She’s not yours. The thought stabbed me first as I quietly cuddled with my pajama-clad toddler before sunrise last week. Her rumpled hair tickled my nose while I nuzzled her soft sweaty ringlets and breathed deep her sleepy morning scent. The invasive words jolted my soul. I tried to shove them beneath the secrets and giggles we were sharing while the rest of the house slept unaware. But truth is hard to bury.
When daybreak’s purple claws ripped through the hovering gray, I filled sippy cups and checked back packs, toasted bagels and prayed over children racing to the bus. Those bothersome words sunk momentarily beneath grocery shopping and cookie baking, soccer-uniform-washing and math homework helping. But they refused to stay entombed.
Days later, the insistent notion rose above the cacophony of cheers at the seventh -grade football game. He’s not yours, I was reminded as I rose to my feet and applauded my quick-moving wing-back. He’s not yours.
I clapped louder and tried to ignore the unwelcome obvious, but it squeezed in the bleachers beside me and tarried until the game’s end.
The unsettling echo followed me like the stray kitten I’d fed as a little girl. I tripped over it at the park as my four-year-old tossed hickory nuts through the tire swing. He’s not yours. I stepped on it in the dark as I studied the moonlight’s golden glow dancing across my sleeping seven-year-old’s peaceful countenance. She’s not yours. I bumped into it as I listened to my eleven-year-old’s candid dinner-time prayer and marveled at the way she loved her Savior. She’s not yours.
It’s hard to ignore truth when it is scratching at your heels. I’ve kicked at it with arguments, swatted it with disgust, and tried plenty of times to simply walk away. But like a persistent feline, this inarguable fact keeps landing on my doorstep: My life is an investment in borrowed treasure.
Today, weary of closing the door, I tried a new strategy. I invited the truth inside. I looked it square in the eye as it crossed the threshold and I spoke the words aloud. The five children I call mine aren’t really mine.
I said it when I wiped fingerprints from the window panes this morning. These are borrowed smudges. I repeated it when I tripped in my entryway over a pile of shoes left from weekend romping. This clutter belongs to feet on lend. I whispered it as I savored the sound of laughter slipping under the girls’ bedroom door. That melody is laughter on lease.
And the more I acknowledged this unsettling truth, the more it made itself at home in my heart. My children aren’t mine for keeps. They are a priceless loan from the Giver of Good Gifts.
As I folded the laundry this morning, I remembered a time that I’d been loaned a vehicle for the day. Mine was in the shop. Since life wouldn’t stop long enough for me to stay put, my dear friend offered to lend me her wheels. The kids teased me incessantly about my slow driving in that borrowed van. They complained when I refused to take the short cut home over gravel, and they gasped when I drove through the car wash and chose the “mega-deluxe wash” treatment complete with wax and dry. I was extra careful with my girl friend’s van because I knew it wasn’t mine.
That memory seeped into my musings as I unloaded the dishwasher this afternoon. And it turned my thoughts to the borrowed lives beneath my own roof…
When was the last time I handled my children with utmost care because I remembered that they are not mine?
When was the last time I slowed my words and refused to cut short our path toward character building and growth in the name of convenience or time saving?
When was the last time I chose to shower my little one’s souls with the mega-deluxe-attention treatment, complete with undivided listening and unhurried play?
When was the last time I was extra careful with my children’s tender spirits so I wouldn’t risk shattering treasure that’s not mine?
When was the last time that I considered the day I’ll be asked to return my precious gifts to their Rightful Proprietor?
I haven’t answered all of my own questions yet, but perhaps in time I will. It’s looking like truth is going to stay. It’s stretching out in the middle of my life right now and reminding me of what I know in my head but rarely acknowledge in my heart. And little by little its changing the way I look at the five borrowed gifts who call me Mommy.
The Overflow:
