Raising Magnolias

This is the Day!

I woke up early. It wasn’t even morning. I mean, yes, techincally it’s morning but I have a long day ahead and my mind is racing and I want to go back to sleep but all I can think about is a day last Decemeber when my friend stood in my driveway, frustrated and sad and worried and faithful and she said:

“They know it’s not cancer, but they can’t figure out what it is.”

Less than a week later, it was cancer.

And today she is a widow. A 30-something widow.

Too many 30-something widows. Too many fatherless children.

I’m missing the celebration of his life, and knowing my friend, it will be—Just That!—a celebration.

I will attending a burial of a different sort.

It will not be a celebration. Vows made. Vows broken.

And I grieve the death of my marriage.

And I am a 30-something widow.

Whatever. 40-something. I thought we needed a little joke.

At the beginning of the year I chose “Promise” as my word. I hadn’t thought about it in months. Life gets crazy like that and we forget. But yesterday, painting a mug with a bunch of beautiful little girls, I remembered.

Promise.

And I’m nervous that people will think Emma Claire painted the mug because last fall when I couldn’t write and I became obssesed with glue guns, I made lots of crafts. And my friend said, “Oh! I love children’s art.”

Only, you know, my kids had been gone for the weekend. It was grown-up art.

It was Myra Katherine art.

I forgot about my word, but the Lord didn’t.

Last spring a friend of mine reccomended a book called the Circle Maker. Many take aways, but for me it was about circling the Promises of God.

Not praying for.

Praying through.

Not what do I want.

Instead.

What God promises.

I.

Can.

Have.

And I have circled His promises and I have circled the courthouse.

Literally.

Day after day after day, I have walked around the courthouse praying and circling and singing (ya know, super quietly) and whatever, it’s pretty amazing that I was never approached by the police whose building is right next door and I remmeber this lady who walked around Sioux Falls with a parrott on her shoulder and we called her the crazy parrot lady and I feel terrible now, because maybe she was just praying and circling and I have this feeling there are some little office ladies at the courthosue who gather around the window like the FRIENDS used to do when Ugly Naked Man was in the apartment across the street and they’re all like,

“Time for a smoke break. Praying walking lady is back.”

And this morning I woke up remembering my word.

He (little h) broke his promises.

And everything is broken.

He (Big H) never will. And I watched my friend live it and I heard my friend cry it and even as death swallows up children and daddies and marriages—

He is still good.

Children are a gift from the Lord. Husbands who love you and adore you and care for you are a gift from the Lord.

And I think it’s OK to cry out, angry and raw and want the gift back.

But today I am not angry. I’m not anxious. I’m not scared. I’m not sad.

Oh my word! Of course! I am all of those things.

But greater is He that is in me. So while I’m angry and anxious and scared and sad, I

Am.
Not.
Afraid.

It’s different.

I am standing on the promises of God and here’s what I know.

He promises to work all things together for good for those who love the Lord and have been called according to His purpose.

I love the Lord.

HALE YEAH, I do!

I don’t love him enough. I don’t love him with my whole heart. I fall short and fall flat and I don’t.

Love.

Enough.

But I don’t have to. Because another promise?

His grace is enough.

My prayer for today is that He will be exalted. Through my story.

Through our story.

Through the celebration of Scott’s life and Courtney’s faithfulness and as people see the faith of those who are suffering and the faith of those who still find reasons for rejoicing that today—

In Fremont.

The cloud will lift and He will be exalted.

God is a father to the fatherless.

He is the father of my children.

Today, Coulter will race off to 3rd grade. To his teacher Mr. Hamilton who totally rocks because “he gives candy whenever he feels like it.”

And Emma Claire will run into Mona’s house excited to see her friends and a little nervous that she’ll say the wrong thing because “Momma, I don’t go there all the time so sometimes I say the wrong things. Did you know that Mona doesn’t like the word mouse trap?”

Uhm, no. I didn’t really know that.

Anyway, they will race off. Obvlivious.

Just as it should be.

They won’t know that across town decisions are being made and tears are being cried and papers are being signed (I think I’ll have to sign papers?) and futures are being laid out.

For them.

And I have no reason to trust in him to do what’s best for our children.

And I have every reason to trust in Him to do what’s best for His children.

I will trust in the Lord and I will not be afraid. What can man (or she-lawyer) do to me? (Biblical translation, she-lawer added and I can assure that’s the nicest name I have used for her so far.)