail and get no response, I cling to the grace to sit in that pain. When I feel the temptation rise to run after the response of others, I strap on my shoes and pound it out into the pavement with a long walk or run. When I need to spill it all out somewhere, I grab my journal and head to a rock on the river's edge.
We've been here almost a year now. I've spent a lot of that time living the dull ache of loneliness day in and day out. And it's a familiar ache. And it doesn't scare me the way it once did. Because, in all truthfulness, it's been long coming that I let go of the illusion of belonging, of fitting in. I used to look for that in places like homeschooling communities, circles of like-minded friends, mommy buddies. But, really, where does the women who has turned birth into death three times in the last three years fit in those circles anyway. Pictures of pretty cupcakes and cure crafts don't really bridge that gap, if you know I mean. I've been long recognizing that the diet of spiritual cupcakes I used to feed myself on in loneliness, the company and approval of others, wasn't enough to give me the strength to recover from the enormity of these losses, from the desperate hunger for love and intimacy it has evoked in my soul. In His grace, the Lord used missions to force me to fully surrendered to this gift of wisdom He had long been growing in my heart.
Yes, I've spent the better part of the last year feeling the dull ache of loneliness. And I've realized it is not a panicked, haunting feeling for me any more. It is a familiar, albeit occasionally unwelcome, friend. And in surrendering to it, I've learned a little more how to cope. I've felt the gaping wounds of grief close a little tighter in my heart as I lean in to the embrace of the Savior and the ready arms of the man I love. And I've learned to settle into it when the hunger just won't go away and let it be what it is. Not something to fix but something to carry, in cupped and careful hands, because it is the work He is doing in my soul and it is sacred.
And I am daily singing myself a new song. This one. And reminding myself daily to settle down. It'll all be clear. To pay no mind to the demon of loneliness that can fill me with fear. Because He's going to make this place my home.

On Growing Up, Grief and Grace: Part 1, Growing Up

Some of you know that before our arrival here in Costa Rica in January, we had spent two years serving as foreign missionaries about six years before that. I have been thinking a lot lately about how different an experience that this year has been for me compared to those years and examining why. I want to know what has made it so much easier this time around. Not because I want to pat myself on the back (okay, it might be a temptation, but it's not the main reason) but because this life highlights so many of my hardest struggles. If I can get it right here, I need to know the formula so I can use it to get it right in the big, interior battles that I still lose far too often.

Here's what I think it comes down to. First, I have grown up an awful lot in the last six years. Second, grief has changed me. And third, grace. Just grace. Today, I am thinking about growing up.

                                    

On Growing Up
First, let me say that it is not lost on me that this time around my youngest child is the same age as my oldest child was when we left for our first missionary post. I was eight weeks postpartum with a five year old, two year old and newborn when we left for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Life is easier in some ways with this band of brothers growing older and a little less dependent on me for their every need. It is also harder in a lot of mundane ways. More laundry. More food to buy, store, cook, prepare and clean up after. 5 people to have up and out the door, dressed and ready for school by 7 am each day. Media use to monitor. Emotional and spiritual needs to consider. When they were all little, it was exhausting. Now they're bigger and it's exhausting in different ways. But it may well be a bit easier.

                                            

The truth, though, is that I even though I had just had my third child and was five years into the journey of motherhood, I was still all too naive those six years ago about the cost of motherhood, the daily sacrifice of it all, that it was fun and joyful, yes, but that it was an awful lot of not-so-pretty hard work.
You see, I had spent my early mothering years assuming that the main part of my job was to have fun with my kids. I went to play group and library story time and the park and the play place. We had fun. More often than not, that meant that the laundry didn't get done and the dishes stayed in the sink and I forgot to think about what was for dinner. Y'all, we showed up at my big sister's house unannounced and stayed for dinner. All. The. Time. It is a credit to the kind of woman that she is that she never once looked me in the face and told me to march my spoiled butt home and cook dinner for my family. You see, that's just it, I entered marriage fresh from the role of the baby of the family. And it took me about 8 years to realize I wasn't the baby any more. No one was supposed to care of me. It was my job to do the care taking. Yeah, so I'm a little dense sometimes. I told you, the point was to recognize the faults.

