Aliyah Faith

"A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps." (Proverbs 16.9)

"Whaaaat?"
     My poor husband was mumbling, not yet half awake as I shuddered violently.
"I. . . I think we have bed bugs."
      A frantic 3 a.m. search on July 12th revealed no bugs and Ermias's incredible patience with his potentially-crazy, 37-weeks pregnant wife. I would continue scratching what seemed to be invisible bug bites--no redness, no welts, no bite marks--all through church the next morning. My midwife Joanna suspected a liver problem and drew blood at my next appointment. The day after my phone rang with half the lab results, extremely elevated liver enzyme levels, which allowed for a preliminary diagnosis: intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP).
      My fingers curled tighter around the phone as Joanna explained. ICP is a rare (1-2 out of 1,000) pregnancy complication that involves a malfunctioning of the liver in the third trimester, and as the problem can sometimes put babies in danger, doctors typically opt for early inductions. We were still waiting on one more lab result to give a firm diagnosis, but Joanna told us to head to Bluefield for another biophysical profile (a long, detailed ultrasound) the next day.
      My voice on that call was so much calmer than I felt. A call to my mom right after didn't even bring up the feeling rattling low inside me.
       No. No, no, no, no, no.
      I wasn't supposed to be at risk for anything. From the day we decided we were open to having children until that moment I had done everything in my power to be as low-risk as possible. I was in the best shape of my life when I got pregnant. I took those horrid vitamins faithfully. I ate well and ran until 30 weeks and practiced yoga and worked deliberately on my stress levels. I had my doctor's blessing on the homebirth I had been planning on since I had begun researching American obstetric practices and statistics as a college junior. I had done everything right; I was supposed to be fine.
      Wednesday's ultrasound was comforting as the tech found nothing amiss, but the research I kept finding wasn't. Because ICP moms' livers don't release bile in a timely fashion, bile salts escape into other body tissues (a process that researchers assume causes the itching) and can possibly pass through the placenta. Some experts due to animal studies are beginning to suggest that the bile salts can cause structural changes on the cellular level in the placenta and umbilical cord and also instigate colon activity, making some babies pass a significant amount of meconium. So either by having their placentas and umbilical cords damaged or by inhaling meconium, 10-15% of babies from moms with untreated ICP die, usually during the 37th to 39th week. While a few newer studies suggest that these tragedies rarely occur to moms with bile salt levels under 40 (although a few incidences exist) and typically occur when the levels are over 100, the increased risk leads most obstetricians to choose "active management" (induction at 37 weeks or whenever complete lung development has been established) over "expectant management" (watching mom and baby like a hawk and inducing only if baby shows signs of distress).
       And I still believe that in general babies should get to pick their own birthdays; that mom's bodies know how to birth and should be mostly left alone to do what they were designed to do; that the end of the third trimester is not a waste of time but rather a significant season of growth and development. But the precious knobs of feet and knees bulging out under my ribcage were sending a sickly-sweet wave across my chest. She's okay; she's okay; she's okay. Breathe. But then--Is that it? Is that the last time I'll feel her move? I wanted to make a solid decision and the most recent research I could find was sketchy at best. I would reread the research that suggested expectant management was a legitimate option for women with lower bile salt levels and hold out hope mine would come back very low. And then after another reassuring sweep of toes my heart would freeze again.
       Am I going to come this far and then never, never get to hold her?
       And I knew that no matter what decision we made, it was possible the Lord had been planning to give us just thirty-seven weeks with this little girl all along. My parents got 38.5 weeks with my sister and then two more in a NICU before Jesus took Abigail to Heaven; dear friends got 36 or 37 weeks with their daughter before an ultrasound showed no heartbeat. And I wanted to be good, wanted to be the super-Christian with all kinds of faith in the sovereignty of God.
        But I was not. By Wednesday night I was sobbing into my husband's chest, this unholy idea running wild through my heart: I don't want to trust the Lord. Even though He would remain in control whether I chose to trust Him or not, I didn't want Him to be, didn't want to be still, didn't want to accept whatever He had planned. Because that plan might have been to take her home and I never, never, never wanted to be okay with that. She's mine; she's mine; she's mine. You can't have her; she's mine.
        I had said this refrain before. When she was a tiny little bean whose chance of miscarriage was still high. When she was 20 weeks, fully formed but having lungs just a little too underdeveloped to make it. Over and over this whole pregnancy  Lord had to remind me to leave my hands open because that posture is the only way to receive a gift, to say yes to His giving AND His taking because He will always be good even if I don't understand. But I had no faith left to believe the truth I had already learned. Trying to decide which route to go medically left me wound terrified in the lie that I was in control, that I had the power to determine by my choices whether my daughter lived or died. That if I was just smart enough, I could give her the best life possible.
         That if I wasn't, I might kill her.
         The morning of July 16th was perhaps the most difficult few hours of my life. We didn't have the second half of the lab results, didn't have a full diagnosis, didn't have a concrete decision on how to proceed. And even though my daughter didn't usually start moving until after breakfast, her stillness made every part of my body hurt. I paced under the soft kitchen light in the early-morning quite, manually manipulating the lump of her under my right rib in an attempt to disturb her sleep. Please move, girlie. Just do something. Come on, baby, please.
       Panic feels like ice shards in the veins, a sense of stabbing and then a cold emptiness. My pleading turned into the faithless prayers I had been trying to pretend I didn't need to pray. I don't want to trust You, Jesus. I have to, but I don't want to. Please let her move. Please help me trust You. I want to be able to trust You.
       But please let her move. Please.
       Yet as the day went on a song I had learned in high school filled in all the cold empty:

