I’d like to say that I carefully read all the mail we get
from missions and institutions and organizations that we support (or that would
like us to support them), and that no such missives are ever tossed unopened,
but in truth they’re subject to triage like any other aspect of my life at this
point.
Recently, I was hovering over the trash can during a
desperate counter-clearing effort, doing a pre-pitch skimming of the newsletter
from one such mission, when this story changed my trajectory:
[These two toddlers/preschoolers] are children of a single
mother and unknown father. She is a drug addict who works cleaning windshields
on the highway. They had lived, or survived, under a bridge fed only on street
food, soda, and cookies. Their clothing was ill-fitted, dirty rags. They were victims
of indifference.
[When the country’s social services brought the children to
the mission], they hadn’t eaten all day. [The boy] was wearing only a t-shirt and a diaper
that hadn’t been changed all day. But the smiles on both of their faces, their affection, and their innocence
was unforgettable. After eating, bathing, and being dressed in our best, the looks on their faces were
indescribable. Yet, they both cried a lot in the days that followed because
they missed their mother. Since then, they have adapted well and stolen our
hearts.
It wasn’t merely the brokenness of a world in which such
stories are all too common, nor the accompanying photos of the children that
brought the tragedy to a personal point, that stopped me cold. It was that last
bit--did it catch you too? The part that stopped me in my tracks, that accused
and humbled and consoled me all at once? Those babies were rescued from filth,
neglect, and abuse—Yet, they both cried a
lot in the days that followed because they missed their mother.
I feed my kids veggies and whole wheat (at least some of the
time). I bathe and clothe them. I’m married to their father and I might even
look to some (distant and casual) observers as though I’ve got my life somewhat
together. But the really true truth here is that I’m no less in need of
forgiveness than the mother who left those kids under the bridge. Nor is this
desperately-needed forgiveness available to me in any other special place than it is for her, homemade yogurt and hygiene notwithstanding.
And—astoundingly, humblingly—when my desperate sinfulness
spills over, as it too often does, onto them, my kids are just as grudgelessly ready
with their love and their seemingly effortless forgiveness, as were those
precious little ones whose mother failed more publicly than I.
Rebekah wrote this one a long time ago, and I still think
about it. I think about it because at the end of every day
I can count so many times that I’ve screwed up this motherhood thing, again, and
yet I can’t count a single time that a child of mine has gone to bed with anger
in his heart against me. All this love and trust in their hearts, their eyes,
their arms, always at the ready, all undeserved—an overflowing of grace, pure
grace, the grace their Heavenly Father so richly and recklessly bestows—thanks be
to our prodigal God!
Careful, though. Pew Sisters will make
you mad. You will want to know how, freaking exactly and I'm talking
mechanics here, Marianne forgave. You will trip on how things worked
out for Diedre. You, you Concordian Sister of Perpetual Parturition*, will wonder if Anna could really be that tired if she wasn't
even nursing and how Claire's situation could possibly turn out that
way under those circumstances. You will wonder if Emily's story ever
really happens or if that's just a weird Lutheran fantasy. Your
ongoing Mary/Martha problem still won't be solved by this book,
darnit! Why is Julia OK and Faye not (or are they)? What ended up
happening to Christine, for crying out loud, and what about poor
Laura? Why the easy answer here and the hard one there? What kind of
sick freak wrote this? (A Lutheran, of course. Nobody else ever likes
us. :D )
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