Mothers Day

As mentioned previously I have been working on gaining clarity this year. Clarity is hard to come by in a world tied down by self and sin and messiness. Nevertheless, I refuse to back down and if it must be by the inch rather than the mile, I intend to persevere.

Here is my inch for this week... Ann Voskamp http://www.aholyexperience.com/ invited her readers to participate in an extraordinary opportunity to help mothers in Haiti. (Haiti? really? read on!) I considered the request a struggle and an irony, and set it aside.

However, it seemed that this idea has been burned into me, as I can't escape it. I have an amazing set of mothers in my life, mothers God has provided me over the years to bring me up and along. How do I select the most important gift?

Mom, thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to experience the rich blessings of aunts, grandparents, and cousins as a young child that helped me form the vision for how I want to mother, aunt, and someday grandmother. I know that their absence from our lives has brought us all pain... almost thirty years now... but the memories are sweet. And I savor every bit.

However... 

I have to say that the foremost thing that comes to mind for my mother is the gift of release.  I've considered it a gift in the past, a gift that is painful, mind, but nonetheless a gift. If I am truly honest, before God and man, my mother blessed me in ways that I still cannot comprehend simply by sending me off when I was fourteen.

In that exchange I was released from much and released to the unknown. It was, truly, an unknown that brought pain, but as it says in scripture, God has a plan to bring beauty from ashes. And I can see that now, even as I wrestle to understand that as a mom myself...
 
Mom, thank you.

Thank you for releasing me into the wild world to be completely free to accept the blessings in store. Without that, there could not have been this: Kathy, Carolee, Lori, Lyn, Linda, Lauri, Kim, Alice... and countless others who have been willing to let me watch, let me ask, let me learn...

Oh, to be brave enough to share such truth... I suppose that will be my true inch! Am I brave enough? Can I extend myself that much, to bring freedom and release? If this comes to my mind, how much more on hers? And if none at all, is it my right to continue to lord this pain over her.. this bitterness.. this unforgiveness?

NO.

Oh, yeah... NO. forgiveness.. undeserved grace... Christ died on a cross for me.. for this messy Lanny, and yet I've struggled to say ouch but thanks? I can see so plainly that my life is amazing and without her gift, it would be so very different. Words cannot describe it all adequately... Joseph has a chat with his brothers in Genesis 50:20 - its one we talk about a lot and I think a lot of people can relate to...

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Who knows what God is up to in our lives? 

 As to Haiti, in just eight weeks I have the opportunity to take my eldest daughter to Haiti to work together and spend time with children.. thus.. the irony.