            "Yes and amen to everything that's in Your heart.
             Yes and amen to everything that You have planned.   
             We live to see Your kingdom come,
             To see Your perfect will be done on earth."

       I didn't get farther into the lyrics than that; I didn't need to. Despite the kicking I felt later that day, the fear hadn't left; my chest would be sore from all the times my heart froze that day. But I no longer fell for the lie that I could change this story's ending, and I stopped feeling the need to come up with or fake a confidence in God's sovereignty that I didn't feel. My job wasn't to be a spiritual superhero, but rather to come in broken and spread out all the enemy was whispering before the Lord and pray like King Jehoshaphat "We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you."
        And then the God Who is our banner, the place we look to for victory, planted five Aarons and Hurs in front of me that day to hold up my hands, to pray for peace and faith for me that I needed to receive miraculously from Jesus because I didn't have any left.  It was these women whose kindness and faith made me willing when the second half of the labs came in that evening with levels just under that 40-cutoff (31.2) to cry, to tell my midwife that I was done wondering every moment if my baby had died, and to make the decision to call my doctor about induction.
   Five-a.m. wake-ups are not exactly our cup of tea in the Mekonnen household, but at 5:50 we were winding down the mountainside's near-empty roads for a 7:30 appointment in Bluefield. After consulting with Joanna, my doctor decided Thursday night to wait until the morning to make the decision to induce or not. A non-stress test, two blood pressure readings, another ultrasound, and a blood draw later, we learned that while baby girl was doing quite well and her heart sounded beautiful, one of my liver enzyme levels was even higher and my blood pressure was still up a little bit. Even though we knew the high liver enzyme levels were due to the ICP, high blood pressure plus high liver enzyme levels can be indicative of preeclampsia, another serious complication, and there was no way to tell whether my blood pressure was just up a little because I was 38 weeks pregnant by then and my body was merely tired or if I had preeclampsia (we later could conclude I didn't). Thus, an order for an induction was sent to the hospital across the street. I stared at Ermias's fingers interlaced in mine, breathed a sigh of relief, and then cried. She was safe and I was getting freedom from the anxiety of that week; I was not getting the birth I had so meticulously planned for. She wouldn't be in danger, but she wouldn't get to come peacefully, full-sized and on her own terms. Happy and sad and so very overwhelmed all in one moment. Yes and amen. Yes and amen. Yes and amen.
     We grabbed Subway because I was starving and Joanna insisted I eat before heading to the hospital. The sweet charge nurse who came in first after we were admitted couldn't get out of the room fast enough for me; I almost made it to her leaving before wringing my husband's hand and burying my face in the paper-thin hospital pillow. A port for an IV dangled out of an arm already sore from all the blood draws that week. That horrendous hospital gown was so big it drowned my 38-weeks pregnant frame. I was wrapped in two different monitors and a screen ticked up and down with my baby's every heartbeat after a week of being unable to breathe from thinking about nothing but her heartbeats. Mostly, I wasn't home. I was tired and emotionally exhausted and now had to face the physically hardest work I'd ever do and I would have traded anything just to go home and sleep for two days. Yes and amen. Yes and amen. Yes and amen.
     If you like birth stories, read on. If not, scroll down to the last paragraph. :)
     Two significant caveats before we get into the story: Moms are brave people. Delivering a baby naturally is brave; getting a catheter and anesthesia put into your spine is brave; laying on an operating table in good faith, unable to see and holding your breath until your precious baby cries, is brave. I am not special because I had a somewhat-natural birth; I am blessed because I had a team of people who armed me with information and encouragement so that I could have the best birth possible given the circumstances I was dealt. Secondly, please also understand that I am not against doctors and nurses. With the exception of one moderately-grumpy older woman, I had an incredible team of nurses and a wonderful doctor (a backup for my OB, who had scheduled vacation that day) who were genuinely kind and did their jobs very well. I do, however, take issue with some of the general practices in the American labor and delivery system. In a well-meaning attempt to take care of every single eventuality, legally protect doctors, and provide care to an enormous number of women, those responsible for this system, along with a mostly-negative media portrayal of birth, have created a culture in which many women know neither how strong they are nor what their rights and options are. Deliberately managing one's own birth to create the best possible experience wouldn't be such a foreign concept if the right education and support were given to expecting moms. I hope my story gives you some ideas about what my experience with receiving care from a midwife taught me and how it enabled me to have a wonderful hospital birth.
