Imagine

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“How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.” ~ G.K. Chesterton

{Another post for Five Minute Friday even though, lets be honest, it’s not Friday anymore and I always take longer than five minutes.}

My five year old sat on the couch with me this afternoon in a post nap haze, her sweaty curls smelling of shampoo and play and a little bit of chlorine.

She was uncharacteristically quiet and I asked her what she was thinking about.

“Oh I was just imagining what it would be like if I could start my life over.”

Whoa.

First, she is me and I am my mother. The waters run deep and wonder far.

Second, I too have been imagining. Not that I could start my life over … this is a far better life I’ve been given than I could ever imagine.

No, I’ve been imagining that maybe I could do more in the life that I have.

That my sort-of-creaky, always-impatient, swift-spinning hamster wheel of  feedthemsomethingreadbookslaundrysneakinanaphalfheartedlymopthefloorsgotothepoolgrocerystorelibrarykissbooboos is not enough.

That my small beginnings are nonstarters. 

That somehow I’m missing a bigger purpose, that I’m myopic, narrow, pedestrian. That I should be working for a Cause, that there is … just … more. 

I have friends who fight sex traffickers and raise money for adoptive parents and fight for special needs children and homeschool a million children at once {too many of these friends to link to} and live in the Congo and … you get the picture. {Again … all amazing … it’s a good jealous, I promise.}

And I want to live Psalm 82:3. 

And then … AND THEN … I look around and I know at 37 weeks pregnant and in miserable pain, that God is calling me to be right here. In the thick of it. And there’s bread in the oven and my floors are clean-ish and the laundry is folded clean and my kids watched less tv today and I didn’t yell at them and we did make it to the pool {and I did sneak in a nap} and I am just pretending like I can’t see the dog hair pooling by the bookshelves.

And those things I just accomplished are Everest goals of mine these days and “more” is elusive, because it is not enough, because it is not mine. 

My purpose is gigantic, it’s here in the small beginnings and the routines and the snuggles …  and my heart is here.

And maybe I will imagine a day in the distant future that doesn’t involve slap fights in the grocery store and will involve a Cause but I will LIVE in this day and admire my clean-ish floors and read a few more books to the tornadoes who run this town and pat myself on the back because even if Second Son came tomorrow, I wouldn’t be embarrassed to let you in with your awesome freezer meals.

And I didn’t yell at my kids.

Maybe I will use less run on sentences though. But probably not.

~M

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Memorial Day … How Great A Debt.

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It’s the day after Memorial Day. {I am a wee bit late … it’s been tough going on the pregnant front these days.} But I do have something to say …

It’s profoundly personal for me. I have written about Jaime here, here, and here. Please, I would love for you to know her {the J Girl is named for her.}

But here, I just want to say this.

My great-great-great grandfather was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War. Recently, a stack of letters written by him to his family was found in a dusty attic in North Carolina.

In his last letter, thought to be written to his parents and penned six days prior to the end of the War, he wrote the following:

“I can hardly keep from shedding tears to think of giving up this plot of country after having defended it so long. So much blood has been shed in defending it. Our country is in deep mourning for the blood shed round this city. Is it all in vain?”

On the opposite side of the same conflict, in a letter written to his wife on the eve of the battle of Bull Run, Major Sullivan Ballou wrote the following …

“I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt . . .”

He died a week later.

Both men fought hard for what they believed in.

And I look at the flag all bleeding red and glowing white, I see it draped over coffins lined up in the belly of industrial aircraft, I still see it in my dreams through the veil of tears I wore on a difficult day in January of 2006, and I know my own bleeding heart for the ones I love who died fighting … No, it is not in vain.

This currency of lives and loves lost and sacrifice … it can never be forgotten, devalued. 

1.3 million plus American service men and women have paid with their lives since the birth of this country. We are, we should be a Gold Star nation at heart, built on the backs of sacrifice, courage, and conviction. 

Not perfect, far from perfect. But still, still worth fighting for.

Never forget. 

