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Hannah

Dec 20, 2018 | Mothers and Daughters, Sacred Stories

Have you ever had a desire, a hunger, a longing so profound that any sacrifice would be worth its fulfillment?

For me, it was a child. I got married at 31 and immediately went about the “work” of getting pregnant – certain I had no time to lose. At 32, with no result, infertility treatments began. At 34, after countless tests, unsuccessful rounds of in-vitro, and more invasive (and expensive) processes yet to come, I quit. My desire did not, however. It would not comply.

And so, from the physical to the spiritual, I took my request to a different plane. I prayed. I pleaded. I made bargains and deals. And I got mad – pounding my fists at an elusive God in an imagined heaven.

Until one day, after five years of waiting, hoping, and fearing to ever hope again, I was pregnant. Five home-tests and one at the doctor’s finally convinced me it was true. And, 15 months after Emma’s birth, I was pregnant again with Abby. Miracles, both. Answers to prayer. Desire fulfilled – again and again.

Was it my praying that brought them to be? Was it my bargaining: my promise of endless love and devotion to God? Was it just luck and coincidence? I do not know.

But for all my doubt, this certainty remained: I could not imagine ever losing them or letting them go.

Unlike Hannah.

Hannah was married but barren. Her husband had a second wife (common in that time) who did have children, constantly taunted her, and left her feeling even more lacking, more sad. And, adding insult to injury, her husband would say to her, “Why are you so depressed? Am I not worth 10 sons to you?” Like me, she prayed – and prayed – and prayed. Unlike me, she made a vow: “If you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life…” (I might have whispered something like this in my endless intercession, but I wouldn’t have really meant it.) Then one day, Hannah did become pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.”

She fulfilled her promise to God. When Samuel was weaned, she took him to the temple and left him with a priest named Eli – which is where Samuel stayed, grew up, and through which became a leader and prophet in ancient Israel.

Impossible. Heart-rending. Incredible.

Back to my opening question: Have you ever had a desire, a hunger, a longing so profound that any sacrifice would be worth its fulfillment?

Hannah’s answer is “yes.”

Even more, her “yes” speaks to us in two profound and relevant ways today:

  • Will you hold on to desire, no matter what, no matter how impossible the odds, no matter how foolish it seems?
  • Are you willing to let go of the very thing you have desired on behalf of something bigger than yourself – in trust, in faith, in hope?

These are not easy questions. A quick response would be “yes” to the first and “mmmmaybe” to the second. But I wonder… A more honest response (speaking for myself) is a “no” to the first because of my pre-determined “no” to the second. See if this sounds even remotely familiar:

We don’t trust, we don’t have faith, we don’t hope because it’s just too risky. We don’t desire because experience has taught us that it either gets us into trouble or we have too many memories of it being disappointed.

But here is where Hannah voice sings out, sounds out, and transcends all time and space to say “No!” She calls you to what is deeper, stronger, and undeniable within. She says,

“What you desire more than all else is worth asking for, crying out for, praying for, longing for – no matter what. And once granted, if it is as big and amazing and glorious as you’d imagined, you’ll want to loosen your grip on it so that it can become even larger, even more amazing, even more glorious.”

To be honest, I wrestle with this. And…Hannah’s voice and story echo in my heart. She calls me (and maybe even you) to unswerving desire and complete sacrifice.

This is a call – and not for the faint of heart. This is a calling – for the strong in heart. And this is who I know you to be.

May it be so.

Happy 22nd, Emma Joy!

Oct 31, 2018 | Mothers and Daughters

It was shocking enough to acknowledge your sister’s 20th birthday – the fact that I no longer have teenagers. But this, now past the HUGE marker of 21? Shocking. Amazing. And, more than all else, full of joy. Not because you’re getting older, necessarily, but because as you do, I am getting wiser.

This year, sweet girl, has been one in which I’ve witnessed you step boldly into your voice, your uniqueness, your mind and heart, your body, yourself. All of which is teaching me. You are.

If I knew then what you know now…

I didn’t. But now? Now, I witness your endless courage and compassion, your deep wisdom and wit, your infinite brilliance and boldness. And as I do, I learn more about what it means to have kindness for myself: that young woman who knew little-to-nothing about self-compassion or self-kindness or self-love. I learn more about what it means to step into my own voice, uniqueness, mind-heart-body as I watch you do the same. I learn what it means and looks like to hold on to infinite hope on behalf of the future – because of the collective one that you are actively shaping through your both your anger and your advocacy.

Despite your fears (warranted), your sadness (appropriate), your ache (of course) on behalf of the world in which you live, your name remains true: Joy, Joy, Joy.

And for better or worse, this is why you feel fear, sadness, and ache: joy is your birthright, your deepest desire, and that which you make manifest in your world – in ours. Its absence is intolerable to you while, simultaneously, your presence ushers it into ours.

“Who is this girl, this woman, this human?” I continue to ask myself – and have from your earliest of days. The answer is endless, but at a bare minimum this: you are miracle and gift beyond words.