     I had heard that women "forget" the pain of labor because of the delight of having a new baby; I didn't think that saying meant literal amnesia! I had to be informed by my midwife at my first postpartum visit about several points during that day because I literally have no conscious memory of them happening! From what I remember and what I've been told, here's how that day went and some reflections.
     My doctor chose a drug called Cytotec for the induction. Most inductions involve Pitocin, which is an artificial version of the hormone that naturally causes labor. By using Cytotec, I gave my body the chance to make its own hormones and do its own work. With each dose I was required to stay attached to the monitors and lay in the bed for one hour. This stipulation was perhaps the hardest part of the process; being unable to move during labor makes every single contraction so much worse. My sister had come to hang out with us that afternoon, but by the end of the hour on the monitors with the second dose I asked her to go home; I was just too uncomfortable to socialize. My midwife and her assistant Mary showed up not long thereafter. Wearing gauges and bright tattoos, Mary isn't a midwifery stereotype, but she possesses an incredible sense of intuition. I barely had to do or say anything for Mary to respond, and she often determined what I needed before I asked for it.
    Several hours later I was laying over the ball my midwife's assistant had brought, sobbing. I remember saying "There's just no break. There should be a break. There's just no break." Inductions are difficult for many reasons, but one of them is that the mom's body may not be ready to go into labor yet. Imagine setting the stage for a play. The director has announced a general timeframe for when they typically start, but the play only begins whenever everything is ready. Instead of allowing my body to determine when to pull back the curtain and begin the drama with the stage all set and everyone in place, Cytotec pulled the curtain when there was very little on the stage and none of the players were in place. To make matters worse, my daughter was posterior (face up) and had her head ramming against my pubic bone, leaving a visible, temporary indent just above her forehead. I had severe pelvic pain and wasn't getting any "in-between-contractions" moments at all. My nurse suggested a drug called Stadol, a narcotic that Joanna promised would help me sleep. Choosing to take that drug was the best decision I made all day. I slept for three hours and woke up with a radical peace in my heart. As I had to get to 3-4 cm dilated before I could even receive an epidural, I became determined to just do my best and then make a decision every step of the way. The drug wore off, the contractions rolled on (finally with a discernible wave-like pattern), and I got excited for time since the itching began. In my mind taking the Stadol meant I was no longer having a natural birth. Suddenly I no longer felt pressured to maintain the status of perfectly natural for this birth; I could just work hard and get excited that with each wave I was one contraction closer to holding my baby. Yes and amen. Yes and amen. Yes and amen.
    From that point on the rest of the story is mostly a blur. I remember bartering with my sweet night nurse for the right to wear my own clothes (I got permission for the pants; I sneaked the bra and tennis shoes, figuring making an apology would be easier than asking permission) as I made endless laps around Bluefield's tiny labor and delivery (L&D) ward. At that point my contractions must have been decently strong (though I don't remember being in any serious pain) because my memory is foggy about the chronology. I know that I received a third dose of Cytotec because nothing had changed much, that I chose to get a second dose of Stadol, and that I slept again, although fitfully because subsequent does of Stadol are increasingly less effective.