                                  

So, what does all this have to do with mission? Well, it was hard work. And there were no play groups or library story times to run away to. And I was ill-prepared for it. It was hot and there was walking to be done. Food had to be cooked, over and over again every day. There were no chicken nuggets and my sister wasn't around the corner. Laundry and cloth diapers had to be hand washed and hung on the line (eventually I admitted I was lost cause at hand washing clothes and sourced help. And even though I claim to have grown up, I will confess, I am still untterly inept at hand-washing. Women in the third world amaze me with this skill on a daily basis.) Floors had to be mopped or else flies would invade. Water had to be warmed for baths. There was a lot to do. And suddenly, I realized, it was me who was supposed to be doing it.
I'd like to say I rose to the challenge, but the truth is, I caved under the weight of it all. Not right away, I was determined to be valiant about it at first. But eventually, a short eventually, it got to me. I felt the burden of never being done. Of it never being enough. My all or nothing tendencies got the best of me. I fought the urge to shut down and give up altogether. We were sick. Often. It made things harder. And about three months in, I started to look for early exit strategies to my one year commitment. To justify the need to go home and regroup, sure that if I just had my washer and dryer back, I could get this right.

This realization of the hard work ahead of me, the tendency for the daily sacrifice that stretches before me for years on end, my lack of perseverance in the face of it, it dogs me daily still. It followed me into two more mission posts and ate away at my zeal for this life over and over again until I convinced myself I couldn't do it, I wasn't cut out for it.

But you know what? I went "home" to my comforts -- a pretty house , a washer and dryer and dishwasher, a big car. And guess what? More babies came and all those things were still my job and life was still hard and it got harder. And I finally began to realize that this is what life is -- it's hard work. All the time. Never done. And if we live it intentionally, then we are always choosing one thing over the other, choosing the snuggle time on the couch over folded laundry, choosing dinner cooked and floors washed over an afternoon at the park, choosing football practice over a quiet evening at home. Always choosing. Always working. Never done. This is the life I signed up for when I gave my hand to my husband and my child-bearing potential to my God and made a commitment to take what came. What came was the joy of house full of boys and an awful lot of hard work. And a chance to battle back my worst faults and tendencies and seek holiness in the sacrifices those gifts presented me with. It seems an interesting choice for an all or nothing girl who was used to being the baby. Who is dogged by the tendency to give up when one day of perfection is drowned by a million days of mess and chaos and getting it wrong.
The tendency follows me still. On the days I get grumpy and fussy about the floors needing to be swept and mopped again. On the days I close the door on the bed full of laundry waiting to be folded and pour a cup of coffee instead. On the days I push the weight of it all off onto my husband and make it his fault that it's never done.
                                            

