i think of her as i rock, the world a spindle of mothers, unraveling in house coats and tousled hair, our bodies nursing babies and the thread of life on a spit-up cloth
i think of mum and how she gave herself to me, how she gave body and midnight sleep to me and how she sat in her rocking chair as i clung to her, and she prayed
i know she prayed, for i’ve read her journals. the journals scrawled in faint blue by hands which always smelled of Jergen’s. such kind hands, and how they would fold over my infant body as she nursed milk and spirit
and her journals speak of those nights, of those prayers, of the way her body would sway to keep her awake and the way her mouth would mumble things of the soul for it’s all she knew: this young believer, and it’s all i really know too… this mumbling…
for what else can a mother do in the face of the night?
and God is in these small graces, in the milky slurps and the mumbled prayers, in the hands cupping cheeks and the rocking of chair, in the blanket swaddling, diaper changing, bath drawing, fever soothing touch, he is:
for it’s all we have. we cannot cure the common cold. we cannot determine who our children will marry or what job they will choose or whom they will ultimately serve.
all we can do, as the night pitches black and morning seems so far, is rock, and nurse, and pray…
(will you pray for my family tonight? our world has been rocked upside down… my husband’s world especially. that God would draw nigh, in this pitch black… thank you.)
linking today with laura, l.l.barkat, jen, and just write.