       Around 6 a.m. Saturday morning my night nurse came in to tell me she was leaving and that someone would be in to draw my blood shortly. I vaguely remember the blood draw and getting up to to the bathroom. After that I worked through at least one contracting on the birth ball Mary. As I stood up from the ball to move through a contraction I apparently said "Oh, gross!" and my midwife woke up chuckling; she knew exactly what was happening. After a week of reading about the dangers of meconium aspiration with ICP babies, I was thrilled my broken waters were all clear. That moment was much like taking an on-ramp to a major highway. I entered what Joanna calls "labor-land" and remember almost nothing from there out. Labor pain is insane; it's not something to casually sign up for. But then neither is motherhood. I told Joanna after that first post-waters-breaking contraction I thought my hips were breaking apart. She got excited and said that sounded like genuine labor (compared to the not-so-productive pelvic pain I had experienced in the beginning).
    Ermias, Joanna, and Mary were my angels for the next four hours. My sweet husband made me drink water, held my hands, and told me over and over I could do it. He was exactly what I needed him to be, but we both later said there was no way we could have done this alone. While my diagnosis did cause me to lose the exact birth I wanted, what I gained from Joanna far surpassed what I paid for. I gained prenatal appointments so relaxed I looked forward to them. I gained the education and the confidence to make decisions about my care, like choosing the Stadol and not getting an epidural and asking for an internal monitor so I could move a bit more freely because the external one kept slipping when I'd move with a contraction. Most importantly, I gained two doulas (birth assistants) who were worth their weight in gold. Movies show women in labor belting out high-pitched, feminine wails; I sounded like a cross between a mama bear and a Mac truck. Joanna kept encouraging me not to be afraid of those sounds and that they were helpful to me and my baby. Because of the crazy hip pain (due to my daughter's being posterior), she and Mary did nothing but squeeze my hips together through every contraction, taking turns until they were so exhausted they had to do it together, one person on each side. At some point I gave in to the seemingly endless waves and stopped getting scared each time they swelled. My moans got even lower and much quieter. I had no knowledge of time passing. I was only present for that contraction, could only handle that one moment.
     I remember at one point a nurse checking me and saying those blessed words "she's complete." I had expected to be excited to be near the end, but I wasn't sure I could take anything more. Dr. Edwards had said in the beginning I could push in any position I wanted and I definitely took him up on that offer. At one point I had my head and hands on the raise head of the bed and my feet on the lower part. My midwife laughed at my crazy downward dog. For a moment I realized just how many people were in the room to see these antics but then promptly forgot to care. My room was crowded partly because there were no other women on the L&D side of floor that day and partly because L&D nurses rarely get to see a physiologic (no anesthesia) second-stage labor. Seeing my daughter's head and then watching it disappear without the power to fully deliver her was demoralizing. I kept telling Joanna I didn't have the strength to do this. Then at 12:20-something, in another moment I don't remember, I stopped having contractions entirely and fell fast asleep for five minutes (a physical phenomenon some moms get at the very end of labor). Apparently that nap was what I needed, and at 12:30 on the nose Aliyah Faith came screaming into this world. My doctor held her uncertainly, not sure what to do with a mom who both delivered on her hands and knees and wanted delayed cord clamping. Joanna smiled, asked "Want to see how we do it at home?" and slid my little girl through my legs into my arms before turning me over.
        The fog that had surrounded the past few hours instantly disappated, and I could do nothing but look at her. I remembering hearing I had a second-degree tear and something about giving me a little Pitocin to ensure no hemorrhaging (which moms with ICP have a somewhat higher chance of). I didn't care. I looked to my husband to confirm that we were still going with the name we had picked a week or so before. Aliyah Faith was left on my chest for nearly an hour and nursed for almost 45 minutes before the nurses and Ermias took her to be weighed, measured, and bathed. As my postpartum nurse was walking me to my I recovery room on the other side of the floor I got a sight that remains one of my favorite snapshots of the day: my precious parents with their noses plastered to the nursery window. After thirteen babies of their own, they finally had a grandbaby.