But I have done some growing up in spite of the temptations that I still battle daily. I am under no illusion  that life is anything but hard work. I have, for the most part, learned to do what I can with what I have where I am and let it be enough. I have learned to accept that it won't ever be perfect, but that perfectly folded laundry one day can be savored and enjoyed in the moment, that cake and ice cream for dinner are okay sometimes, that an afternoon reading aloud that means dishes piled in the sink til the morning is sometimes worth it. I have learned to let the choices be intentional and to let myself be enough. I have learned to ask for help rather than build resentment. I have learned that sometimes chaos reigns and there is very little I can do about it. And I fail at these lessons over and over again even though I have learned them. I have learned that joy is not something that happens outside these things, when I have the chance to put them all aside and pursue an adventure, an outing, a break. But that joy is here, if I choose it, in the sudsy sink and the clean pajamas and the early morning risings and the interrupted sleep. Joy is here because life is here. And life is the gift I chose above all in choosing this vocation, the gift I begged for and hoped for and yearn for still. And I have learned that failing doesn't mean we pack up and go home, seeking an easier way. It is an opportunity to seek forgiveness and begin again.
I remember reading this post on Katie Davis' blog and thinking I knew a little (not 14 times worth, but a little) of what she meant. The daily life of a mom in mission is not that different than the daily life of a mom anywhere else. I cook and cook again. I wash and fold and put away. I sweep and mop and sigh at the footprints that appear before I'm done. I tuck in and wake up and dress and bathe. I burn the used toilet paper. Okay, maybe you don't do that. But you get the point. And you know what, with the exception of the occasions on which I get a little cranky about it all, I am pretty much okay with the fact that this is how I spend the majority of my life. And that it is good.
I was not shocked by the piles of laundry that followed me into this mission post nor the messy bathrooms nor the dirty floors. These are my life. They are my life in the middle of suburbia and my life in the mountains of a developing nation. And they are my sanctity. They are the things that keep my faults ever before my eyes and keep me clinging to grace. And they are my joy. The constant joy and satisfaction brought by serving those most important to me in the most important of ways -- food, clothing, shelter -- home.
Yes, I'd say I'm good and grown up. A grown up sinful mess who still gets it wrong far too often? Yes. But a grown up nonetheless. And because of that, I am still here almost a year later. Not ready to run from the hard work, but instead, falling on my knees before the Lord and saying, "You want to do more? For more people? But you promise you'll help? That the grace will be there? Then, bring it, Big Guy. I'm ready."
And that, my friends, is a humbling place to be for the spoiled baby girl who'd rather sip coffee and read than mop the floors.
                                                 

Linking up at Moments of Grace at Suscipio. Join us to share this week's grace in your life?

Let's Fast From Freedom

Are you, like me, beginning to forget the commitment to act and pray to end human trafficking? I admit I feel like a bit like a clanging gong that no one can hear. But I made a commitment and I WILL see it through. Why? Because last week Costa Rican papers reported that a man from reported being brought here under conditions of slavery to work in a restaurant in order to pay off a debt his family owed the traffickers. He was afraid to go to authorities because being returned to his own country would mean certain death. Because the other day Maria at Salvando Corazones posted that she was thankful for calm seas that day because you never know what thoughts, flashbacks or memories will rock the world of those who have been abused and exploited nor do you know when. Because the Costa Rican government has openly stated in the last few weeks that it does not know how to close the loop hole that allows drug and human traffickers to apply for residency legally by taking up temporary residency in a different state of the U.S. and getting their police report from that state, thereby covering up their criminal history. They have passed a new law that states that if at any time any of these items is found on a person's record, his/her residency can be revoked. And so traffickers of all types and sorts have an open door to take up residency here and the blue print with which to do it.

I have more to tell you and a growing list of ways you can help with the plan for the Blessed Zelie Martin Initiative that I laid out here. . I am putting together some other actions that I hope you will help me with in the areas of government action and responsible tourism. I am planning a trip to visit the safe house for Salvando Corazones and put my head together with Maria about what we can do together.

In the mean time, as a family, we begin a circulating Holy Hour for the month of missions in the communities of our church parish. We will kneel in the presence of the Lord of Lords every afternoon for the next two weeks with our brothers and sisters and pray for the Church's call to missions. And I will beg that we embrace this as part of our collective mission as a Church, the call to act to end the atrocity of human slavery.

And while we are doing that, I offer you another action to keep us all focused on this fight. Let's fast from freedom this week. The victims of trafficking and slavery lose so many basic freedoms: the freedom to eat, sleep, use the bathroom when they want to, the freedom to speak to whom they wish, the freedom to call their bodies there own, the freedom to love, to trust, to hope. Is there a friend or a family member with whom you can share your desire to act on behalf of these victims? Might you enlist their help in a fast of sorts from a basic freedom you enjoy daily?

