Martha, Martha, even more than last time.

Hate writing about this; hate saying I can't stop myself.

We had a rotten fall here this past year. We lost two beloved sisters in Christ. Both losses were suffocatingly difficult, although in different ways. Both sisters had cancer.

As the day was surely drawing nigh for each, and with cruel proximity to each other, I found myself begging our Lord with even greater than usual fervor that He would come with clouds descending; that Bonnie and Jen would be raised from their sickbeds and gaze with us on His glorious scars.

Why? Why did I keep praying this? I was embarrassed to admit the answer. I didn't want either of them to die. O death, where is thy sting? And yet, 

at some point it is realized or admitted that a sick person just can't get well outside of extremely miraculous intervention. Anyone who has seen someone travel this awful road knows that although God can certainly bring about any miracle, He has made no such promise. In the absence of the miracle, the main thing we want for the suffering person is peace in Christ, comfort, and freedom from pain. Though we pray for the miracle, we must also pray as those who know that miracle is not promised.

I didn't want my sisters to have to die. I did not want them to pass into that black and stinking maw. I wanted the ultimate Deus ex machina for them and all of us.

"Lord, if you hadst been here, my brother had not died."

"Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. "

Bless this mess.

Well, the thinkable happened. Our dear, dear, dear and only organist went home forever in September and my heart is still broken. Also we don't have an organist any more.

Except.

No, really, we don't. But after Dad has begged everyone for miles around, I'm the person he comes home to. So I have to play this Sunday and now my stomach is also broken. I can manage the service um, serviceably, in a room with a piano by myself. If I hear my neighbor's car door, not only my fingers but also my elbows and shoulders and intestines turn to spaghetti. Never was a show more unready for the road, much less the house of Almighty God. Kyrie eleison. (At least that one's easy--and yet I can screw it up! :P )

More than enough about me. The point is that as I practice and practice and practice, all the while thinking miserably of my brothers and sisters here whose ears I will soon offend so grievously* and in such malapropos surroundings, my only comfort is that they ARE my brothers and sisters. Our parish is a family not in some feel-good spiritual metaphor. Behold, I tell you no mystery: we put up with each other's cooking and eat the leftovers until they're gone. When it's someone else's turn to clean, we let them do it their way even though they do it all wrong. We work like maniacs at screwy schemes to generate some cash and keep this operation operational. We make sure no one else could use something we'd rather just throw away, and we do our best to wear hand-me-downs with more thanks than pickiness. We put up with that awful racket because she's the only fake organist we've got and, who knows, maybe she'll get better if she keeps at it? Everyone is always invited, the bratty kids and the jerk chicks and the crazy dudes and the grumbly grandmas, because this place is our Father's house and our home. Smile for the camera, everybody.

Oh I miss Bonnie so much.

*this is not fake modesty here. I am truly terrible, and I feel truly terrible about it. :(

Expert opinion

Here you may read a graciously sympathetic post from the Anchoress, who kindly takes the time to consider what the life of a mother of many young children is really like, and a vision for a program of care to such mothers. Also included is this link to a writing from a Roman Catholic mother who is upfront about a hard fact of perpetual parturition: it places extreme demands on a marriage (NFP or not), even a strong marriage, even a strong marriage between two people equally convicted about the catholic teaching on marriage. The writer told her husband,

The worst part is, I blame the Church. I blame the ban on birth control, the fact that NFP doesn’t work for us, the reality that I will never, ever have a chance to get a handle on things because I’m constantly pregnant or nursing. I can’t crawl out from under the pregnancy-and-postpartum rock because the rock follows me everywhere, just waiting to smash me again. Intellectually, I believe the Church. I understand the arguments against birth control. I agree with them, even. I just no longer think I’m a good enough person to follow the rules.