I couldn’t possibly be more humbled, more proud, more amazed, more delighted, or more in love with who you have been these past 8030 days and who you will continue to be(come) in every day that follows. ‘More rooted in hope (and joy) than I could have ever imagined…because of you.

Happy 22nd Birthday, sweet girl.

I love you, Emma Joy.

Happy 20th Birthday, Abby!

Oct 7, 2018 | Mothers and Daughters

How has the day arrived in which I no longer have teenagers? How is it that today you turn 20? I stand in disbelief, gratitude, and awe, not because 20 years have passed, but because of who you are.

This past year I have watched you do hard things, make tough choices, say goodbyes, take on more, stay longer, work harder, choose wisely, grieve silently, celebrate beautifully, live bravely, and love fiercely.

You are navigating this season of transition, change, and adjustment with grace, courage, and strength. All three are made manifest in vast and infinite measure, in potent and powerful ways. It’s breathtaking, really. You are.

Here’s what I know to be true: as you continue to demonstrate such, more and more will be yours. Grace breeds more grace. Courage breeds more courage. Strength breeds more strength. You are living, breathing evidence of such; you have been, always.

Oh, who you have become.
Oh, who you will yet be: my baby, my daughter, this woman, my heart.
Oh, how I love you.

Happy Birthday, Abby.

Before Mother’s Day

May 7, 2018 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, My sort-of Sermons

With Mother’s Day less than a week away, it feels appropriate to name and honor our larger, longer mother-line: the women and lineage from which we descend. To do so, the words of a woman who does this better than most – Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

It is not intuition which is broken, but rather the matrilineal blessing on intuition, the handing down of intuitive reliance between a woman and all females of her lines who have gone before her – it is that long river of women that has been
dammed. ~ Women Who Run With the Wolves

For me, the river’s very source and starting point, is Eve. To be sure, there are historical narratives of women that predate hers and it must be acknowledged as “the beginning” in the Western world (whether we want such, or not).

And given how much time I’ve spent over the years working with her story in particular, Estes’ words take me right back to her yet again.

The ways in which her story has been told throughout time has, sadly, caused us to lose the blessing that is ours, to break the beautiful and bountiful line of woman to woman, and to cause distrust in our own birthright and brilliance.

Rather than name, yet again, how this has happened, let’s talk about how to change it; how to bind up your (personal and historical) wounds; how to step forward in the power and strength that is already yours. Here’s the 3-step plan:

1) Heal the line to heal yourself.
2) Find the women – past and present – who long to bless you.
3) Undamn the river and let your too-often-damned intuition flow.

1) Heal the line to heal yourself:
One of the most powerful ways forward is to go back, to do the work of unearthing tales told (or not) in harmful, silencing, shaming ways and invite them into the light; to track down our lineage, to know and love the stories (and the women) who have shaped us, to find a sense of “home” and solidarity in all those who have gone before. When we can heal their past, we are the ones who are healed; we are the ones transformed.

2) Find the women – past and present – who long to bless you.
When we re-imagine, re-tell, and redeem these women’s stories, we are able to be blessed by them. Eve, yes, and so many more. Sojourner Truth. Emily Dickinson. Virginia Woolf. George O’Keefe. Frida Kahlo. Audre Lorde. All these and then some who long to share their wisdom, their perspective, their voice, their comfort, their companionship. And what of your great-great-great grandmothers and the rich female line that runs right through you? Can you imagine their words on your behalf? Will you? Even in places of deep, unwarranted pain (sometimes at these very women’s hands), will you imagine the words they would have spoken if they could; if they had been blessed? And who are the women in your everyday world who would readily and willingly offer you the same if only you would ask? If only you would tell them that you need them. If only you would trust that they are trustworthy and at your beck-and-call for support, kindness, encouragement, and yes, the blessing you most deeply long to have.

3) Undamn the river and let your too-often-damned intuition flow.
When you stand in the river of all the women who have gone before you, in the ever- tugging current of those who swirl around you even now; when you let the rapids carry you; when you float in a place of buoyancy and ease – supported by the stories that make up your legacy and the faces that smile on you every day – it is far more likely that you will trust that you already know what to do, what to say, how you feel, what you want.

Really, who are you not to trust your intuition, your story, your very self when standing in such an illustrious and stunning stream of women; when soaked to the skin with the stories of women – past and present – who just wait to be seen, known, heard, and honored and who long to honor you?

It is my hope and prayer that as Mother’s Day approaches you will feel and believe in the matrilineal blessing that IS yours…and that is yours to give to others.

May it be so.

 

*****

 

One of the ways in which these women and their stories continue to speak is through SacredReadings – my imagining of their voice on your behalf. There is a woman – part of your matrilineal line – who longs to bless you even now. A perfect Mother’s Day gift for yourself…and other women you love.

When Things Don’t Go as Planned

Feb 22, 2018 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, My sort-of Sermons, Women's Voice & Power, Writing

I’ve been thinking a lot, even more than I normally do, about my daughters. About the trials and tribulations that, by necessity it would seem, visit every life. About how each and every one of these pains feel insurmountable to them right now. They are not. But neither of them know that yet.