What if for one day, you did not go to the bathroom without asking someone's permission first? Or leave the house? Or go to bed? Or eat? Or drink? Or speak to someone else? I think it will serve as a poignant reminder to me of all the basic human freedoms I take for granted on a daily basis.

Over the course of the next week, I am going to enlist my husband's help (poor thing, I have no friends I can enlist as texting buddies here, he has to  bear the brunt of my crazy ideas) in this endeavor. I am going to choose a particular freedom listed above and get him to agree that I will ask his permission and he has to grant before I act. Every single time. And each time I go through the process, I will stop to pray for all the people on the world who live daily without freedom, who are begging for a basic mercy and being beaten or kicked or abused for asking, who are waking up at night in a terrified sweat, imprisoned by traumatic memories, who have been made vulnerable by poverty or culture or war or neglect.

If anyone decides to join me and walk beside me in this endeavor, I welcome the company. But if I go it alone, so be it. This is the call of my heart. A "yes" I offered to my merciful Savior. I will not, with His grace, take it back because I feel silly or lonely or like I am shouting into a dark abyss. I will cling to Him and seek the grace to continue on.

Feeling Tense?

I am taking a break from my 30 Days of Action posts to write about something that has been rumbling and bubbling and then finally settling peacefully in my heart these last few weeks. Something prompted by a thought that has followed me since I read Heather King's Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux in July. It's about being tense, or more accurately living in tension. And how that differs from but is not totally different from what we call guilt.

I have had many conversations with people who have read books or articles full of inspiring stories about people who are living radically, sacrificing everything and making huge differences in the world. While on the one hand they are inspired by these stories, on the other they find themselves battling scruples and guilt over the state of life in which they find themselves. Often overwhelmed by the latter, they toss the inspiration in order to free themselves from the weight of the guilt.

This is a feeling I am quite familiar with as a missionary. I battle with myself all the time about how much is too much for us, how little is too little and is asking too much from our kids, how much is just enough. I put things in my basket at the grocery store and then take them out. I stand at the corner giving myself the luxury of hailing a cab then wave it off when it stops and head to the bus instead. Recently, we discovered that one benefit of living in this mission with a car is that it has revolutionized food purchasing.

When we could only get to the very nearest city and that by bus, our purchasing opportunities were quite limited. Turrialba, while it is a city, still remains very typically Costa Rican and the stores market mainly typical fare in regards to food. In addition, whatever we purchased had to be loaded into recycled rice sacks and lugged to the bus where it sat for two hours on the ride home. Then we carried it on our backs to our house. Even when we had the occasional ride to the store, we were always eager not to be overbearing and so limited our purchases. Even then, we bought way more variety of food than the typical family in our pueblo.

But with our car to drive, we have a wider variety of options. One which we recently discovered is the opportunity to take a monthly trip into Zapote, a suburb of sorts of San Jose, to shop at Price Mart (this is apparently how you say Costco in Spanish -- who knew?) We went for the first time last month. After filling out our forms and having our candid snapshots printed on to plastic cards, I turned to find a long forgotten wonderland of flavored coffee creamer, donuts, toothpaste in four packs, pancake mix and maple syrup, barbeque sauce and feta cheese. I was totally overwhelmed.

We walked through Price Mart reveling in purchases we had not made in eight months. Olive oil. Syrup. French vanilla coffee creamer. Dark chocolate granola bars. We passed on the lovely cheeses, the sticky sweet donuts, and a load of other processed foods that appeared lovely in their familiar packaging but that we have learned really taste no better then the packaging itself. We bought a lot of food. Good food at good prices. We bought toiletries and medicines to last a long, long time at the best prices we have found yet in Costa Rica. We treated the kids to the cheap pizza and got an oil change for the car. We priced out some items we will need when we are sharing our mission with groups and other families. It was a good trip, and while we indulged ourselves some, I don't think we did too badly.