      Aliyah (ah-LEE-uh) is an Arabic name usually spelled with two As and meaning "the highest one." But writing one A leaves the English transliteration of a Hebrew word pronounced AH-lee-uh. If a Jewish family is "making aliyah," they are moving back to the nation of Israel, making a physical and spiritual journey home. Ermias's prayer and mine is that whatever the road may look like for our daughter--difficult or easy, short or long--her life will be a constant aliyah, a pilgrimage of yes and amen that takes her all the way home.

Storm

       The volume deafens. I make futile attempts to cover my head, soaking my hems and freezing my ankles in the lake country rising across the basketball court. The drop are so heavy I begin choking; I hold my breath. Closer, closer--finally! I dash under the porch's cover. Rain sweeps over the playground in waves. We are in for a good storm.
       The autumn of my first year my heart's atmosphere was thick as the anxious air this morning. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. The mantra braced me around the mountain's wicked curves, through the blurring weeks of too many new names, against the throbbing of no Naomi to hold, no mama's smile to hold me. No house was ready for me; no classroom had been cleared for me; no one knew me. I'll be fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. 
       And I could be fine through the adding of another class for which I had one week to prepare, through the living with a stranger for a month before I had any home, through daily failure crushing every support wall upholding any sense of "I belong." I have to be fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.
        Christmas Eve, and I had begun to think I was at home here. We listened to our children sing and enveloped the tree in too many gifts and ate late-night cookies, and I was only checking my email before shutting the light to hasten Christmas morning.
       High school. The English classes. All of them.
             In two weeks.
        And in that moment--just that moment--I was sure God knew what He was doing, sure of His calling, sure I'd be okay. I trusted Him and flew in unconscious surrender across the hours to the glories of a Christmas morning.
       Sunday night hall time was one of my favorites. Ten o'clock bed for all, a few mostly-calm hours with my girls before the school week. But the noise that January night just before second semester thundered, deafening.
            You can't. You can't. You're not ready; you can't. You're selfish to take the place of such an experienced teacher, a fool to believe all will be all right. Soon all will see your incompetence and stop loving you, start tolerating you, consider you that staff member someone must eventually muster up the courage to kick out. You can't. 
       And I could have told myself my thoughts lied, could have spoken truth. But deceiving yourself into believing you're okay is a fine art I've mastered, and bracing yourself for rejection is exhausting. I was too conditioned in believing my own lies, too tired to fight.
      The only way I can describe anxiety attacks is to say they feel like someone is holding you under water, waiting for you to drown. An in my case, the thoughts holding me smirked, spewing sarcasm as I kicked and fought and tried to scream. Aww, poor thing. You actually thought you'd make it in the real world. But you're still the thirteen-year-old screaming nonsense and wishing to die. But some days--some days--I would come up to breathe; some days I would find the storm's eye. I had four days of a mind's clear sky once. And each time the storm broke I'd break surface and breathe and believe I would be fine. But when you trust only yourself, you must lean on your own understanding. You must direct your own path.
                           And when you direct your own path, you get lost.
      "Nice knowing you, Ma'm. Thanks for getting me kicked out."
      He leaned back, self-satisfied in how effectively he had hurt me, had touched my greatest fear. How do you dare to love when loving them might mean losing them too? Of course getting expelled would be his own fault, if it ever happened. Of course I wasn't responsible for his sin. Of course.
      But the thought insistent hissed of not enough and your fault and could have done more.
      Because I wanted a scrap of pride to hold onto, to say that my 6 a.m. morning on the hall and fight breakings and classroom sweepings meant I was some kind of superhero. I wanted to believe the well-intentioned guests who intimated that we were these children's saviors.
        Oh God, forgive me to have ever thought I must be someone's savior.
        And the power of words like these--words from angry students, words from the death inside of me--pushed up great waves and pulled me under again. I cried in front of those poor ninth graders at least four or five times in one semester. I often felt I couldn't breathe. When you don't breathe, your body starts to burn from oxygen deprivation. I remember once staring longingly at the tile floor because it looked so cool and all I wanted to do was lie, head and heart-down, to make the burning stop.
      Yet over and over and over the Father came, called, reached His hand to me. Our community has a tradition during Sunday night prayer times of publicly honoring people by telling the story of how he or she has been a blessing and praying for that person. Every time I went up to speak I had so many more stories than I could say, so many more people to praise. So many here were the Lord's mouth and hands and heart, telling their own stories and washing my dishes and letting me cry again. People who were to me safe places to hide when the sky broke over me.
       I don't remember when I stopped drowning. I fight daily the whisper that I am only feeling the summer's low tide. But I remember that when the storm was worst I found this place just like the hearts of my friends, but ready at every moment--a place so small, just the size of me--inside Love Himself. And when I chose to let Him lift me there, when I stayed in that place, I was anchored safe, covered well, and free to sleep.
      The storm still pours, and I slip late into the dining hall. Storms heighten every sense: the warmth of a building, the fragrance of food, the peace. I love storms because they remind me how safe I am inside.
    The school year will come and some days the sky will break, no telling for how long. And should I "become more confident," as so many well-meaning people encourage me--should I trust myself again--I will go under. But daily, when I choose to be still, I see Him invite me again up into His love.
                          I will be safe inside.