There are many reasons people use contraception, and no one understands them better than people who don't. I have no use for the faux-debaters who will bellow forever about binding consciences, the first and last refuge of the lazy Lutheran. The loyal opposition I DO respect is comprised of those who are honest enough to say: "The church might really be right about that, but we just can't do it. It's too hard." They're right. It IS too hard. :P

The Anchoress' vision is unlikely to become a systemic reality anywhere. It may happen in individual Roman Catholic parishes where someone with a "heart for that ministry" undertakes it. Much less will it happen in our Synod where anybody with more than four kids is a caricatured joke, the lowest of the evangelists and the blandest of persons. The Republican Party at Prayer will never stop secretly wanting us all to be Michele Bachmann (physically attractive, kid count in the high-reasonables, bonus good-personism, successful career, and of course "conservative"). I can only be thankful for the dear people in my parish who are kind to me and help me as they are able simply because we are sisters in Christ, not because they share an interest in my personal pious cause. Developing a fantasy about some kind of formal support system serves merely to depress; my recommendation is don't bother.

BUT--I will remember what this is like. When these years end for me, I will try to be the loving presence; the listening, understanding, forgiving ear; the willing hands for any young mother who needs them so much, who is so disrespected and alone, beginning with the mothers of any grandchildren God should see fit to grant me.

When we seek relief

Of all the freedoms the mother of very young children surrenders, perhaps the most emptying is the freedom to grieve. A baby's smile must be returned. A toddler's manic, violent adoration must be reciprocated. They cannot understand another's sadness. A mother cannot close her door and bawl out her sorrow, scream at it or sleep it away. Is mourning selfish? Is even this another avarice of which she must be purged? Grief denied; who could imagine such a thing?

It's not OK, but that's OK

I’ve felt very loose-endish lately. Waiting on a baby, especially when your last baby was early and you’re already in that territory, can do that to a body. Anyway. I insomniacally picked up a book from a pile that had recently arrived at our address (you all know about AbeBooks, right?), muttering to my longsuffering husband about the appropriateness of its subtitle: “Weary? Can’t get it right? Struggling to make life work?” Now that I’m all of 30some pages into Larry Crabb’s The Pressure’s Off, I’m not exactly positioned to write a review or a recommendation, but those introductory pages did help with the muttering a bit ;O.

(Aside: Crabb has a penchant for Capitalized Phrases, but I find myself mostly willing to construe it as idiosyncratic rather than annoying.)

Here’s how Crabb defines the main problem he’s addressing in this book:

Most evangelicals properly reject the teachings commonly known as the prosperity gospel or the health-and-wealth gospel….But sometimes we smuggle our own version of that idea into our understanding of the Christian life. Though we deplore the idea that health and wealth are available on demand, we like the idea that legitimate blessings are given to those who meet the requirements. The Bible says so….(Deut. 29:9)…We want the good life. We may define it more spiritually…..But we still maintain that the good life of legitimate blessings is a worthy goal and one that may be reached by living a faithful life of obedience to biblical principles.

Crabb refers to this more subtle sinkhole as the Law of Linearity (if I do A, then B will follow). We find ourselves trying to follow Biblical principles in order to obtain the Better Life of Blessings, when what we really should be pursuing is the New and Living Way, the Better Hope (Hebrews 7:18-19) of intimacy with God no matter our life’s circumstances. (You see what I mean about the Capitalized Phrases.)

This Law of Linearity thing is a potentially ruinous guilt trap for Christian parents, who are well drilled in the Biblical proverbials of parenting (train up a child in the way he should go, and all that). One of the most simultaneously frustrating and freeing realizations about parenting is that beyond a certain point (which varies with each child’s personality and age), we have little to no control over our children’s actions, particularly in public. This becomes exponentially more true with each additional child, and with, shall we say, certain children.

 Because you can only get so far with a whistle.

 

How quickly I fall into the despairing cycle: It’s not working. Why can’t I get everything, or even anything, going in the right direction? What am I doing wrong? It’s! Not! Working! I have wasted too many moments second-guessing.  But…after all, if I’m doing A like the Christian parenting books say, then shouldn’t B be happening, at least some of the time?

