The Album

In the top drawer of my nightstand there's a picture album I've been guarding like a hawk.  Several times throughout the day I have this moment in which I run to the bedroom thinking perhaps I left the drawer cracked and the album might be discovered.  The drawer would be cracked from last night.  And the last night. And the night before that all the way back to June 8th when I placed it there.  All those nights just before closing my own eyes when I reach for that baby blue album and pour over the pages of pictures.  Pictures of my baby, before he was in my arms.  

Inside there's these pictures.  Sweet baby boy...dressed in pink.  A huge smile standing with his China mama (nanny).  Picture after picture with some of the same children.  A precious old woman, "Nie Nie", grandmother in Chinese.  These pictures, along with his medical records and the clothes he came to us wearing, are the only links we have to his past.  

I want to preserve them.  I want to honor them.  I don't want to hide them at all.  I want Levi to know his story.  But there's a big piece of me that's been scared out of my mind to reveal them.  There's this gap and very few words to make a bridge between his heart and mine.  I feel like there should be words.  Words to explain and to offer comfort and answer questions and make promises.  

And maybe, too, I don't know exactly what to do with someone else's emotions.  Maybe, when I'm real honest, I don't know what to do with my own.  So sometimes maybe I avoid them.  

But grace keeps taking my hand and walking me back to that nightstand.  And for days I can't get it out of my mind.  This urge to bring the little boy into my arms and hold him tight and reach for the album.  

So I did it.  We sat together on my bed and flipped pages.  And I waited.  Waited for the floodgates.  Tears. Rage. But none came.  

Just like a kid, he was most interested in seeing himself in the pictures.  China mama was offered a short glance.  The friends received giggles as he tried to explain each one to me.  Nie Nie, a big grin.  And then a sweet "bye bye Nie Nie" before he closed the album.  Then we were done.  No big alligator tears.  No declaring China mama his real mom and scorning me.  

And then I knew it.  Words don't really build great bridges.  Digging down into the muck and mire and securing the posts. Measuring out carefully and forming concrete slabs.  Lowering them carefully into place and securing them tightly.  

That bridge from our hearts to his has been under construction for weeks.  There's been muck.  In his heart.  In our hearts.  And I'm sure they'll be more.  But maybe there's a post or two.  Maybe the slabs are being poured and the form of the bridge is starting to take shape.  

The hands and the heart are the bridge builders.  No, they are the tools.  Grace is the bridge builder.  In the failing and the flailing, digging out of the muck, its only grace that ever stands a chance of holding firm.  And the Grace Giver, Holy One...He built that first bridge that all the bridges run parallel to.  Then He asks us to do it with Him. Step out into that deep water and suddenly we're standing on dry ground.  He's making a path through the water.  We're walking. And on the right and the left, where I dare not turn my head, the water stands up scared straight stiff of the Almighty Hand.  That Hand, wind at my back, making step turn into step. I'm there on the bank and the enemy is swallowed up.  And the only words, are barely words, just uttering praise to the One who was in the beginning....was with God and was God. All things coming into being through Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not...does not...comprehend it.  But runs from it. 

(John 1)

Word Shadow

This morning I acknowledged something aloud that deserved no recognition.  It simply deserved captivity to Christ. But I let it walk on out of my lips.  And something profound happened there before my eyes.  That flesh feeling that should have died took on a form and a shape.  It caught my heel and I walked in it, limping on in the shadow of those words as if someone had proclaimed them ruler.  

It turns out my limping made the living for everyone around me a bit more like dying.  I was offering the Word of Life to no one.  And my sight was so quick blinded that I didn't even see the manna fall before my eyes when I read "I have put My Words in your mouth, and covered you in the shadow of My hand, in order to plant the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, "You are My people" (Isaiah 51:16.  

The limping turned into tripping - falling right over the holes and cracks meant to be filled up by grace.  I stumbled that way through all the hours.  Until I sat on the toilet lid rocking that boy who just wouldn't let his teeth be brushed.  And when his eyelids closed shut right there I saw that I was the one with the unclean lips.  I had set ablaze a whole forest and I smelled of the smoke.  

What in a word is power?  Why, between the mind and the lips does a word carry life and death?  I'm thinking of the tower that was being raised up - to reach the heavens,  a throne, of sorts, for man.  That flesh of mine, the one that produced the utterance - declaration of the day - would like to build a tower, a throne to sit itself upon.  But then one morning the brick stacking stopped.  Because the One who sits on the throne of heaven changed the way they spoke.  Just like that, the old language was gone and out of their mouths came new words.  

Out of my mouth could come new words.  Words that carry Life and Love to the farthest reaches...and the closest little hearts.  Words declaring the goodness, words naming it grace - opening that grace gift treasure box and letting it all come spilling out upon the day before me.  All that all sufficient grace.  More sufficient for more than I can dare to fathom.  

Tear down my tower, Lord.  Put Your Words in my mouth.  I long to walk in Your shadow. 

Grace Blanket

The skin on my chest is raw.  And my heart is torn and undone.  Twice tonight I held that boy who claws at me, until his anger gave way.  I whispered my love to him.  Real love, words that I really meant to say.  

In those moments there is a surrendering and a fighting.   But not what you think.  I am surrendering.  Shutting down my flesh circuits which long to fight or flee.  Surrendering to the Lover who loved me when I was ugly. Loves me when I am ugly and I claw against His goodness.  

And there is a fighting. Fighting for the heart of that boy.  The enemy fights for it.  The King fights for it.  I don't want to presume a thing, but maybe there are arms that must stay steady until the sun sets.  And maybe those arms are mine.  I'm certain that they are held up by you warrior prayers in the valley.  And I'm living for that day when I hear the Lord: "write this in a book as a memorial and recite it...I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Moses built an altar and named it The Lord is My Banner; and he said, "The Lord has sworn; the Lord will have war against Amalek from generation to generation" (Exodus 17).  

Amalek, who comes in right after the divided sea and the manna and the quails and the rock water.  And right before the family framework is set up between Father God and His children.  

Who would dare rise against this One who causes the earth to swallow whole armies?  

Who would challenge the miracle work of the King...attempt to harden the heart once more? What is my boy's Amalek after?  A heart bound up so tight - nothing comes in, nothing goes out?  Is he not after the same thing in me?

But they, we've, been told "I will draw out my sword, my hand will destroy them". 

The "Wo Ai Ni" grace that I keep whispering wins. And he sinks into my arms.

Finally, sleep comes...and then I crawl in next to the older boy.  The one who sat in his bed, headphones on and listened to the screaming until he could take it no longer and quietly asked for an escape.  He spoke of the best part of his day - swimming with cousins.  And when asked about the worst part of his day...he thinks and thinks.  I'm certain he's going to relay the nightmare of listening to his brother scream not 15 minutes earlier.  But no, he says "mom, I'm not sure that there was a worst part." What? Something is hiding those moments we just ticked through.  A grace blanket. 

And I think of the younger boy at dinner.  Who stares at the family pictures on the wall and he wants to know if that's him, that baby in mama's arms? I just stare.  Is love just covering us all - totally hiding us under a grace blanket so much that he doesn't remember he was born into this family only 36 days ago? 

There's a little girl too who won't tell you she's struggling.  She wouldn't tell you why she imitates his outbursts.  Why she yells phrases that sound foreign.  Why there's a mess in the bathroom again because she didn't listen to her body.  And now she just waits for mommy to come and sing.  I sing and I worship, she sleeps and my heart is hidden under the wing of the Protector.  The One who just keeps singing and spreading His grace blanket over me.