So this: an open letter to my girls (and maybe to you, as well).

Sweet girl:

I know you hold a picture in your mind as to how your story “should” go, at the very least, how you want it to go. It might be one you began to create when you were so very young (which doesn’t seem all that long ago to me) – nurtured and nuanced over these past years: you’ll be safe, you’ll b  nurtured, you’ll be protected, you’ll be loved. It might be more specific: the white picket fence, the 2.5 kids, the perfect job-body-marriage-bank account. And it might be all of these and then some – including a strong-and-sustained sense of what, quite frankly, just seems right and fair: happiness, ease, satisfaction, fun, and a lack of struggle and pain. There’s nothing wrong with these pictures. They are beautiful manifestations of your desire, your longing for all that’s possible, your hope.

But reality doesn’t always (if often) comply. Life doesn’t always (if often) go as planned,
dreamed, or even pictured.

And when that dissonance arrives? I know, sweet girl: it hurts.

“So?” you ask. “Now what?”

Maybe, for now, allowing the hurt is what matters most. It’s completely acceptable: feeling sad and forlorn, lost and confused, discombobulated by the curves thrown your way. Yes, for now.

“For how long?”

I wish I knew.

But here’s what I do know:

You let go, or at least loosen your grip on how it all “should” be. Even more, you hold on – with all the conviction and determination you can muster. Yes, this I
know for sure: you hold on to you.

That is enough. Because you are.

You are strong enough to weather any set-back – including this one. You are brave enough to manage every emotion – whether fleeting or seeming to take up roost. You are tenacious enough to grab onto the tail end of hope and wrangle it back into its rightful place in your psyche, your perspective, your present tense. You are tender enough to make room for grief while trusting its healing power. You are bold enough to get up again tomorrow, to stand tall, to face all that awaits (within and without), and to step forward – no matter how tentatively – into the life that is yours, the one that spreads out before you in all its unknown, in all its possibility, and yes, right now, in all its poignant ache.

I know you aren’t buying most of this, that you don’t quite believe me. Not yet. That’s
OK.

In the meantime, you can hold on to me. Because I do know a few things that I’ll hold in trust and reserve until you are ready to try them on and take them in:

  • Things don’t always go as planned and they do get better. I promise.
  • What feels like forever, isn’t. I promise.
  • What seems a mess, might very well be, but it will turn into beauty. I promise.
  • Every bit of this is part of your story, a chapter you’ll look back on fondly (eventually) – aware that it formed you in profound and powerful ways. I promise.
  • It won’t always hurt as much as it does right now. I promise.
  • Though you doubt me in this moment, I’m right about this: you are more than enough. I promise.

Little consolation, I get it. Still, my heart on your behalf. Still and again, hold on, sweet girl. When things don’t go as planned you can rest assured that you are yet to live into a picture, a story, and a life beyond imagining.

How can I say such a thing with any degree of con dence, let alone sanity? Well, almost exclusively because of you.

When I was your age, I could not have possibly imagined a picture, story, or life that was big enough, vast enough, amazing enough to include you. I could not have
dreamed this big or believed I could love this deeply. And I could not have known that I was enough to bear my own disappointments, shattered dreams, mislaid plans, and broken hearts. But I was. And I am.

As are you.

So hold on, sweet girl. I promise: it’s all going to be OK.

Champagne on a Tuesday

Oct 31, 2017 | Mothers and Daughters, My sort-of Sermons

My oldest daughter, Emma Joy, turns 21 today. Yes, Halloween. I can still picture her, just placed in my arms, with her hospital-donned hat; it was tied with two bows: one strand of black yarn and one strand of orange.

So many things have changed since that all- night of labor and blessed morning delivery; so many experiences, emotions, stories, “life,” that have made her into the miraculous, amazing, and powerful-and- tender presence and person that is her. The baby. The girl. The teenager. The college student. The young woman.

But this has not changed: I am as taken and overwhelmed by her now as I was 21 years ago; as grateful and humbled and thrilled and yes, as teary and emotional.

I will pour myself a glass of champagne today.

And though the two of us are not together, I will toast her – knowing (and thrilled) that she is enjoying toasts of her own, on her own, with friends who see her for the miraculous and amazing and powerful-and-tender woman she is, friends who love her deeply.

In a few days, I will drive to her college town. We will raise a glass together – her now of legal drinking age, me picking up the tab.

I find this hard to believe, hard to imagine: how could this day possibly be here? But then, that’s exactly what I felt the day I found out I was pregnant…after years of infertility and disappointment.

It is appropriate and right to not wait until Champagne Friday or our across-the-table presence from one another, to offer this toast; personalized and perfect for my now-grown girl:

You have done enough, Emma Joy. You have listened enough. You have said enough. You have cared enough. You have created enough. You have given enough. You have stood for enough. You have loved enough.

You ARE ENOUGH! Always and in every way.

And every bit of this was true the moment my eyes met yours, 21 years ago.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl. Oh, how I love you.

*clink*