If You Feel Like You’re Losing Your Marbles…(How To Choose Joy in the Daily Grind)

 

I’m picking up run-away marbles this morning and grumbling that I’m at risk of losing mine when I think of her.

Her hallow eyes dominate my thoughts as I bend low and grab those shiny glass orbs that are scattered all over the living room again. 

Maggie’s been cooking me marble stew since she stumbled from bed before sunrise, and my pots and pans are scattered all across the couch. (Um, I mean, the oven with couch- cushion burners.)

There’s nothing terrible about the hours  ahead- just another day of folding laundry and reading picture books, of carpooling and homework helping and make-believing. 

And as my four-year-old shoves a wooden spoon in my face for the one hundredth time, and begs me to “taste” her stew, I find myself wishing that I were eating real soup with a crisp green salad and a grown-up friend–

Someone who would ask me what’s on my mind rather than complain about what’s missing on my head.  

Mom, if you are going to eat ROYAL STEW, then you really should be wearing a princess crown. Why don’t you EVER wear a crown, Mom? It would hide your short hair and then nobody would know that you’re not as pretty as Rapunzel…

 I am swallowing a sigh when that petite face from long ago flashes through my mind.

I  hear her sad laugh, see her lifeless eyes as I battle the subtle gray shroud that’s slowly wrapping itself around my heart despite this morning’s brilliant blue .

A decade has passed since we met, but I still remember how she looked like she was  a thousand miles from where we stood, yet seemed chained to the ground by those little fingers that clung to her knees. 

I don’t know her name or  her address. I have no idea of her age. But I haven’t forgotten the story she shared after a MOPS meeting back when I was just a mom of two tow-headed preschoolers.

I’d spoken that morning to a room crammed with young women, and I’d been delighted when those moms had lined up to continue our conversation long after I’d uttered the closing prayer.

She had stood patiently at the end of the snaking queue while her peers had captured my attention with their animated stories and upbeat chatter.

When she’d finally reached my side, I’d stroked the soft head of the infant curled in the pinstriped snuggly strapped to her middle, and I’d offered a high-five to the cranky toddler who was pumping her arm up and down like a farmer securing a drink from an old fashioned water spigot.

A preschooler in a sparkly tutu had glided in circles around us, demanding that her mommy watch as she spun and twirled to imagined music. With one eye on her budding ballerina and another fixed on me, the young mom had begun to spill her trying tale, her words dripping from a deep place of melancholy as tears drizzled in a quiet stream down her cheeks.

She’d told of her decade-long battle with infertility, of pain and hopelessness and anger.

She’d spoken of  babies lost too early and the scars left on her heart.  And she’d talked about finally giving up, about packing away her maternity clothes and baby blankets and resigning herself to a life without children.

And then, after she’d dropped her dreams at the thrift store along with that garbage bag filled with baby toys, when she’d sold the crib and had gone back to school for another degree, the One who had seemed un-hearing, un-caring had finally planted life in her womb.

In her own loaves-and-fishes miracle, she’d carried life to full term beneath her heart three times over the course of the next five years.

When her story was done, I’d reached for her hand and commented on God’s faithfulness.

But her empty eyes had failed to reflect my awe.

Instead, she’d just cast a defeated glance at the baby on her bosom and confessed with a wry choking chuckle, “Before I had kids, all I did was dream of the day when I would finally be a mom. And now all I do is dream of the day when my baby will finally go to kindergarten.”

My twenty-nine-year-old heart had lurched and my mouth had grown dry. And I hadn’t known what to say. 

The pithy stories I’d shared and the cheerleader-style-of inspiration I’d offered that morning suddenly felt paltry and small in light of the big ache that hung between us. 

I’d leaned down and kissed her baby and asked if I could pray. For her. For her children. For all of us stumbling through life too tired or numb to celebrate the answers to our prayers.

She’d shrugged her shoulders as if she didn’t care one way or another, and I’d accepted the gesture as a yes. I’d placed my hands on top of that sweet mama’s head and had begged the Lord to breathe fresh passion and purpose into her withering soul, to carry her in His hands as she carried His gifts in hers. 

Then, I’d silently vowed that I would not be a mother who spends this fleeting season of life just waiting for my last child to go to kindergarten.

Of course, I had no idea then just how difficult it would be to keep that vow.

I didn’t know then that there would be Monday mornings when I’d just want to stay in bed instead of slurp marble stew. I didn’t realize that the monotony of motherhood could stun a soul, that the fear of falling short could paralyze a woman’s joy. 

In my arrogance, I couldn’t see the reflection of my own heart in the shadow of her story.

And, so this morning when her face intrudes my pity party on the couch, I wonder how many days I’ve echoed her dirge.

How many times have I trudged through the present moment entertaining dreams of a better tomorrow?

How many days have I surrendered to the quiet dread in my heart rather than marveling at the mercy-streaks beyond my window?

 

Maggie is adding Legos to her marble stew and demanding that I answer her question. Mom, is your soup too hot? Or is it too cold?

 I offer my little girl a dramatic slurp and realize this: I can’t trust my feelings.

The only way to rightly see the gifts of today is to peer at my life through the lens of the Word.

Without it, my sight is warped; my vision blurred by the fog of the familiar.

My soup-maker has moved from the couch to the kitchen. I hear her humming a praise song under her breath as she rattles the marbles with a metal serving spoon. I am about to run downstairs to switch another batch of laundry when I hear the rattle of a steel pan clanking on the hardwood floor, then the clatter of marbles rolling wild.

Oh, no, Mommy! I spilled your soup. I was just trying to heat it up in the microwave….…

And so I say it in faith, trusting that in time my heart will catch up with my head and His truth will spill joy into my daily grind: This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. -Psalm 118:24

Linking with these dear friends: Laura for playdates with God,  Jen for soli deo gloria, The Better Mom, and with Sarah for Mom Notes, and Jen at Rich Faith Rising.

photo credits: Microsoft clip art office, Clicker.com, and http://pregnancy.lovetoknow.com/image/163210~pregnantclipart2.jpg