But in the weeks that followed, I was haunted by guilt over the French vanilla coffee creamer. I stressed about buying it. I stressed about using it up too quickly, not fully appreciating it. I scrupulously only allowed myself only one cup of coffee with the creamer and then drank plain. I would see families walking down the streets of our town and wonder how much rice I could have given them to feed their children with what I spent on my coffee creamer. I was so shell-shocked that I have not suggested another trip to Price Mart since then. Some people in my house are still lamenting not buying the big box of chocolate covered almonds they saw and I have feared I would be like some indulgence monitor, putting things in the basket and then guiltily taking them back out and stashing them on the wrong aisle, much to the chagrin of the Price Mart employees, I'm sure.

A couple of weeks after that shopping trip, I found myself sitting on a beach in southern Nicaragua reading the book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess and pondering a lot of over-indulgence, consumerism and lack of gratitude. And how hard it is to overcome a lifetime if living in a culture that embraces all those things. My time as a missionary has opened my eyes and changed my heart in so many ways, but it has not taken away the impulse to buy more shoes than I need or the desperate craving for Coke Zero in Sonic Ice. Or my love of sticky sweet donuts and flavored coffee creamer. And sometimes, in light of the poverty I see every day, my affections for those things make me feel what in the past I had labeled as guilt.

But reading and thinking on the tenets in 7 and some of things I had read about St. Therese in Shirt of Flame has caused me to rethink what I call this haunting feeling that pervades my thoughts, my desires, my affections and makes me weigh them against the stark realities of poverty, sickness, human slavery and death. What we have labeled as guilt and thrown out as an unhealthy emotion, I think, may not be something altogether bad. Now, I am certain, as many people have commented to me in the aforementioned conversations, that our merciful Savior does not want us to live a life hindered by crippling, debilitating guilt. After all, it was precisely this kind of law that Jesus came to free us from. But I also think we have been a bit quick to toss out some really good inspiration because we were afraid to go where the initial guilt was taking us. We do not need to be a people of guilt, but I think when we begin to hear a warning cry in our hearts every time something makes us see our own ugliness and brokenness that says, "No, run, don't think about that. That's too hard. Jesus doesn't want you to feel badly about yourself" that we need to respond like Christ did to Peter when Peter shouted a similar warning at Him -- about the very hard and ugly way in which He would redeem the world -- "Get Thee behind me, Satan."

Why? Because while I think the Lord does not want us to be encumbered by a burden of guilt over which He has already risen victorious, I think He's perfectly okay with us living in a constant tension. It is the reality of our lives on this side of heaven. We live redeemed but sinful. We worship a merciful but just Savior. We serve a broken and beautiful Church. We are dying every day that we live. And we die in order to live forever. We pray to know better our Savior and He teaches us to know better ourselves. We eat bread that is His body while it still looks and tastes like bread. And we buy and we consume and we live while others beg and starve and die in a world He created. This is our reality.

And as Christians completing, as the Word telsl us, what was lacking in His sufferings, I do think we would be woefully amiss if that reality did not weigh heavily upon us most of our days. If my coffee creamer makes me think painfully of the hungry in my midst, it may not mean I need to toss the coffee creamer, but it also should not mean that I push aside the painful reminder of the poor. Perhaps there is something He is asking me to do, and the tension in my chest with each sip of delicious creamy goodness is His way of knocking. If that experience makes me think long and hard about what I purchase on our next trip and helps me to leave behind some indulgences and replace them with basic foods that can be shared, it has indeed done a very good work in my heart. And if I deliberate long and hard over each item and allow us only three indulgent purchases per trip, is it that really some kind of debilitating guilt? I don't think so. Maddening as it may be for the poor men who are forced to endure the shopping trip with me, I think it does us all some good to pick and choose intentionally as a family and to see the alternatives we are afforded when we bypass overindulgence.

Heather King says St. Therese lived in this constant tension. Feeling at once favored and special in the eyes of her Sweet Savior and alternatively small and humble and feeble in His service. Wanting with all her heart to be a missionary and yet embracing the call to the silence of the cloister. Being childish and simple and yet a spiritual giant all at the same time. If this is what embracing the tension can produce, then who I am to wave it off because sometimes it gives me a stomach ache?