~M.

The View

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Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells, and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine; let me find Thy light in my darkness, Thy life in my death, Thy joy in my sorrow, Thy grace in my sin, Thy riches in my poverty, Thy glory in my valley. ~ From The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers. 

I have seen His glory in the valleys. I have fixated on shining stars from the depths of more than one well. This story of ours is messy and hard and continuing.

And grace overflows and joy comes in the morning and always He provides for us and I see it. I truly do.

But today, today it seems I am challenged more than I ever have been to see the hope, the glory, the grace in someone else’s story.

Tears are pouring from the depths of my heart for this dear one whom I love so much and Lord, I want to believe it, but entrusting her pain to You is proving to be infinitely harder than relinquishing mine.

And I know the wind is boisterous … but her eyes are fixed on Him and the temptation is to sink, but instead we cry out “Lord save me!”

And He does. 

And I sing praise to a merciful Father who comforts her even as I wrestle.

Surely God is good through each weary step through the lowest of valleys, and the end of the journey has already been written in the blood of a Savior on a rough hewn cross. 

And this precious loved one sent me this in the middle of the fight of her life … “Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead … the prize is so much greater than anything I can have on this earth.”

The view from the well is daunting. But the stars … oh the stars. 

~M.

{Part of Five MInute Fridays with the Gypsy Mama}.

So You Think You Can Dance … {Why I am in tears tonight}.

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I know I am a day late. That’s what the DVR is for.

So, in case you didn’t notice, this is {sort of} about So You Think You Can Dance.

The show.

That I watch unapologetically and cry over at least once a week. Twice, tonight, in fact.

Now, usually I don’t write about it. But a young man said something profound, something that resonated all the way down to my thirty-three year old, decidedly suburban, and very nonrhythmic toes.

I wanted to share it.

This is Shane Garcia. He dances. {Spoiler … he’s really good.} He also stutters. And in this video, he tells the world why he dances …

To speak freely.

This. A million times. This is why I write. To speak freely, to take my moments, my magic, and His grace and paint you a thousand pictures.

To be an artist. {A successful artist is another matter entirely … to be always upside down}. 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn had this to say about art in his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech …

Archaeologists have not discovered stages of human existence so early that they were without art. Right back in the early morning twilights of mankind we received it from Hands which we were too slow to discern. And we were too slow to ask: FOR WHAT PURPOSE have we been given this gift? What are we to do with it?

And they were mistaken, and will always be mistaken, who prophesy that art will disintegrate, that it will outlive its forms and die. It is we who shall die – art will remain. And shall we comprehend, even on the day of our destruction, all its facets and all its possibilities?

Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words. Art inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to a high spiritual experience. Through art we are sometimes visited – dimly, briefly – by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking.

Like that little looking-glass from the fairy-tales: look into it and you will see – not yourself – but for one second, the Inaccessible, whither no man can ride, no man fly. And only the soul gives a groan …

 

Beloved, find what makes you speak freely, shout it from the rooftops. Join me there. Own all the messy imperfections of your heart’s cry … Peek, just for one moment, at the Inaccessible. 

Speak freely.

~M.

Also bonus … this is the other reason I cried. Don’t judge me. {Skip ahead to two minute mark.}

Just listen to the little girl tell Nigel why she likes dancing with her mother. *tears. 

 

Date Night … {and Second Son’s Name}.

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Breaking news y’all. We went on a date a month ago.

And now, weeks later, I want to tell you about the night I really truly fell in love with this wee babe in my belly. Not just the idea of him, but the reality of him.

Also, I want to tell you his name.

First, our date.

A cooking class in Nashville, followed by a very rare night out on the town … which for us, ends at midnight, right around the time all the young folk are venturing out into the streets. But I digress.