No. B does not necessarily follow even the most diligent A-ing. There is some value in (some) parenting books. Appropriate A-ing should be pursued. But! When B does not follow, the cry of a mother’s heart should not be (or should not primarily be) for the Better Life: “Why, Lord? What am I doing wrong? Show me how to make it work!” Plead rather for the Better Hope: “Please, Lord. With this gift of your very life’s blood, pour into me the strength to continue pouring myself out. Enlarge my heart, that the life-giving transfusion may not be wasted through selfishly narrowed arteries. Teach me to live daily the difference of that cleansing flood, the difference between hard and hopeless, invisible to all but the eyes of faith. God grant me eyes of faith!”

                                 

Things might not seem to be working right now. Truly, why would we expect them to? And where better to learn to desire the Giver above the gifts, than in the place where the gifts are stripped away? And in the time when crutches are knocked out, replaced with cross?  

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Fallen

Disclaimer 1: I don't want to come off all First Girl Ever To Learn [Greek] here, so let me say upfront that the basic fact I present below came to my attention via the very much English Concordia Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which I was reading for a thoroughly  non-erudite reason with which I will not bore you.


Disclaimer 2: I hesitate to address this as one who has graciously been spared the heartbreak of losing a baby without having seen his face. But experience is neither equalizer nor guarantor of consensus, and every woman who has carried a child or hoped to knows the dread of this shadow.





I ponder endlessly the sadness of my friends who have endured a miscarriage, particularly the sentiment expressed by my dear Reb. Mary:  "'Miscarry. Mis-carry. Like, “Whoops! I dropped the baby! Next time I’m carrying a baby I really should try to be more careful!'" Ah, friend. :'(

Ecclesiastes 6, Job 3, and Psalm 58 speak of a miscarried or stillborn child, but not in the way we speak of him. For where we call him "miscarried," which so many mothers I know cannot but understand to place the blame particularly with themselves, the Hebrews use the simple word nephel, "fallen."

No special term for it, and no fault beyond that which we all bear. Fallen like every last one of us.

I will hope

As a certain husband of mine has had occasion to remind me, there is a difference between Hard and Hopeless.

Are God’s promises true? Of course that husband is right. Hope is always ours, objectively. And yet, and yet... As I have had occasion to remind a certain husband, things can sure get to feeling Hopeless.

Hard is when one knows the right path, and must press through the wearying chances and changes along the way. Hard is when Mom has to be cool and consistent in disciplining, in discipling, when the infraction is egregious and repeated and what she really really desperately needs is a nap, or just five minutes with no one clamoring about her knees. Hard is when everyone’s fighting and crying and the baby won’t nap and there’s nothing in the freezer for supper. Hard is when everyone’s sick but the laundry still has to be done and someone has to get to the pharmacy and the grocery store. That is Hard, and every person who’s found her way here can supply a zillion everyday examples. (Every day is a large part of why Hard is Hard.)

Hopeless is when everything has been tried, repeatedly, and nothing seems to be working—even accounting for the long-range perspective of results in this grand childrearing project not being immediate. Hopeless is when one can’t seem to get the household, the education, the discipline, into anything resembling functional order, and not for lack of trying. Hopeless is when it seems that solutions simply don’t exist, no matter how much effort is expended. From Hopeless, Hard looks easy (though it is not). Hard is Hard, but solutions can be found and applied, through gritted teeth and various degrees of travailing.

There are many roads to Hopeless, and I’ve been down a couple of them myself. I daresay that most of us have traveled at least partway there, however briefly, at some point. What do you do when you are gifted with a Challenging Child? What do you do when all the crises—health, family, church—crash in at once? When you try to squash the sadness and the lostness into a corner of your throat because you feel like there’s no point in talk-treading over and over the same ground, when there are no new solutions in sight? When it gets to the point that you dread going to bed because there’s no peace in sleep, only—at best—a temporary oblivion overlaid with the crushing burden of having to get up in the morning and face everything all over again?