Papers

    Incompetent.
    I know that voice speaks true, that I cannot. I stack and rearrange and still I can't do it.
    Just grade the darn papers already.
    I glance weary at the fluttering edges of sheets wrenched from battered notebooks and want to run away. Arithmatic pages have right answers; science quizzes can be defined by keys; grammar standards move glacially enough to dare say "wrong" or "right."
    Writing, on the other hand--that's all me. My opinion hold power like an Ahasuerus sceptor lowering down.
   And sometimes they write their hearts, let the defense down in pencil scrawls and how on earth am I supposed to define "good enough."
   And I fear that I am not.
   So I shuffle and ignore and get so very behind, because I do not want to assess myself over and over with how well I do. Because I lived in an assessment A through F for years, and nothing in me wants to go back.
   And then my 3rd-time freshmen tells of how her mom almost died and I want to praise the haphazard "sentences" to the sky because she looks at me now without that invisible guard up over her eyes.
    The goofball from the back row recounts a first kiss that I'm fairly certain never happened. I know he fills all empty moments with laughter because lonely silence is deafening.
    My most Ethiopian child's first Thanksgiving with her whole family, happy and loved.
    My angriest child's dream to sing, those short moments in which I see her joyful and free.
  
   Somehow, I am supposed to still mark the page.

   But I remember the weekly exchange of this angry child's writing for her red-pen scratches and the two years of affirming that I had a story worth telling well.
   My understanding might be weak and my work may never measure up. But I can invest in the trajectory of the stories slouching in fifth period.
   I dig the red pen out of my bag. Onto the first stack.

  