I will be the first to admit that sometimes living in this constant tension does not make me the happy smiley girl I want to be. Sometimes, I just freaking want a Pumpkin Spice Latte and a Coke Zero with Cherry flavoring and extra ice. In a separate cup. There. I said it. But I have come see that that too is okay. This is where His tender mercy sweeps in and makes something beautiful of the mess that is me. You see, while I'm tempted to sulk and whine and grant myself way more indulgence I deserve in repayment for my measly sacrifices, He swoops into my struggle and draws me to Him--says to me, "Sweet Princess, there are no lattes today. But I am here. Come close. Rest from the struggle. Breathe the sweet incense of my presence. Feel better, little one? Good. Get up and do what I have asked." And then, one day when I least expect it, right in the midst of serving and doing and falling and rising, voila, a pumpkin spice latte appears out of nowhere, with the extra whipped cream I never even dared ask for even though I wanted it really badly. Because my Daddy loves me. Deeply, tenderly and intimately. And He loves to lavish me with gifts and surprise me with loveliness.

So these days, I am working at seeing all these impulses both indulgent and guilty as the forces that pull taut my spiritual heart rope, that keep me sober and alert, intentional and dependent as I try to be who God has called me to be in this crazy upside world that reeks of sin and shines with glory all at the same time. I think the Lord only pulls that rope as taut as we permit Him too. Sometimes, life demands that we let it fall slack while we put all our energies into growing a baby human inside us or rekindling love in our marriage or serving the demanding needs of our families or recovering from an illness. Other times, I think He asks if we will let Him pull it uncomfortably tight, so that it strains and stresses and pulls at us until we grow up just a little bit more. But I do believe that we are called to permit the tension to live within us, the feel its weight and to embrace it, not as guilt, but as another tender mercy meant to bring us further into the abode of His heart. And I think the spiritual progress we make is directly related to just how taut we permit him to pull our heart strings.

So if you are feeling the tension today as I am and battling the guilty grumpies as I often do, slow down rather than pushing it away. Run to Him and let Him show you what He needs you to see. Seek Him in the quiet and the stillness and, yes, the pain of your heart. Move past the guilt and give Him permission to pull your heart strings tight. And then see what He might do with you. And then happily, one day, if He is merciful enough, we might find ourselves sipping a double whipped cream pumpkin spice latte inside the gates of the Promised Land with no more pain or suffering, where our hearts strings fly loose and free in the light of His glory. Walk with me?

***P.S. Following any of the Amazon links in this post or on the sidebar and making a purchase will generate a small amount of credit for me. All credit will be dedicated to purchasing items for the Blessed Zelie Martin Initiative laid out in this post.

I have added this post to this week's Walk With Him Wednesdays link up at Holy Experience.

Let's Get Going

So I said in yesterday's post that I was going to come back today and share ways that we can all begin to be part of the solution of the atrocity of human trafficking. Here's the truth, I have a lot of inspiration, passion and ideas and that's about it.
But if you're willing to bear it out with me and help me do what we can where we can, I am willing to try to get this going. I want to fight the temptation that tells me I should wait until I have a well-formulated plan to invite people into. I want to fight the temptation to say tomorrow will be a better day. I want to fight the perfectionist side of me and be willing to be made of fool of for Christ and His most vulnerable children.
My vague idea is to create 30 Days of Action Against Human Trafficking, big and small ways we can all join in the fight for awareness and action on this issue. I'm brainstorming, making contacts and thinking it through as I go. That means it will inevitably develop and change as we go along. But one piece of counsel I always offer to those trying to discern what God is calling them to is "Don't wait while you wait." Do whatever you can. Here. Today. Right now.
So today, we are creating some ways you can join us in prayer and invite others to do the same. Today, I spent time on the phone with a missionary trying to make a real difference here in Costa Rica, getting educated, getting inspired, getting invited to visit and learn more. And thinking of ways you can join us. Now. From wherever you are.

