I miss hearing the breakfast bell at 7, lunch at 12:30, dinner at 5:30...a schedule burned into our days and children and a daily reminder that we are never alone...we all rise and eat and fall together.
I miss deliberate and set apart corporate worship, Monday, Wednesday, Friday...the rich, strong voices of our family in Christ, brothers and sisters--the Haitian Creole Hymns, Chants d'Esperance-- we've learned and loved and danced through for over a decade.
I miss the ease of community...taking our evening walks after dinner and mingling with beloved students, setting out to find Sofie and Lily and finding them braiding hair in the women's dorm, wondering about a friend and heading out the gate to their home.
I miss our visitors, sometimes hundreds a year, many every year, eating around our table, rich conversation, wide-eyed children listening to all the stories, theological debates, all the secrets I've learned over the years of favorite pies to always be made for future visits, how you take your coffee, hilarious stories and memories and dreams we've shared over rice and beans.
I miss the quieter, dark house at night, praying over my children in their handmade beds, praying over our campus and students after the dorms are dark, dogs and crickets loud and calming...even the voodoo drums so often pounding in the dark hours lulling us instead of into fear, into sleep...Our God not one to be conjured, but ever-present and powerful and full, and transforming.
I miss Gertha and Micheline, in a hundred ways, daily...their quiet, steady love over our children. Their faithful friendship and patience. Their continually convicting dependence upon the Father, and simple, mighty faith. I miss eating together, praying together, talking together, living life together, every. single. day.
This neighborhood we never met but moved into anyway has God's hand on it...unmistakable. The three houses that encircle us are all lovely elderly people. Today Lily, Sofie, Ms. Carol and Poor Ed weeded their flowers and snuggled with big, black Mr. Kitty and yesterday they brought us BlueBell ice cream without knowing it's power :) Our recently widowed Lady Jane is so alone and loves the Lord and every moment listening to her southern drawl is something to cherish. Mr. Henry and Mrs. Mary Jane and Matt stood in the yard for over an hour this afternoon as he placed bottles of Haitian vanilla in their hands, and I felt rich watching them. They all needed someone-s young next door and in their lives (and we don't keep to ourselves, this crew) and I am thankful to be surrounded by their wisdom and patience.
At five the neighborhood kids all come out from further down the street, and Lily and Sofie and Nora are in heaven, organizing clubs and sharing snake-skin and learning names and racing bikes and coming home late for dinner, breathless and chattering a mile a minute. Matt and I have met some just beautiful and helpful and kind families, families who will be friends, and our evening walks carry on...but look SO different under the magnolias.
The Wesley community has brought us sheets and pie and jam and dinner and texts and checks and hand drawn kid cards and we are rich in being loved without being known...what a precious gift.
At night, I sit in a different room, now, on the floor until we get a chair, and talk, pray and read over my children. The days are often crazy and rushed, but our evening routine is molasses...their hearts are transparent and their thoughts many...it is the richest time of the day to listen and to point to Jesus.
By coincidence, but not, the book we are reading for school at bedtime is Inside Out and Back Again, a powerful story of a ten year old refugee, torn away from the warmth and beauty of home and her very own papaya tree in Vietnam and thrust into a year of change, grief and healing in America, "as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next."
Tonight we read what very little she and her brothers were able to take, what precious and priceless things they left behind, and suddenly we were all crying.
We see her, suddenly where we were only a few short weeks ago, so abruptly, so complicated, so agonizing, the ripping. I listen as the girls evaluate the heroine's choices and contemplate their own choices, as they discuss the things they could not bring and wish they could have...Granny...the dog...the sound of the student's singing...the caribbean flowers in the yard...the happy, crowded dinners with old friends, over and over...their precious buddies next door.
Then Sofie says something that meets me anew.
"She is still in the middle, Mom," she notes about the heroine, Hà. "We were in the middle that day we woke up and you told us we had to leave in two hours."
"And at Grandpa's!" Lily adds. "And in Atlanta."
"She's still in the middle," Sofie continues, "Where we were. But now we're on the second part."
"We're starting the second part," Lily corrects again. "We're still in the middle, but we're trying to start the second part of our lives."
In the middle summed it all up for me.
Missing so much that it hurts, and threatens to discolor all that should be good and rich and grateful.
In the middle is my heart, fighting each day to be so thankful for so much of His faithfulness -- from the good ministry Matt and the team at Wesley are already diving full into, to the good ministry happening today in Haiti because God allowed and empowered so much these years -- and yet struggling with homesickness and missing...and then so frustrated that I am.
In the middle is mama, grateful and guilty over a dishwasher, both. Grateful and guilty over a safe and lovely home, at the same time. Grateful and guilty over good medical care near-by for Sofie's agonizing toothache, and not for Guesica's agonizing leg and blood clot, all at the same moment.
In the middle am I, standing in the depths of SuperWalmart today trying to get 11 specific things, only to find myself surrounded by hundred of panicked, masked strangers, totally incapable of finding the 11 things, and when I did find one of them, completely overwhelmed by the 72 varieties of the thing to choose from.
In the middle, grateful for the first time in 13 years to be able to choose foods for my family...for recipes 13 years impossible suddenly made easy...and yet struggling so much in the face of so easy....and so frustrated over that fact.
Such grace I have for little Hà's mother, totally torn in a million directions outside of her control, and yet doing her very bleeding best...yet how I struggle to find grace for myself.
When my sister was battling for our little Mayah last year, living one life at home with three under four and one life in the NICU for three months on end, her very best was never enough, and she told me about a song that was speaking life to her, in the middle.
When Sofie spoke it's title tonight, I remembered and found some peace.
For where is God, if not in the middle, friends?
Where was He, if not in the middle of the storm with his men..where was He, if not in the middle of Mary and Martha's suffering. Where was He, if not in the middle of our pasts and presents and futures, all?
I have never debated this: that regardless, forever, unwavering, unending, without borders, unconditional...God IS in the middle.
I just didn't realize that I was there, too
and I guess that means He'll find me.
Fearless warriors in a picket fence,
reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end and
we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences,
the God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His or
are we caught in the middle
Somewhere between my heart and my hands
Somewhere between my faith and my plans
Somewhere between the safety of the boat
and the crashing waves
and the crashing waves
Somewhere between a whisper and a roar
Somewhere between the altar and the door
Somewhere between contented peace
and always wanting more
and always wanting more
Somewhere in the middle You'll find me
Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control
Lord, I feel You in this place and I know You're by my side
Loving me even on these nights when I'm caught in the middle
Casting Crowns
Casting Crowns
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