Embracing Plucked Daffodils {And Resurrection Life}

I am cold, hurting, sad and despondent and he says, "get dressed and come outside with me--it's such a nice, warm day". Something inside me jumps at the thought of being in the sunshine after so much grey cloudiness and rain in my life. It has been a long time coming--this spring rejuvenating joyousness--this resurrection!

As I throw my clothes on, not caring if my hair hasn't been washed {i'm going to the sunlight}, girls all dressed and I step outside, this change is hard. Hard because my emotions don't feel it. But I've been here before, and I know that the emotions are not always in sync with what my heart and soul {God's Spirit speaking?} are saying is vital, purposeful, helpful, and joy-creating. Human emotions don't so easily give way to the joy-creating and peace-creating moments. My emotions stand hard and stubborn as brick, and they are not easily destroyed and replaced with God's love, gentleness, patience, and hope.

Hope is a funny thing....it's like stepping outside to the sun's blinding when I've been hibernating inside my comfort place, my isolation for too long. It all feels raw, open, it hurts and blinds and in the same breath feels like warmth to the soul, the soul slowly waking, and the Son telling me time to get up.

He turns on the radio, and says, "You ARE ready--wow! Let's go!" And my heart is so easily led because it craves it and needs it. My heart craves, this heart that is only for him. And it is this that God is trying to show me--yes, my heart craves, and it is truly HIM that i crave, that my heart yearns to follow.

In the sunlight, always the blinding light, I am so thankful that He gives spring....and I see it. I see that the leaves, the brown, black and grey, the dead things must come for life to come forth. All of the wretched things, the things I hate the most, the things that seem so evil to me--cloudy days that offer no hope, rain that never gives any light or warmth, no life or beauty to be found, all of the loneliness and disappointment, the anguish, the desperate pleas for help, and the trudging through of the feet--all of these must be so that HOPE can come.

So that LIFE can push really hard, can push hard and long against the surface, so hard until it seems I will give way, and when I think that my weary heart and soul can take no more, there it is!

Life to be felt, touched, all warmth and sun and the SON comes in strong, like a team of wild stallions beating back ocean waves, and He calms me with His steady hand, touches me, ME who doesn't deserve anything, feeling like a silly child for asking, for reaching out, and He gently cradles me like summer sun, blinding the eyes and letting lids drift off asleep.

And then I see, I see the brown leaves, {so happy to be picking up those brown leaves, everyone pitching in, the warm sun our helper}, and I know what they have covered up this whole time--it has been life growing underneath.

It was life cocooned up in an earthen grave, like that catepillar the girls placed in the grace garden, just like that Resurrection Man whose body was wrapped and laid in a cold tomb.

In the front yard, where he is raking strong and ferocious, we meander and follow him, walking and looking, taking in beauty, holding hands, snapping our happy day in freeze-frames.

 Then it happens: I hear him say, "No, Bella, you know Mama doesn't want you to do that". It is always Mama that doesn't want the children to run and frollick and make mischief, always Mama that has a hard time with letting go and living fully the resurrection. And in an instant I see that Bella has plucked all my lovely daffodils from the front garden, the only sign of life in this deadness, the only beauty that I loved, and before I think, I say sternly, "NO, Bella!" and now her tiny shoulders droop, her joyous flower-possessing countenance falls, and straightaway, she is a mess, and so am I.

 I go to her, drawn like the pull of heartache, and kneel down beside her. I say, "It is okay, Bella. You can have Mama's flowers". And these words are hard for me to say, and they are pulled out like weeds stuck in the hard winter ground, that cold earthen grave where my heart is wrapped up. I hurt, I am torn, and my anger dissolving, I know that I must let go. I know that this is good for me and for her--to learn grace. I hug her and keep saying it over and over, and of course, in Bella's usual style, she has to punish me just a bit. She can't move past it right away, and oh, she is MY child; she definitely came from my womb, this child that has it hard letting go.

And suddenly I realize that it is not I that is supposed to be teaching her in this moment, but it is she that is teaching me, and she is teaching me well--oh, the lessons I learn from her about how to live out this life that springs forth from painful grave, me just dust returning to dust one day.

I am a broken Mama, throwing myself against the stubborness of this child, and breaking over and over and over.

God knows that this is what this sinful, hard heart of mine needs. WHY is my first reaction-- when they are {mischeviously}, blithely having carefree, airy and sun-happy fun--to sternly correct and break littles' spirits?

Couldn't I, being fully aware of her possessing my prize, just have let my laugh carry on the wind, reaching her with a warm enveloping smile and letting her know that I will always give her what is mine?

In putting away Easter and Lent, and seeing the sin that so easily creeps back in--the exhaustion and the anxiety that tries to take over like a dark cloak--maybe what I'm really seeing clearly is that to live this resurrection--to carry Easter with me I must not hold tight, but let go.

Is it really things that bring beauty, like flowers, or is it the God-breathed moments with my daughter,  The Word Himself gently shooting shafts of light through the darkness of our hearts together?

For aren't we all just groping along, bling, trying to find the way? Aren't we weary sojourners looking for home? Isn't this earth full of so much darkness and death, threatening to swallow us up, taking us down to the depths of the grave?

If that is true, then aren't these God-given moments of truth all we really have--to behold with awe and let our breath be taken with beauty, to just stand on holy ground speechless?

This letting go and living fully the resurrection life is apart of grace, a reflection of the Father's love. This is how He meant it to be. He never meant for me to give anything or live anything that He hasn't already lived and freely given me.

This is grace:--not only mercy and pardon, but a beautiful gift laid at my feet for the taking, laid at the feet of the undeserving, a beautiful gift paid for with His life.

I don't do this life so gracefully--more like a child with fist clenched tight, really, but this grace part He is so generously and gently teaching.

I'm opening fist and learning and accepting His grace, all the gifts laid at my feet, and my daughter--I let her pluck the daffodil from my open hand, and she and I, we are dancing--sometimes quiet and stilled, sometimes blasting out the stereo--just dancing like crazy in this God-breathed life of grace.

*an edited post from archives

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