More’s the victory for the enemy, if he can get us to dread the bright dawn, to believe that its fresh rays can never illumine dark Hopeless. Recognize this attack for what it is, and remember: What do I know, even when I do not feel it? The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 

No, everything may not look brighter in the morning, but “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him." It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

So eager am I to depart Hopeless that I forget: It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
So eager am I to deaden the pain, to protect myself from the anguish of Hopeless, that I forget: what is such self-protection, after all, but the hardening of my heart against the only One can rescue me, who even now is at work in my life? For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief—though He cause grief!—he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. 

The enemy hisses that Hopeless is Reality. That dawn brings only drear. That hardening your heart against hope is your only protection, so shove your feelings back down your gut, because numb is the best you can hope for.

Hearken to a different voice: Today, as you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. Oh! How many rebellions have there been, in this foolish little shriveled-raisin heart of mine! Thrice in short span, the writer to the Hebrews echoes this exhortation, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” Today, today, today—this very moment! Thrice-repudiated is the insidious accusation of never and too little and too late. Even amid the darkness, this is the moment of grace—of the shockingly free grace whose dreadfully priceless purchase makes all the difference, now and forevermore, between Hard and Hopeless.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Though he slay me with blessings beyond what I can bear, I will hope in Him.

Hap

From Pastor Weedon:

[God] wants us to be holy so that we may be truly blessed; and blessedness is even better than happiness.  I'd stand by that:  blessedness doesn't ride on the ups and downs of our emotions.  It rises above them.  And since God often uses adversity and trials to give us growth in holiness (yes, holiness is given you whole and entire in your Baptism, but I refer to growing up into the salvation that is yours), there are times of sadness that come our way on this path toward the fuller inner appropriation of that holiness which results in blessedness.  

I know this is one of those things someone out there thinks someone such as myself should never think or say, but the truth is that there are days when I pretty much don't feel happy until I'm in bed again. And then in that bed at the end of that day, I roll over and thank my husband for the wonderful life he's given me and tell him I am happy. Because even when I don't feel happy I am happy. I'm happy that there are certain things about which I will never have to wonder. I'm happy that there are certain regrets (or at least certain magnitudes of regret) I know I won't have. I'm happy that I have six baptized children even though life with them can sometimes land me back in bed having felt only inadequate and furious and unappreciated and imprisoned and sinful pretty much since I got out of it. If you could spy on my face during the day you might see clouds on it. So I'm sorry you can't see past the false strength of those clouds into the blazing sun that is my soul. I often feel sad, but I still consider myself happy because I know I am blessed.

And I don't want to burn you.

Fight hideous poverty

A clenched fist may be able to retain whatever is in its grasp, but it can never receive anything more. So too a clenched heart, but worse: the damp darkness of the tight-clenched heart will begin to fester.

I am so glad that Gauntlets pointed out Rev. Scott Murray's Memorial Moment awhile back. Such a worthy addition to my inbox (when I, um, get to it. Sigh).

Here's part of what he wrote about marriage yesterday:

Yes, marriage is a messy business. It is fraught with difficulties, sick children, worry about money, dirty diapers, and frightful disagreements. But marriage enables us to get out of ourselves and seek meaning in the other.

….Marriage isn't for everyone, but everyone ought to be for marriage. There is no way to be in true relationship with another apart from the sacrifice of self. And the more we give of ourselves the more we will have of ourselves. The more we hold back of ourselves the less we will have. What a hideous poverty resides in the heart of those who will not give themselves for the other.

Here we find just a hint of what it means to be truly human in the world created by the God who molds man out of the dust of the earth. We are to find our ultimate meaning not in ourselves, but in the other. The relationship of man and woman points to the relationship of the Bridegroom, Christ, with His bride, the church. Man and woman were not created to be alone, but to be in union with one another and with their God.

New ropes, old ropes, and the gallows, too

Rebekah's last post reminded me of something I've been saving for a rainy day. It's raining in my amygdala today. Ta da.

When and why did moaning under one’s cross becoming synonymous with “whining?” Life on this side of the veil is hard, most grievously hard. Christ knows this very well. He does not sneer at His little ones who cry piteously over what in eternity amounts to a stubbed toe or missed dessert. Rather, in His mercy, He hears the groans of His Elect, those who bear His Name in Baptism, and has compassion.

