(I wrote most of this post in May, but was drawn back to it today. I'm still unsure if I will continue blogging. I'm having trouble making these words not about me and there's so many other useful things that people could be reading. If it has mattered to you whether or not I post, thanks for your grace in my silence.)

In May, around the time of our last goodbye, the bloodroot flashed it fragile flowers in a space of three days and now the last forsythia blooms waved goodbye to me from behind the garage. The apple tree blossomed all in one day last week, welcoming the Orioles to dine, and quickly the its petals were knocked to the ground by the indifference of rain, and wind, and gravity. It rained white all in one day and I paused a long time looking.

Spring has a way of putting things into perspective. The colors are there for a day, a week, a month and then they die away. We just have a small window of time to delight over them. And when I say 'delight,' I'm not really sure what I mean. I sigh and praise Jesus. How do you really 'live' in the present; how do you take it in and make it part of you? Aren't you always just carried along to the next moment with small, sometimes useless, mementos and a longing to return? I take photos and beg my brain to remember, but it never feels the same.

My Graeme was a spring flower, come and gone in a season. Sunshine and shadows, smiles and pain. I stumbled through the short years, partially blind to the great drama unfolding around me: now angry, now grateful, now confused. Many days I was weary and numb, forced to swallow the reality of life and death and suffering in huge doses. Sometimes I was blessed to tears by a simple walk, or shared meal, or that flashing smile that always surprised me.

And though it all still feels like a train wreck, from my autumn-filled window I see that the true beauty of the flowers and the apple tree is still there, changing and waiting. The life of the forsythia and the bloodroot lie hidden behind dying leaves, brown stems, and dark earth.  And though his body, too, lies under dying leaves and dark earth, Graeme's real life now lies hidden in Christ, who is the Eternal Spring to this death-filled life. 


May my hope not be hidden: Christ, who died, is risen. The fruit of my trial will be praise.

Death Comes First

I sat down low to pray, though I am no saint. I went there in grudging obedience, empty of sincere expectation. But God speaks to the grudging and hopeless. He said (again), "present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service; do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed..."

And He said let go. Let go. Let go.

I don't want to let go.

And the days pass by, one after another. The seasons change three times. I've had no time turn, no time to be different. I and see the poor choices every day, piling up around me. I've chosen to rely on myself, to fear and to strive. And the joy seeps out of the walls of this house and everyone is grasping for what they want and I run away in my mind, living in the world of thoughts and intentions again.

I find this little furrowed brow in every room. This one with the grumpy face, the other with the grumpy spirit. Here's two small boys that need me to lead them gently to that place where they can hear that Voice, too saying, "present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service; do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed..."

And here the marriage and the home. My works will not praise me in the gates. Rubies? Let's just say that my worth might be slightly above a bucket of rocks. I may not be like a constant dripping on a rainy day, but I am not sunshine either. Sleepless at night, considering all that I have failed to do or say, I hear it again, "present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service; do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed..."

I slowly lay down the season of books and study and see the mess I made. I was asked to steward this: these boys, this family, this home and in the midst of it all to abide, abide, abide. But I abandoned this holy call to follow other things: reading and teaching and being important and feeling recognized.

It's true that I was confused when I made the choice to wander. Didn't He also say, "Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them...?" The books and the words and the flow of learning these are stuck deep, deep down in me, all twisted into who I am. And all the mama stuff, the washing and scrubbing of hearts and floors, seems to me ill-fitting and itchy. It's difficult to say 'no' to what feels right. But confusion and difficulty are excuses only, silly justification for propping up tipping idols.

It's true that I long to teach and to learn. C.S. Lewis said, "the love of knowledge is a kind of madness." I feel that madness racing through me always. I want to know and discover and understand. And the madness itself is not evil. Didn't the Lord say that He could be seen, "being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead?" (Rom. 1:20) But I have not been content to see Him and understand Him in the space He has chosen for me and in His timing. Ever reluctant, my roles have felt to me too constrictive and small. How can I be what I was created to be in this little space? It seems like I have to give up who I really am to walk this path...

"present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service; do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed..." (Rom. 12:1)

Let go. Let go. Let go.

I think of Jesus there in the grave, presented as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God...

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death...

We are... always carrying in the body the death of Jesus...

For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake...

And fragile and beautiful hope springs up. The resurrection is coming.

...in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom. 6:4)

...so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (2 Cor. 4:10)

...that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Cor. 4:11)