{Backstory … we love live music, and we especially love live music flowing from tiny stages in hole-in-the-wall establishments. And we especially love Texas country music, even though this is Tennessee. So there’s that.}

We ended up in a sort-of-dive, the Fiddle and Steel Guitar bar, where you {the collective you} can still smoke {sorry, unborn babe} and the guitar player, who appears to be on death’s door from excessive and enthusiastic drug use, is displaying otherworldly talent. The scruffy not-quite-young-anymore lead singer sings a steady, standard menu of old and new country and the Husband, who has just informed me that I married a redneck {like I didn’t know}, comes alive at the sound of George Strait rollicking from the speakers. And I, I am enthralled by the sight of a seventy-ish elderly gentleman in creased wranglers, starched white button down, and ten gallon stetson squiring much younger ladies around the postage stamp of a dance floor.

At some point in the evening, I am maneuvering my pregnant self to the bathroom, trying to downplay the size of my big ole’ belly in a bar.

To enter the bathroom I have to step up and duck down at the same time. The ceiling slopes and the stall door is a faded shower curtain hanging listlessly. There is a line, {of course} and at least one double take as a more-than-slightly-impaired-but-still-very-sweet lady takes in the baby bump and proceeds to coo over my unborn son. While I wait in line, watching my belly in the wavy mirror … a profound change takes place.

He is jumping around this night, he’s nocturnal anyway {plus he is feeling the music}, and something, the wave of my belly, the feet tap dancing outward, his wee hiccups … the enthusiastic movement of my Second Son … suddenly tears are flowing in the dimly-lit bathroom.

Let me back-up. For me, having two miscarriages profoundly changes the emotions that range throughout a pregnancy.

In the first weeks, I am fearful, hesitant to plan, to enjoy, the coming of a new babe. {Plus I am miserable}. There is joy, but it is tentative at best. After the first trimester, I breath deep relief, the fear fades … almost. My joy is building at the idea of a new wee one but he is nameless, faceless, still distant. I keep up barriers, even as he attempts to kick them down, protecting my heart against loss, more grief.

Twenty weeks … ultrasounds are normal, breath deep. Twenty six weeks … he could live now, breath deeper. I may even start nesting now.

And then, in a dingy bathroom, somewhere around thirty weeks, faith all the way replaces fear. And I rejoice at the coming of him, my son, and the reality of his presence crescendoes joy and springs tears and I am unafraid. 

{Now I REALLY start nesting}.

And so, officially, his name is John Quinton Huggins, to be called Jack, {already referred to as Baby Jack around our home and hereafter known as Second Son in this space}

John {“God is gracious”} is a Maddox family name, carried proudly by his great grandfather, {John Robert Maddox} a career soldier who served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. A far from perfect man, but he served his country, his wife and ultimately his God the best way he knew how. My brother, {John Andrew Maddox} also a veteran, bears the name as well, and is too, a man I am proud to know and love. {Also, it’s our Bible name}.

Quinton {Fifth} is a Huggins family name that ranges many generations back, originating in Ireland. His great-great grandmother {Annie Love Quinton Huggins}, great-grandfather {Fred Quinton Huggins}, grandfather {Mark Quinton Huggins}, and again, his uncle {Matthew Quinton Huggins} bear the Quinton name. This name is especially poignant to me … he is our Fifth child, and so in bearing that number, we remember our babes heavenward. In addition, the legacy born by these family men and women is no small thing. My father-in-law wrote the following of his grandmother, Ms. Annie Love: “…The whole span of her life in which you knew her was strikingly outstanding in its simplicity, its basic goodness, and in her complete devotion to her loved ones.” Her son Fred was, like my grandfather, a career soldier {and Army Air Corps crew member} who earned the Silver Star in WWII and endured months of captivity for his bravery. We are honored, and grateful to be a part of this dear family.

Make no mistake, we want this Second Son of ours to love and serve the Lord on his own journey … but to carry with him the hearts, the histories that beat with his own, so tailor-made to fit in ours. 

So yes, I am really truly all the way in love with Mr. John Quinton Huggins {Jack}, who needs to hurry up and come out because my back is really hurting now.

~M.

{It’s late, but I’ll dig up some family pictures for fun soon and update this post}.