Here's what I've got for today:

• Begin praying the prayer on one of the pictures below each day (I am including a specifically Catholic one and one for my non-Catholic followers and friends. This is by no means an effort to divide us, but I feel like we really need a stronger presence and stance from Catholics on this issue, to step up to the plate publicly the way many other Christian organizations have, thus the specifically Catholic option.)
• Share the picture and prayer on your Facebook page.
• Tweet the url to this post and tag @StBryce
• Pin this post on Pinterest.
• Check out the Salvando Corazones web page and like them on Facebook. I spoke with Maria, the founder this morning and she told me that prayer would be a great help right now. Begin to pray that they can get the funding to get the first licensed safe house for trafficking victims of the ground by Christmas and put 18 girls in a safe environment to recover from this horrific abuse.
• Pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us and show us how The Saint Bryce Foundation can collaborate with them in their work.

More Than Enough

Recently, in the days that the whole "Are You Mom Enough?" debate broke out, I confess that I regarded the whole thing with a bit of indifference.  My mind was already abuzz with its own justified indignation about motherhood and the media. And it was not about the infamous Time cover. It was about this article and the link I followed from Facebook to the Huffington post summation.

The condensed article focuses on the thirty best countries in which to be a mother, with only a passing mention of Niger, which is last on the list in terms of suitability for mothering.  The discussion that followed the article was all about how it seems implausible that the U.S. should rank 25^th in the statistics and what we should do to fix that.

I immediately wanted to know more about this survey and the other 116 countries that fell behind these top 30 in the rankings. Turns out the survey was actually conducted by Save the Children and its intent was not to turn another cog in the Mommy Wars wheel over whether Norwegian mothers with two years maternity leave are enjoying a better brand of motherhood than American mothers with minivans and soccer schedules.  Its purpose was to highlight the other 116 countries in less developed nations and the plight of mothers therein. But, it seemed to me anyway, no one was paying attention.

Then there was that blazing headline plastered everywhere, “Are You Mom Enough?”  I confess that I hardly glanced at the picture through my tiny cell phone internet screen and barely related the Dr. Sears headline I had seen mentioned online to that article until I began to see the responses of a few friends.

These two items and the life I am living tumbled around in my mind for a few days and I struggled to piece it all together. They tumbled and jumbled with my thoughts about the fact that when we left for this mission, I had a ticket home dated this week. A ticket home to welcome the third trimester of a much awaited pregnancy that ended abruptly four days before we left. They tumbled around with my growing anxiety about the impending date of my Bryce’s would-be third birthday. They mixed their way in with images of orphans and sick, hot babies strapped to their mommies’ backs while they walk for hours to secure provisions for their families.

And suddenly, I found myself very angry.  Angry at the very notion of “Are You Mom Enough?” whether it was pointing its ugly finger at attachment parenting or any other aspect of mothering.

The very idea that motherhood could be made into a competition is infuriating. But the bigger picture, the picture no one seemed to be seeing is that the very idea of parenting philosophies, of choices in motherhood that involve anything more than sheer survival are a luxury, a blessing afforded by relative affluence to mothers in developed cultures.

Tag that question onto these images of motherhood and feel its shallowness, feel the punch in your gut:

I have been pregnant three times in the last four years and I have no baby in my arms. No baby to choose to nurse and for how long. Am I mom enough?

The chance of becoming the mother of a dead baby in Niger, Africa is 1 in 1. Meaning that every woman who risks motherhood will eventually be the mother of at least one dead baby. Are they mom enough?

Last week, I invited an indigenous mother in out of the rain with her sweet baby girl. She was sick. She was wet. And she had been carried on her mother’s back for eight hours to town to receive money from a government fund that it turns out wasn’t available. That mother sat on my porch and nursed her wet, tired baby without reserve. Because she’s mom enough? Or because she needs to survive?

