The Velveteen Mom

     "Real isn't how you're made. It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, ... REALLY loves you then you become Real." 
     "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
     "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real, you don't mind being hurt."
     "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
     "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become.  It takes a long time.  That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been rubbed off, and your eyes drop off, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all because once you are Real, you can't be ugly except to people who don't understand."
                                                                     --Margery Williams,
                                                                        The Velveteen Rabbit

     Two children made me Real.  Two little souls who so absorbed me with their thoughts and needs and tears and wonder, that they made me forget myself. Bit by bit, my heart has been stretched and made roomy. And it's not just joy that I have been given, but an increased capacity for joy and every good thing.  Hour by hour, the Lord has used these lives to chisel away at selfishness, excessive ambition and the pursuit of praise from people, not God.

    This Love has filled me with the earnest desire to serve, teach, sing, cuddle, surprise, delight, but also to clash when it is for the best of the Beloved. This messy Love has been strengthened by lots of mistakes and lots of forgiveness, on both sides. The past 20 years have been filled with soaring joys, heartfelt tears, and, most of all,  a deep awareness of my own shortcomings and desperate need for my Savior -- who is always there. I am His, and I am Real.

     Yet, this chapter of my life could feel a little like the burn pile, where the Velveteen Rabbit found himself after the little boy's bout of scarlet fever had run its course. After treasured years of reading aloud, planning birthday bashes and academic paths, disciplining and training -- punctuated  by frequent prayers for wisdom as urgent as those of a soldier on the battlefield --  my services are no longer needed quite in the same way. Those two beautiful, remarkable children, who filled my days with so much laughter and purpose, are in college 1,200 miles away.  They are happy, like the little boy in the children's storybook excited about his adventure to the seaside. And there is great satisfaction in that.

     But I'm here. Without them. And when I look around my home with an honest eye, I see: peeling paint on the trim, cracked blacktop in the drive, rotten wood at the base of the patio supports. I look in the mirror and see that there's no longer any way to cover that tooth that so badly needs a dentist's touch. I look at the bank account and know that none of this is going to get fixed anytime soon. The money has and will continue to go toward keeping them far from me.

     "Does it hurt?" It does. I want to turn the clock back and have them all to myself again, hear those little saddlebacks slapping on the hardwood floor, touch Leah's one little golden curl that always stuck out to one side, see John put his head down and barrel out to his spot in left field, assist in one more party for the dog, sit in the audience of just one more impromptu variety show. I want to share every victory and setback, however small and seemingly insignificant.  I want to be near them, to know how they are doing, what they are interested in, minute by minute.  I want to be the one they need: "Mommy, come here!" "Mommy, help me draw this."  "Mom, where's my book?" "Mom, watch this with us."  It is all just memory mist, and I'm left with empty arms and aching heart.

     But I know that what the Skin Horse says is true. "When you are Real, you don't mind being hurt."  I'll take the pain if it means they will know You, prosper, shine for You. And I'll take the pain knowing that it's the only way to really know You myself.

     Because He has promises for Velveteen Moms, sweet soothing promises, so like the one from the nursery magic Fairy:

         "I take care of all ... that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don't need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real." 

       "Wasn't I Real before?" asked the little Rabbit

        "You were Real to the boy," the Fairy said, "because he loved you.  Now you shall be Real to every one." 

      ... He did not know that when the Fairy kissed him that last time, she had changed him altogether.

      Outwardly we waste away, subject to the curse and to the wear and tear of Genuine Love.  But He promises that we will have new, resurrected bodies, an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison -- and I suspect that these will be most beautiful precisely where we have neglected our lowly bodies in order to sacrifice for others (just as Jesus' scars are surely the most beautiful part of His resurrected body). More importantly, our ability to enjoy Jesus, our taste for Him, will be exponentially enhanced forever by every heartache He has chosen for us to bear, heartaches that echo in some small way a facet of His heartbreaking Love for us.

"Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." (II Corinthians 4:16-18)

"Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears  we shall be like him, because we shall see him as He is."  (I John 3:1-3)


       
     



  
     
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Tears of Sorrow ... and Thanksgiving

      I sat with my patient husband and grieved.  My heart ached, and I hadn't seen it coming.  Having them home for the first time since August, these two freshly grown young adults, had flooded my heart with emotions of gratitude and wonder -- the same feelings I'd experienced in the delivery room 20 years earlier. I still cannot believe that the Lord entrusted me with these two precious beings, made in His image.  But when they left again tonight, after only four days at home, it felt like more than I could bear. To have them, to love them so, and then for it to be over. To be without them. Again. The pain, so real, demands to be acknowledged, accepted -- and finally, reluctantly, embraced as the price of all the joy that has been my life for the past 20 years.  I wouldn't change any of it. If I had not enjoyed my children so thoroughly and poured into them so fervently, I wouldn't feel this huge gaping hole in my chest. Thank you, God, for every single minute. And I trust You to use this pain for your good purpose, whatever that may be.

Family Promises

"You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name." (Psalm 61:5)

This past week, I tore my heart out and left it in the middle of New York City. Both of my children will be attending The King's College there. The pain is overwhelming at times, but the Lord has been good to remind me that this is what we have been working toward. By God's grace, they have been well-prepared, and this school is the next logical step in their spiritual and emotional growth. They will be taught even more explicitly what we have attempted in our flawed way to pass on: Don't just recognize and resent sin; fight it wherever you see it, in yourself and in the world.

The last I saw of John, our little Schmoo, he was walking down the stairs into a subway station. That was a hard goodbye. The last we saw of Leah, our sunny Le-Le Bird, she was waving from halfway behind her apartment door, eager to bond more with her roommate. That was a hard goodbye.

And yet, I know that have delivered them to trusted "family." This college is run by those who fear the name of the Lord and who understand that pleasing Him is what matters. I thank you, Lord, that this is my family too and that You are our Father. You have promised all of your children: "I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will never stop doing good to them, and I wil inspire them to fear me so that they will never turn away from me." (Jer. 32:40)

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Spurgeon on Wisdom

"He that handleth a matter wisely shall find good: and whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he."Proverbs 16:20

      Wisdom is man's true strength; and, under its guidance, he best accomplishes the ends of his being. Wisely handling the matter of life gives to man the richest enjoyment, and presents the noblest occupation for his powers; hence by it he finds good in the fullest sense. Without wisdom, man is as the wild ass's colt, running hither and thither, wasting strength which might be profitably employed. Wisdom is the compass by which man is to steer across the trackless waste of life; without it he is a derelict vessel, the sport of winds and waves. A man must be prudent in such a world as this, or he will find no good, but be betrayed into unnumbered ills. The pilgrim will sorely wound his feet among the briers of the wood of life if he do not pick his steps with the utmost caution. He who is in a wilderness infested with robber bands must handle matters wisely if he would journey safely. If, trained by the Great Teacher, we follow where he leads, we shall find good, even while in this dark abode; there are celestial fruits to be gathered this side of Eden's bowers, and songs of paradise to be sung amid the groves of earth. But where shall this wisdom be found? Many have dreamed of it, but have not possessed it. Where shall we learn it? Let us listen to the voice of the Lord, for he hath declared the secret; he hath revealed to the sons of men wherein true wisdom lieth, and we have it in the text, "Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he." The true way to handle a matter wisely is to trust in the Lord. This is the sure clue to the most intricate labyrinths of life; follow it and find eternal bliss. He who trusts in the Lord has a diploma for wisdom granted by inspiration: happy is he now, and happier shall he be above. Lord, in this sweet eventide walk with me in the garden, and teach me the wisdom of faith.