Posts Tagged ‘love’
the gifts
Relax, everything’s going to be all right; rest, everything’s coming together; open your hearts, love is on the way!
- Jude 2
On this eve of 2010, as I sit with Jason and tend to Jude (who happens to be aching with new teeth and a scratchy throat), I can’t help thinking about the gifts given to me in 2009.
No Commentsschool of jude: lesson #785
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Take me back to the start
Coldplay, The Scientist
Lesson #785: Sometimes you really can’t do anything except be there with them in the night with your heartbeat and your tears.
2 Commentsschool of jude: lessons #59 and #81
Can’t you see, it’s amazing what you do to me. You took my heart and made me feel things I never felt before. And it’s changing me. I lose direction so suddenly. Shook me up and threw me around and helped me learn to breathe it all in. You help me learn to breathe it all in.
- Mindy Smith, It’s Amazing
Lesson #59: Parenthood is not for perfectionists. It is for the un-made-up, un-showered, un-slept who are just fool enough to keep trying, keep fouling it up, and keep loving.
Lesson #81: You can love someone to the stars and back again, love them with every breath in you, love them more than your own life, and still not know what they need when they cry.
2 Commentsadvent: two
“. . . He was a fugitive & a wayfarer upon this earthen ball.”
- Gene Edwards, The Birth
Lest we feel alone, misunderstood, rejected, forsaken, let us remember – however we can – that infinite perfection was born into a finite and broken world. Perfect and despised. Unwelcome amidst the ruins He came to rebuild. Hated by those He came to love.
And, in our remembering, may we know something of His presence, His acceptance, His favor, & His love.
No Commentsordinary day (making much)
It was an ordinary day, a Tuesday. I was working. Jason was working. And it was also the day marking our second year of marriage. Normally, I make much of these occasions. I plot out gift purchases months in advance. I craft brilliant poems, homemade cards and sweet vignettes. I buy new outfits, cook the perfect dinner, bring out the good China.
But this year, this sacred occasion slipped up on me somehow. Not that I could ever forget April 8. It’s engraved on my wedding band and on my heart. It’s my most unforgettable day, when I joined forever my every molecule of breath & spirit with my soul’s mate. It’s just that so many pressing matters, really urgent and important things, have filled up my moments (and his moments, too), and I didn’t have time for my typical above-and-beyond-ness.
And I felt guilty. Ashamed. Like I had failed at all the unwritten rules of wife-dom. (At least the rules I’d conjured up.) I felt guilty for not making much.
But then, not long after Jason surprised me with a dozen roses at the office where I spent the afternoon working, I realized that we, Jason and I, make much everyday. We give flowers – verbal flowers, emotional flowers, hug-and-kiss flowers – to each other on quiet Mondays, rainy Saturdays, and weary Wednesdays. Not just one-day-a-year flowers. We surprise each other with the gifts of presence, laughter, singing, kindness, dancing, listening, hoping, believing, dreaming, loving. And we give these gifts consistently, passionately, selflessly.
Of course, we’ll keep marking April 8, our favorite day. But even if life catches up with us and we’re pulling a last minute Hallmark stop on the way to dinner at Zola’s, it’s okay. Because there are plenty of other days when a love note gets tucked in a pocket, when a favorite chocolate bar ends up in a backpack, when a deep soul cavern is excavated and understood. Plenty of days when some flower is left on a windshield and, with it, a card with a word only the two of us know.
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