Indeed, God, for the sake of Christ, lifts His countenance upon us as we muck about and stays His righteous wrath. Instead of floods, hellfire, and stonings, He provides for us the softest, gentlest of graces: a Holy Mother Church, who patiently and lovingly hears our sobbing and soothes our consciences with Words placed into her most beautiful mouth by Christ Himself.

And thus are we taught to hear the suffering of others. Dear sisters in Christ, it is not necessary to coat your face in colorful Plasticine and intone tired American lies about how lucky you are to have the Eschaton somehow immanentized in your heart. Rather, let us receive what God has given, and then do as our Mother does. It is good, normal, sensible, and poetic to see your sin and the sin of your children, and to speak it out of darkness that it may wither and die in the light. It is good, normal, sensible, and poetic to hear patiently a sister speak of her struggles, and to direct her toward her good Mother, who is a fertile land abounding with milk and honey and who will feed her the very salvation of her soul.

It is not good and far from poetic to harbor your misery or to treat with complacence the cries of your fellow Christian. Life is difficult and filled with storms we cannot understand. Even the smallest of thunderclaps finds its impetus in sin, and it was for even the smallest of peccadilloes that our Christ died.  Every cramp of flesh and soul is of importance to our Savior, who does not hesitate when we call for help but immediately puts out His hand and draws us out of the waves. He might chide, “Why did you doubt?” But such words are His and His alone to give, and His Bride is more than capable of conveying their meaning to Her babies.

You and I commune at the same altar; that is good enough for me. Let us join together in raising our voices to Christ. When you rejoice, I will rejoice with you. And when you cry out, “Oh, Lord, how long?” I’m the alto you hear over yonder.

Could be better. Will be better.

I remember getting a book from the library when I was a kid called, I think, Could Be Worse. Yup. It was about a couple of kids whose grandpa always told them when they complained to him about something, "Could be worse!" Once when they brought him a complaint, he told them a long, crazy story about all these awful things that had happened to him when he was young--something like his house exploding in a hurricane while weasels ripped his flesh and his mom poached monkey gizzards in puke sauce for supper and on like that for pages and pages. The kids hear him out and then happily tell him . . . you got it.

And of course grandpa is right and the kids are right and that frowny, responsible, "you live in the first world you unpitiable whiner" voice in the back of my head is right. But there's a part of me that could do without Could Be Worse. It's not weeping with them that do weep to always be telling them "could be worse," and it could be way stinking better, and it's OK and even important to want that, and we're supposed to be sort of ready for it, and frankly there are times when it feels like that's really all there is to look forward to.

Latch-key ambitions

More inflammatory rhetoric, on this boring, boring Saturday.  

There is never a good time for a mother to return to “the workforce.” Children are far louder about needing you when they are babies, but they never stop needing you. They merely become a lot more polite about expressing how terribly they need you the older they get.*

Yes, there comes a point when children no longer need help doing the more banal tasks of being alive. (Someday, I will not have to summon the sitzfleisch for toilet training! HOO-FREAKING-RAY!) But there is never a day when suddenly a child can accomplish by himself the terrible and the beautiful tasks given all men to accomplish. There is never a day when a child, boy or girl, man or woman, stops needing his mother, not to coddle and coo, but just to be there. The child needs his mother as a structure needs its pillars, and as the ocean needs its boundaries.  

A daughter never stops wanting her mother, especially if that daughter is blessed to become a mother herself, as everyone here well understands. A daughter, be she married or virgin, never stops needing the consolation and shelter of her mother’s voice, presence, and help. There is never a good time for a mother to take on work that interferes with her ability to be a blessing and help to her adult daughters and to be fully a grandmother.

A man will leave his mother and father and hold fast to his wife, and in things both salient and subtle a good wife supplants a good mother in the life of a man. Thanks be to God. Even so, a man never stops being his mother’s son. If a mother takes work that interferes with her sons’ lives and happiness and well-being, then so much the worse for everyone. If a mother takes on work that makes her relationships with her daughters-in-law unnecessarily strained, that mother has cut and cauterized those heartstrings that once held her sons.

