A Spring of Joy

The night before last I had a dream.

I was playing soccer with Bri and the kids. This wasn’t some backyard soccer game; it was a real game on real turf against real pros. We were all in professional uniforms, and we knew what we were doing. However, we couldn’t keep up with the other team. After all, Bella against David Beckham? Unless she can distract him with her cuteness, she’s getting nowhere.

Anyway, we played and we tried and we fell and we were bloodied and bruised. All of us.

We struggled to defend our goal. They still hadn’t scored on us even though they obviously had the upper hand. But then Beckham cut around Bella and then me and kicked a long shot. I turned to watch the ball hit the edge of the goal and go in diagonally.

Our goalie dove, touched the ball, but didn’t have enough of a hand on the ball to block the goal. They scored.

Our goalie?

It was my mom.

(For those of you who know my mom, you know she’s not an athlete, but she was always out there playing with us as kids and now she does the same with her grandkids. She just enjoys the game and the time together, the playing.)

Anyway, she got up, dusted off her uniform, smacked her hands together, looked at the opposing team, smiled sweetly and genuinely and said, “Bring it.”

And I stood in the middle of the soccer field and cried.

Then it turned into some weird thing about mom and me trying to build a fire in the woodstove and the wood was too wet… so on and so forth.

I woke from that dream and cried some more.

Because that’s how it’s been for my mom through all these past four and a half years. She has been there, our goalie, and she always leaves saying, “If you need me, you call. I’ll be here.”

She’s in that middle place. That place where her parents are declining and her daughter is fighting cancer, and she serves constantly. I often wonder when it is her turn to get a break.

And it’s not just me she serves. She serves her friends, always ready to offer a ride to the doctor or make a meal or sit by someone’s side to just keep them company.

That’s who she is.

People tell me all the time how spoiled I am (I sometimes say it, too), because my mom is here and so amazingly helpful. The truth is I am blessed, but not spoiled (unless you consider cancer four times being spoiled). She is doing what she is called to do, and God has chosen my path, that my mother and father would live close and be able to care for us the way they do.

A few months ago Mom and I were talking. I don’t really even remember what we were talking about, I just remember the phone call the next day when she told me how I had hurt her with my words. Because, y’all, I sat with my mom and said something about her not having suffered. I was meaning physical suffering when I said it… but y’all, what the heck was I thinking?!

My mom not suffer?

Sometimes I think she is suffering more than any of us.

(And can I just say how thankful I am that my mom can call me and confront me and be real with me? And she forgives me so easily.)

On Monday we watched Father of the Bride together, and we both bawled through the whole thing, because you know that part where the daughter is talking about getting married and all the father sees is a 7 year old in pigtails?

Y’all, that’s what my parents see every time I look at them and say, “It’s cancer” or “They think they see something and there need to be more tests.” They see a little seven year old Angie with brown pigtails and a sprinkling of freckles on her nose. And they would do anything, and I mean ANYthing to care for us and help us.

Mom has suffered so much, but she has been an amazing example of strength and dignity in suffering. She pushes through and does what needs to be done, because, well, it needs to be done. She knows somebody needs to defend the goal for us. And if you ask me, she’s scored more goals with her strength and faith and trust than the opposing team has ever scored against us.

So the next time you see my mom, I dare you, say “GOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL” to her.

I can just picture her response.

She’ll laugh. She’ll toss her head back and laugh fully, kinda like me. And she’ll shake her head a little embarrassed at the attention, kinda like me. Then she’ll put her hand on your arm and she’ll lean forward and say something funny, kinda like me. Then she’ll point to Jesus and say how much He has done for us, how He’s the one Who’s gotten her through, how He deserves the glory. I know this because she’s the one who taught me how to do the same.

And if you don’t want to say, “GOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL” to her, would you give her a hug?

Trust me, she needs one.

This morning as I sat on the front porch waving to Brian and the kids as they pulled away from our home, my eyes filled. They opened the back window of the truck and yelled, “I love you! Bye!” over and over, and I watched them until they were out of sight. I looked around from my vantage point at the frosted railroad ties and the old train station. Our neighbor, Frank’s, cats frolicked in the road, and contentment washed over me.

I don’t cry much anymore when they leave, but this morning, it hit me. We have so much. So very much.

I came in to wash dishes from breakfast and wipe counters and tripped over a bag left on the floor. A bag full of purchases we made last night, the children and me.

We shopped for two hours, and oh, how we laughed and played. The smiles from people we saw as we meandered, Bella girl singing Christmas songs and Bear wearing his Santa hat. My Ash helping me decide on which bread to pick and what gifts to buy for classmates and service projects. He walked beside me, and I thought to myself, “Look how tall he is. How is this happening?” Then he said something witty, and I laughed out loud and thought, “Even his humor is growing up.”

Last night we ordered pizza and curled up by the wood-stove for a movie and just being together. I fell asleep at 7:30, worn out from my adventures the night before at the Civil Wars concert with friends. (Can I just say they are amazing and I want to learn to do that with harmonies!) This morning, Asher excitedly told me he’d fill me in on all I’d missed and we have a date this afternoon for him to tell me.

Then we’ll make yummy supper and a friend will come over and the kids will go to bed and then we’ll watch a movie together. And I will still feel this way… this overwhelming sense of how much we have. Materially, yes, we have more than enough for our needs. But beyond that, we have so much in each other, in our friends, in our Savior.

It isn’t always this easy. There are days where the anger that fills the eyes of my child is disconcerting, but I remember the hidden glares I would give my parents behind their backs when I was young. The ways I defied them. I just wasn’t so blatant about it. And I take a breath of grace, and the pangs of sadness fill my heart and I realize this is just a child trying to figure out life, and I’m here to help them along the way.

It is easy for me to over-analyze my parenting, to rip myself apart about not handling things well or constantly focusing on behavior and missing grace.

I shared coffee and nut roll with a friend this week and told her my struggles with grace and discipline. She is a woman that I long to emulate with her gentle soul and quiet ways with her family. I want to learn from her because I look at her children and I like what I see. They are not a perfect family, and I love that I can see that, too, that they don’t try to be what they are not, but they love the Lord together. She spoke truth to me, and it was good, and it was needed. This is the body of Christ, and I realize I have so much there, too. In the friendships I have, whether far or near.

The howl of advent is strong in me these days. This waiting. This trying to figure out the new normal for us. I don’t know that I even remember the old normal anymore.

But I realize that if I live my life waiting for things to get better or me to get stronger, if I focus constantly on how I want to change or want my kids to change or wish away the hard seasons of life, then I will miss so much along the way. I will miss life. The every day. The here and now. This moment.

It is all a gift. All of it. The child that glares full-force in my face is a gift. The child that wets the bed waking me at three in the morning to help them is a gift. The husband that forgets the trash or leaves a mess for me to clean up is a gift. The child that lays on the floor because they’re too tired to get ready for school is a gift. The body that is full of aches and pains and scars is a gift.

All of it.

Is His.

I realize this is has turned into a stream of consciousness kind of post. The perfectionist in me wants to go back and clean it up and make it sound less choppy and more fluid. But I’m not, because my husband is on his way home from taking the kids to school and we have a coffee date together before our day begins again… and it is a moment with him.

See?

All of it.

A gift.

Praying for all of my readers this morning, that you will find the gift in the ordinary, every day today.

It’s there.

When I was undergoing chemotherapy, Brian wrote on my blog, “Recently I watched Angie break down in tears when a friend suggested they go to a concert after she’s recovered… the thought of actually having a life again after all of this was overwhelming.”

That was four years ago.

Last night…

I went to a concert.