I rode the bus the other day with a mom whose baby had such bad cold and conjunctivitis that her upper eye lids were almost swollen shut. She struggled to nurse her in a hot, crowded bus with men standing over the top of her and her baby sweating profusely in her arms. She wanted to buy tamales from a man on the bus and was humiliated when she misunderstood how much they cost and did not have enough money to pay for them, so had to return them while her hungry toddler was reduced to tears at her side. Is she mom enough?

My friend who helps me in my house two days week asked me the other day if she could take three pencils from my children’s school supply box for her son. He has been in school for four months without a pencil to write with. She can’t read the notes that come home from school so doesn’t know if he needs anything else and she could not afford to buy it anyway. Is she mom enough?

I spent five days at an orphanage in Nicaragua with kids who are not really orphans at all but who have been turned over to this place by families who could not afford to feed them, care for them, educate them. I watched a mom come early one morning for her two teenaged daughters who have lived at the home all of their lives. She turned them over when her husband abandoned her and the children and she was unable to find work or a place for them to live. But every Saturday morning she gets up at 5 am and walks four hours to see them and, if there is enough food, to bring them home with her for the weekend. Because she’s mom enough?

And what about the “tias” who daily provide care for little girls who know no other way of life than living like this, in this home with other children who are not their brothers and sisters, cared for by people who are not their family. They rise at 6am to get little heads brushed and bodies dressed for school. They lead those babies to God’s Word as they feed them breakfast. They study with them and teach them life skills in the afternoons. They feed them and bathe them and sleep by their sides at night. And they love them. They love them so well. They fill these little lives with confidence and trust and openness. Are they mom enough?

The truth is, they are not. Sometimes, all that love is enough to replace what’s missing, what’s broken in these little lives and it results in the three children now studying together in a university in Managua. But sometimes it is not. Sometimes the brokenness is just too much to overcome.

Mothers will do their best all over the world to be mom enough tonight. And some of them will still hold a lifeless baby in their arms in morning. They will nurse a baby with each little whimper all night long and tuck that little one up next to them to sleep. And they will still wake to dirt floors and not enough food and babies whose intestines are filled with worms and parasites.  A mother will look into the eyes of her hungry baby and make the choice to hand it over to someone who may be able care for that little one better than her.  And she may never know if it was enough. 

The truth I think we would all do well to admit is that none of us is enough. No mothering style or parenting philosophy is enough to overcome the sin, the brokenness and the death that plagues humanity. Mothers have a special role in lessening that burden for the children they are gifted, but alone, they are not enough. As much as we love our babies, none of us, rich or poor, well or sick, capable or incapable, are enough to take the weight of our children’s brokenness on our shoulders, the weight of the children of the world, and be pierced through by their needs, nailed to the wood of a cross to save them from death. None of us can open to them the gates of the only place that will ever be enough, the only place they will ever know perfect love.

With that knowledge, we, the mothers, become clinging, needy little ones, grasping tight to the breast of our Savior and begging for His sustenance. We are not enough. But He is. And He knows the hearts of all these mothers all over the world struggling to be what these little ones need.  And He feeds them and loves them and binds up their wounds when we cannot.

There are moms all over the world who will never be enough. Never enough to fill their babies bellies, never enough to heal them from their illnesses, never enough to build them a warm house or buy them the books they need to learn. And yet they mother as best they can. And they need someone to tell them about the loving Savior who fills in where they cannot and makes all things new.  And the ones most well-equipped to do that are not the moms who are “mom enough”. They are the ones who know all too well that they are not enough, who know the sting of want and need and loss. 

I am not mom enough. Love as I might, I could not breathe life into these last three little ones my heart so longs to hold. As painful as it may be, I am grateful for that knowledge. Because every time I look into the eyes of a mother feeling the terrible weight of not being enough, I pray that they see in my brokenness the One who is enough.  Because He is waiting to rush in and be all that we, His little ones, needs.  He who more than enough, He who is everything.