You absolutely cannot have it all. Should you go scrabbling after a sense of worth, you will find yourself begging for scraps of love in all the wrong places. Stay home, even when your house is empty. They need you there.   

Yes, this being there, this being a mother, is a cross for women. Being a woman is a much bigger deal than all that is stored up for fire would have you believe. But this being doesn’t look like much. It looks like years and years of patient waiting, of quietly resisting the erosion of your body and mind, and a lot of missed chances to contribute to the Social Welfare. It means submitting to being consumed and being all things to all your own people, instead of one comfortable blip to a myopic People that just barely exists. It means reflecting however imperfectly the Church who gave you birth unto life everlasting, until your days accumulate in the death of your flesh to the glory of your soul. But, look: we Christians know what to do with crosses. We do not flee from them. We do not decorate them with flowers, soak them in essential oils, and put them in storage to be borne when we have the inclination. We pick them up, splinters and all, when they’re given to us, trusting in Christ who promises that His yoke is easy and His burden light.

Regardless of what she does with her life, the Christian mother never ceases to be a mother to her children. Children are made to thrive in the warmth of a mother’s faithful, long-suffering obedience to Christ (and her faithful repentance of failure), even when that mother draws down a paycheck. But, think it over. Your children want you when they're small; they will want you even when they’re grown and busy and distracted (sinners are we all, and thus do we take for granted that which is best for us). And when the times comes for you to leave your children on their own, when your angel comes to bear you unto the bosom of Abraham, knowing that you wait beyond all shadows with the angels and archangels for that glorious Day wherein you will breathe again and be reunited to your people—that even in death you have not ceased to be their mother—gives your children courage to mourn as those who have hope. They will not stop needing you, even then. Be alive for them while you can. 

*Again, I know there are Reasons why some of you cannot be home, and that those reasons are good. Especially you, dear friend whom I love. Christ redeems my "good works" right along with yours, that we might have no cause to fret. Thanks be to God. 

Why casuistry should be left to the professionals

A post you won't like if you don't like this blog. And if you don't like this blog, I urge you again, don't visit it.

If you want to me to pray, tell me about the Kerlumpkins and their seven unruly children and poor Mrs. Kerlumpkin whose health is so bad. Tell me about the Sammyads and how chronic unemployment has ruined their marriage and their family life. Tell me about the Bagginses and their terrible pregnancy losses. Tell me about the Ottery-St. Catchpoles and their two-bedroom apartment and their second set of twins. Tell me how Mrs. Spumoni is penguin-guano crazy and their kids' lives are wrecks and Mr. Spumoni gets blamed for it all.

If you want to see my eyes glaze over, tell me about all those people and then look at me with the squinting frown which asks, "And NOW what do you think of your judgy convictions, you judging judger?"

I'll tell you right now what I think about every single one of those situations. They're unspeakably awful. Lord, have mercy. They also have nothing to do with how I should live my life. The personal experiences of the Kerlumpkins or the Ottery-St. Catchpoles or anyone else have zero bearing whatsoever on what constitutes sin in the court of God Almighty. Hard cases make bad law, and sometimes the Law makes hard cases.

As big of a deal as a sick mom or a lost income or a bunch of people just plain coming apart are to the individuals under scrutiny, it does not change the answer to the question of whether it is OK to enjoy sex while avoiding children. That question I must always answer the same way whether I like it or not. I have all kinds of sympathy for those who grew up and got married without ever being taught the whole truth of such things (which my beautiful associate has written about so well in the previous post) and are now mucking through a muck they didn't know existed. I am one of those people. It's been, you know, rough. It still is.

The question of the what the poor Spumonis should do about their situation I am in no way qualified or authorized to answer. I'm a freakin housewife who doesn't even know those people. I also can't help noticing that no amount of stories about the marvelous Sarsparillas and their 14 marvelous, talented, successful children who made it through on powdered milk and prayers or Ethel Kennedy and her 11 C-sections (before the bikini cut!) manage to convince anyone on the other side. Hasn't TLC alone provided us with ample evidence that the anecdotal approach to persuasion or proof on this topic is completely fruitless?