I Believe He is the Christ

      Straight rows of paper-clipped perfection. Tucking the stray page back in line, I turn and smile. House perfectly clean and now lesson plans done, I saunter down to the chapel in a flowing dress and gold earrings because I am celebrating. Finally, for the first time since June, I feel victorious. Everything is okay because everything is done and I am good.
     The children are singing. I was off copying and stapling and glorying in self-made perfection and they were singing. I rename conviction foolish tradition and slip late into the pew's end.
    "But you are poor, pitiable, naked, wretched, and blind."
     I feel my beautiful dress and my gold earrings and I don't feel pitiable this morning. And I have been pitiable before and for all my toil don't I deserve one day to feel like I've got it all together? Must I always be crushed to the floor?
    Quietly creep in the memories and I remember that my own goodness is always a fraud. I remember the fallout, remember the pain as the flesh I trusted implicitly failed. And I see, cold and without sorrow, that I am like Israel who Yahweh calls a whore, that I only worship the true God when my household deities let me down.
   I know it is coming. Sin, exile, repentance, deliverance. Over and over I live the Judges story and I do not want exile again. But nothing in me repents just yet. I plead for soul hunger as I sit feeling self-satisfied. Either I must bruise to know the worthlessness of my frequented shrines or see something of the glory. I am weary of bruising. Show me Your glory.
       Our campus minister stands in the water and following him is dark braids and skinny arms and bright-shining eyes. The long tee shirt envelops her third-grade tinniness like an angel white and I hold my spine to the pew, remembering.
       It was a different church (ours lacked a baptismal) and everything was strange and new and I floated in Daddy's white tee shirt like the angel dress from the Christmas play. Crouching beside the pool he shared my third-grade testimony, my assurance that I was stupid and dumb and lazy and needed Jesus so very badly. And on the basis of that confession in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost I by water died and by water was born into a family that sang of following Jesus with no turning back.
      And as I pray for a vision of His glory my Ethiopian sister affirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Death under the water dies and new life is born up into the joy of God's household. The minister, also her hall parent, wraps her shoulders in his big hands and we her family sing over her of following Jesus with no turning back. I see the glory.
       The breakings still do come for me. I fail and flounder and get what I prayed for, a vision of myself as the lump of clay in need every moment of Holy Breath. Someday I will have a vision of God big enough to give Him glory when all goes well. For now I stay down near the floor with no glory to give
      To return to your first love you must remember the height from which you've fallen. I remember the dripping third grader I saw and the one I was and I affirm the truth again. I believe He is the Christ--the Messiah, the One Who saves--because I agree I need a savior. And He's the Son of the Living God. The rescue won't be partial; the salvation cannot fail. Death stingless lies in a victory-deprived grave. And the same power that defied death to pull Jesus out of Hell will bring all who will out of our dying and into Him Who is the Life. For third graders everywhere, yes. For idolaters whose household gods have failed, certainly. For the self-assured, unaware they are poor and pitiable and naked and wretched and blind, even them. In His light we see light, and we have no where else to go.
     We have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back.
       

No Words

"That's what you do, ma'am. That's what you do."
        I am staring at my fourth-grader, trying to discern what planet he just left. My understanding of little-boy world was Daddy-wrestling and a pinata with the neighbors and chasing the fireflies through the dark.

"When you get to Parker One, that's what you do. You try to figure who could beat everybody else up."
His buddy nods, eyes solemn.
       Of course their hall parents would never allow violence. But in the hallway across from the bathroom my heart breaks for my serious-eyed boys, because no one should feel like he has to hurt others to prove his worth.
    I worked hard and read lots and tried so hard to learn. But nobody's education program covers "Reshaping the Culture of Cool Among Elementary Boys 101."

       "That's just like a guy, right Ma'am?"
        She means the movie line about no man ever really wanting to get married because it destroys his chances to sleep with so many women. And I want to turn off the whole thing off, kibash all movies preaching love-lies.
        I asked questions about dating and read books and considered the "courtship" phenomenon for myself. Never picked one up about convincing my tenth-grader that some men actually love forever the girl in the white dress for whom they promised to forsake all others.

      "I really felt like you were undermining my authority all afternoon."
       I press my lips, hope my jaw doesn't fall to the floor. What on earth?
       No one told me that my efforts to reach a frustrated child could be considered the undermining of authority.

      And I wonder why I am here, why I went to college that early, why I didn't just go get my masters like a normal nerd. School is easy. Research the right answer, contribute to the discussion, find the textual evidence. If you fail, the only things lost are time and money.

      But now I am an adult and on a mission field and the absent answers don't mean one failed test. They mean less truth, less light in their eyes. They mean someone walks away feeling unloved. I know answers can mean the world turned upside down and I who long to give the Great Story away have no words.

    "But ma'am, they never liked me since I got here! They hate me and I'll never forgive them, never!"

      I look at another of my little boys, his sweet brown cheeks streaked with tears. He shakes his head and I know the story in his downcast eyes: I am tired of being rejected.

     Jesus. My preschool Sunday school class is right. Jesus is the answer, always, forever. And I know He stands right by the swings, loving my sobbing child.

