What happens when we realize we have so much to be thankful for and yet life feels nothing like the dream? Some honest thoughts on a brave question we sometimes aren’t brave enough to ask out loud.
French braids. For me it was always the French braids. As I grieved the loss of my baby girl and trudged through the heavy months of wondering if that was it for me, I always noticed the French braids. Little girls with their silky strands woven in tight symmetry, some other mother’s perfect art left me hoping, wishing.
Will I ever get to do French braids?
As vivid as that memory is my reality many years later involves two little girls (not to mention two boys) who call me mom, long blonde hair and all. “Please, brush your hair!” is at least a twice daily command in our home. French braids happen, no doubt, but two double sets leave my fingers aching. One girl complains for me to braid faster; the other whines that it hurts. Occasionally, there are tears.
I’m living the dream here, wrapped in satire.
Of course I am grateful. I have euphoric and warm fuzzy moments, but if I’m honest, it’s mostly when the kids are sleeping. I watch the subtle rhythm of their chests and somehow grace covers everything. The tide of gratitude surges in when the pace slows, quiets.
But what about our waking hours? How do I reconcile the fact that so much of my life is good – things I’ve prayed, wished and dreamed for, even – and yet when I arrive here it feels nothing like a dream? It feels like wrangling whiny girls into messy braids. It feels like tension with my husband over small inconveniences. It looks like dirty light switch covers, smudged windows and sticky fingers touching everything.
Yesterday I heard an all too familiar verse that made me stop short.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 NKJV
From dust. Really. That gritty and grainy, limitless substance that blankets my home faithfully. It swirls in the air, creeps over and in, through and behind everything.
Why dust, God?
I don’t even like dust. Who does? It’s one of the dream wreckers of a lovely home – a fine, powdery houseguest that appears all too frequently, stays too long and always returns. Like the grace of a sleeping child, I’m at ease, mostly thankful, when the my home is rid of dust.
My heart finds peace with sleeping children and a clean home. Now, now I will be thankful.
It’s all quite ridiculous when it’s laid out neatly in words, but it feels so rational in my day to day.
Ecclesiastes 3:20 bluntly reminds us that these earthly bodies of ours were made from the dust and will be returned to dust one day as well. It’s fascinating that God chose to use such a humble substance for such gigantic purpose, isn’t it? And I wonder – could He still be using it? Before, after and in the midst of it all too?
What if, through the grittiness of this life, He is still shaping me?
What if that fine layer of dust that covers my home – the one plays at the edges of my identity making me question whether I’m enough for this job, if I’ll ever really be able to keep up – what if He is still using it to refine and shape, to breathe His life into me?
Are you here, God, right in the midst of my not quite perfect and somewhat forsaken places? Are you using this, God?
Could all of this dust, the dry and gritty places of my heart be bidding me to look up?
When God breathed life into man, everything changed. It was never about the dust. It was always about Him – His breath, His life, entering the dry and dusty places and changing absolutely everything.
This truth becomes my hope. He does stuff with dreams that don’t quite feel like we imagined, ones that feel more like reality. He breathes life into dry and dusty things. His breath makes even the most humble of substances more than enough.
May that fine layer of dust, those dry and gritty places of heart, of our days, remind us to invite Him, the original Artist and Creator, to breath His life here. It truly changes everything.
Oh my, how I remember those days as if they happened to someone else, because now my house remains clean, no finger marks anywhere except my own. Now in the winter of my life I often yearn for those messy spring days when it seemed little people ruled and controlled the daily life events.
The desire to have them looking neat, with brushed hair and clean faces was a constant. After all are we not, as mothers, expected to produce perfectly clean children? The endless washing, then ironing (yes we ironed back then) and even mending which left us too exhausted to be the loving companion our mates expected and deserved.
All too soon it is over, some reprieve when grandchildren came along and we were intrusted to “baby-sit” the darlings. How come we didn’t seem to enjoy our own children as much as our children’s children? Of course, it was because we were so busy trying to keep them perfect looking! Give it up, at least one day a week, just relax and drink the tea (water) out of the cup offered and ignore the grimy hand giving it to you. Get down in the dirt and dig roads and tunnels for the little cars to travel on (I had 4 boys) and little boys love to spend time playing with. Be a kid again, just for one day, don’t look at the stringy messy hair that would look so cute in a french braid, that will come another day. It doesn’t take a lot to make a child happy, really. It’s not the expensive toys that they think they want when they see them on TV ads or in the store, it is you, all of you, your attention, your smile, your love for them. I know it comes when we tuck them into bed at night, finally a moment for myself we think. You will have those moments, more then you want, trust me! For now find the joy in what is your world, because like a puff of a cloud in the sky, it will soon change. Every season has it’s challenges and it’s rewards, don’t miss out on Spring because before you know it Winter will be here.
Such wisdom, Shirley! Thank you for sharing your time honored perspective here. <3