So, Bagginses and Spumonis and all you other people I know only through the bald gossip of Christians, I am sorry that you have been turned into situationally ethical footballs. I am sorry your names have become bywords among those who ought to be treating you with the most charity rather than the least. The details of your situation are between you and God and your pastor. If you wish for me to be involved, I will pray for you. That is absolutely all I can do.

Fish, flesh, good red herring, and the Church of the Augsburg Confession

This thingy was at Mere Comments a while back. It looks at the "religious fertility" of a variety of traditions and categorizes them into four groups:

Religious Malthusianism idealizes 0-2 children

Implicit Natalism idealizes 2-3 children

Patriarchal Moderate Natalism idealizes 2-4 children

Patriarchal Extreme Natalism idealizes "the more, the better"

This struck me as another one of those times when we just don't fit. I have never heard any CSPP type say or imply, "the more, the better" (although they have been caricatured by their detractors as saying so, and worse). Once again, we are not Quiverfull™. The theology of the cross tells us that some won't get many or any and some will be overwhelmed. There is no right or wrong number. There is only faith's response to the gifts God would give, and faith's response to the gifts it does or does not receive.

This cup

Sometimes, my heart breaks for the child who ran outside today, shockingly shoeless at first, to capture the first snow of the season.

Cup outstretched, he spun in the rain, the sleet, dashing between drops in his pursuit of the precious white stuff. Wads of snow clumped thickly downward in the mix, bright against dark wet bark, incongruous over lingering autumn color-collage.

But the snow he was so earnestly after—it disappeared even as he touched it. His cup was filled not with the abundance of magical flakes he hoped for, but with a scant spattering of dreary drops. A small disappointment, perhaps—but my mother-heart in that one moment ached under the weight of many moments, heavy for this child of mine to whom many things come hard.

But when he turned and saw me where I’d stepped out to snap his picture, his face was flushed with wet glee. “Look!” he shout-chortled joyously: “Your back has snow on it!”

And then he drank impossibly deeply from what appeared to me to be a woefully meager cupfull, and was satisfied beyond words.

I ducked back into the house to ponder these things, and to treasure them in my overflowing heart. He returned a bit later, soaked, glowing, and unusually quietly contented of spirit.

When I want a heap of snow, and I get a spattering of sleet instead, can I too drink and be satisfied—even unto quiet contentedness of spirit, even unto overflowing joy?

This is grace: our daily cup. We spin madly about, waving our tumbler heavenward, trying to capture only what we want from the mix, demanding the refills we think we need—but our Lord knows that too much can be deadlier than too little. We pray, “Lord, take this cup from me”—but our Lord knows that heavy luggage can be His revolutionary prescription for weary souls. For each of us, He lovingly mixes the bitter and the sweet, titrating with a precision we could never even approximate.

Lord, teach me to pray: Take not this cup from me—only teach me to drink from it deeply, to find even in its dregs an impossible satisfaction, a contentment surpassing words, a joy glowing strong.

Book, recommended

If you haven’t already read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, I think you might want to—if for no other reason than because, as she says in the afterword, “Every breath’s a battle between grudgery and gratitude and we must keep thanks on the lips so we can sip from the holy grail of joy.”

My curiosity about all the Thousand Gifts buzz was fueled when a friend of similar lifestyle and sound literary taste recommended it, overcoming my initial (and totally uninformed) skepticism that this would be the latest chick-sensation in feel-good pop psycholo-theology.

I hereby publicly repent of those suspicions. The first three pages cured me of any fears that One Thousand Gifts would be a “count your blessings and be grateful for what you have, dear,” kind of book. So what kind of book is it? It’s a theology-of-the-cross kind of book, in the skin-life of laundry, of mother-love and loss: “That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart—and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty. Can I believe the gospel, that God is patiently transfiguring all the notes of my life into the song of His Son?” (100).

