I’m sitting in the airport, the sun rising, about to head out to the AACC conference and I miss them with a guttural ache.
The kind of ache only a mother can know, the kind that connects with an invisible cord, one that doctors can never sever, and they’re probably waking, now. My Aiden is walking into my room with his green bunny and his Thomas the Train pajamas saying “I snuggle Mommy” and Trent is pulling him close even as Aiden whimpers.
Kasher will be awake soon, too, and he’ll struggle out of Daddy’s arms and onto the floor and begin crawling to find me, to find the woman who knows his different cries: this one for milk, this one for sleep, this one just to be held.
And he won’t find me, because I’m gone, and it’s a guilt like no other. This mother guilt. But then I look down at my hands and fold them into prayer and remember that I’m not doing this for myself. I’m not doing this for the people at the conference either. I’m doing it for God alone. Because this is the message of the gospel: God loves us… so that we might share about that love with the world. And he loved me enough to save me from death, death from anorexia and death from sin and so now I live to share his love. Not only with my boys, but with the world.
And they may not find me right now, on the hardwood floor of our house crawling in their onesies and Trenton picking them up and hushing them quiet and feeding them toast and singing them songs. And it’s a guttural ache, it is.
But even if they don’t find me, may they always find God. May they never lose him.
Because in the end, it’s the Father that leads us all home.
sharing with ann, laura, michelle, and jen
901. a safe trip home back into the arms of those sweet, dimpled children
902. a husband who wrote me the whole time i was away
903. a blogger-friend who took me out for blackberry cobbler in missouri and spoke to my soul
904. the beautiful reception of Chasing Silhouettes–oh, how you’ve blessed me, friends. thank you.
905. divine connections at the conference
906. this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jYLTn4fKYQ.
907. airplane passengers who prayed for me, for my book, for joey and jin
908. joey’s and jin’s mother being open to considering finding a christian couple to adopt her children (please pray)
909. hearing John Townsend speak on relationships while eating a delicious meal
910. snuggling with my babies when i got home at midnight