    I know because of the greatest relationship in all of reality, the one love between the Father and the Son and the Spirit three, Jesus felt a loss. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus knows rejection. And in His greatest loss we gain, in His pain we are healed, in His abandonment we are brought home.

     I know because I was unloved once too and because I decided I would never forgive them, never, never, never. Because I became hard and angry and hurt for ten years before I believed that I had a friend again.

    I still am shaping poor words, trying. How do you share the Gospel that saved you from suicide with the boy on the swings?

   "I am so sorry. But if you don't forgive them, love, then you will become hard and angry and I don't want that to happen to you."

   "But ma'm, ever since I got here last January those girls have always hated me! They'll never love me!"

    "I'm so sorry. I love you."

    I haven't even given a theological answer, never said that God loves him. I am exhausted with the weight burning inside and I only want to swing and forget the world. He offers to show my the Parker One highly classified trick for achieving awesome new heights on the swings. We rock back and forth from earth to sky.

    "You're my friend, right ma'm?"

    I think about how everyone warns you not to try to be your child or student's friend, to be their authority above all else. I decide I don't care.

    "Yes, I think you're my friend."

    We swing our toes up to the patch of darkening blue beyond the mountains until the Parker One boys are called home.

    He goes off laughing and I run inside, because tears are for sadness in the elementary world and I haven't time to explain that tears are for happiness too and also relief and ten years' story of walking in the dark.

    Someday I will have those apples of gold in settings of silver to offer. Someday I will see a fuller picture of what the Artist has been making with the tessarae of heart-shards, theirs and mine.

     But for now I only swing with my children and fumble for words and glory in the answer Jesus.

Dechomai

" And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them, 'Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.'"
                                                             ~Mark 9.36-37 


      The Greek word for "receive" here is dechomai, which has the following meanings:

1) to take with the hand

a) to take hold of, take up

2) to take up, receive

a) used of a place receiving one

b) to receive or grant access to, a visitor, not to refuse intercourse or friendship

1) to receive hospitality

2) to receive into one's family to bring up or educate

c) of the thing offered in speaking, teaching, instructing

1) to receive favourably, give ear to, embrace, make one's own, approve, not to reject

d) to receive. i.e. to take upon one's self, sustain, bear, endure

3) to receive, get

a) to learn

  

     My dad stood silhouetted in the doorway, saying something. Fifteen years of cranial dust has accumulated over most of my mental pictures from childhood, but not this one. Lights flicked off, quiet dark.

    What did he say? Something about Heaven and Hell, something about forgiveness. Oh, and I needed forgiveness. Scarce over half a decade in the world and my heart was angry and selfish and so dirty.

    One might note my developmental inability to comprehend the complexities of soteriology, the consequences of a covenant, the magnificent scope of redemption. You could argue I hadn't a clue what I was getting into.

    Except Jesus wasn't asking a theology expert to come articulate how He works. He wasn't surprised when I later wanted out. He didn't desire an international leader to make the world new.

        He wanted me. And I knew I could be wanted, loved, dechomai-ed, because I had watched His children receive me and one another over and over. Watched them wrap their arms around a family that had to put their baby in a box. Watched them dole out coloring sheets and stickers and genuine smiles. Watched them forgive and listen and laugh and love.

       So on my knees before the blue cargo couch, I asked forgiveness. I received Jesus. And somewhere beyond the living room couch and before the stairs, I knew.

                 Yes, I had received Him, but far, far greater, Jesus had dechomai-ed me. He took hold of my hand, received me into His friendship and family, embraced me, made me His own.

               And, far more than I knew, He took me upon Himself. He sustained me, bore me up, endured me.

      
      Fifteen years of story later, I'm still not a theology expert. I still don't know how much following Jesus will cost. I will never be involved in the full extent of what God is up to in the world. But Jesus loves me. This I know.
      So I'm journeying to a dot on the map in the middle of the mountains to join a community of Jesus-lovers who take children whose own families cannot keep them and receive them in Jesus' name. Because when my flesh for a moment quits roaring for all it's worth, I cannot help but hear the heart of God beat to dechomai all His lost children, to bring them in, to lead them home.