It’s been awhile now since I finished the book, and I’m still gnawing on it. I had to read it slowly, chewing all the while. Voskamp quotes everyone from Augustine to C.S. Lewis to G.K Chesterton to Annie Dilliard to Teresa of Avila… Her writing is lovely, lyrical, even haunting at times as she writes her way through the life that becomes her book (or is it vice versa?).

I’ve only hopped over to her blog a few times as yet (that trip is worth it for her photos alone). I’m not really a joiner, but I will admit that I’ve started my own List—and it’s made a difference in my life. Because there is deep truth in what Voskamp writes: “All gratitude is ultimately gratitude for Christ, all remembering a remembrance of Him. For in Him all things were created, are sustained, have their being. Thus Christ is all there is to give thanks for; Christ is all there is to remember. To know how we count on God, we count graces, but ultimately there is really only One” (155).

Yes, I think you might want to read this book.

Bitter hours

How can one both look forward to another white cap in her ark and weep at the same thought?

Well, she can.

One of those things my husband says is, "Don't be more pious than God." God, as it turns out, was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. When his soul heaved in Gethsemane, no one told him to quit being so negative, to man up and do what he was born for and be glad about the privilege of being the Savior of the world.

Distress over the cups we are given to drink does not mean that we do not also cherish and cling to the joy set before us. It is only that promise of joy which strengthens us to receive yet another blessed cup of pain and hardship.

So Easter is coming, but Friday is also Good. We do not turn our eyes from the betrayal, the slander, the violence, the shame, the horror. The agony and humiliation? Not even God looked forward to that, not even knowing the full and holy cure it would pour out on eternity.

"If it be possible . . ."--the craziest prayer. As if a child could be born in sin or a world saved from sin without pain. How kind is our Lord to teach us that it's OK to ask anyway. In our Gethsemanes he will watch with us, when others sleep or spit the suffering back in our faces or just don't care.

Crazy is the new black

I've been surprised several times recently to hear mothers of different types and situations lament, "Why isn't anyone else feeling like this? Why am I the only one?"

"Like this" of course means "completely bleeped-out insane." And, honey, let me tell you, you are not the only chic in this phase of life to feel like your thinking is as murky as yesterday's fry oil. You're crazy, I'm crazy, and that lady over there is crazy. We're all crazy. Really. We just gussy it up a bit in public and call it, "tired."

And now the baby is screaming again, so I've got to go. Just take heart, sister. You're are so not in this alone.

And so do we

I am occasionally disheartened by an assumption people seem to make about me that I have no awareness of or care for the matter of infertility and other procreative crosses. I am very, very aware, and I very, very care. :( I pray always for the many couples I know (some quite well and some hardly at all) who have not been blessed as I have, for all the Hannahs and Rachels whose tears are contagious to me. Ever noticed how the Bible talks a lot more about women without kids than the other kind?

So I commend to you He Remembers the Barren. I have not yet had the privilege of reading Katie Schuermann's book of the same name, which is scheduled to come out in July, but two ladies of fine judgment who previewed it have recommended it to me strongly.

One frustration I have is that none of my favorite prayer books have a petition on behalf of the barren to guide my intercession for them. What I usually pray for them is that God's will for marriage would be fulfilled in them. I don't always know the details of their situations; whether their cases have been declared inexplicable or impossible. I don't know if a baby is God's will for J and C or B and R or any of the others, but I know it is God's will for marriage. So that is what I pray. I hope that's OK.

Vigil till the Morning New

Sad post. :(

So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

They are always with us. The peculiar gap in a family's "normal" time frame; the day that can never be all the way happy again; the baby the others remember and sometimes ask about; the lady whose story everyone knows and no one mentions. Always here because, however briefly, they were once.

Friends, I remember. My dear D and her baby T, my dear R and her baby B; my great-great aunt and her only baby who died at the hands of a birth attendant; Bathsheba and her doomed son; Jerusalem's Rachels and their Holy Innocents; every story I happened to hear and can never forget.

What word could help all of you? None could be right. But I sit with you always across time and space, for I see that your grief is very great. My heart aches and even now I weep for you. Easter is coming.