Waiting

 

I’m laying awake in the pink room waiting for Grace to get home. It’s 1am, she asked if she could go back to the DAmicos after the dance  for a movie and I said yes. I said yes knowing it would be late late and that I would be tired. I want her to squeeze every drop of joy from life, enjoy all the good things that youth and health and nice friends have to offer. 

I want her to store up memories that will fill her heart with happiness. 

There is a wistfulness to senior year. A letting go that literally breaks a mom’s heart. You know the moments are fleeting and that one day, too soon, your baby will be off in the world. Ready to make a house of straw or sticks or bricks and your poor job will be done. 

It aches a little more each time because now you know the empty spot that will stay behind. If you’re lucky that spot is filled with your own happy memories. If you’re human it’s also filled with regrets. 

You can’t move back. Only forward. 

This time there is an extra something. An uncertainty. When I look at my Gracie girl I don’t see the vigor and health of youth. I don’t see the anything.is.possible gleam in her eye. There is an element of it, a hope that maybe she will get there. There is a prayer, a plea, a cry in the dark of the night that all the world will be her oyster. 

But I see the dark shadows under her eyes. I mourn the things she can’t do because she is too sick, or too tired, or in too much pain. And those unwelcome and unwanted realities are there walking side by side with the hope.

It seems so unfair. It is not what I want for her. She is our brightest star, her intellect is sharp and keen, her potential is so big. Why is she bridled with these burdens?? Why can’t our every effort, our every prayer be answered the way we want??

Of course I know. 

I don’t like it, but I know. 

Unfair is the name of the game. And I thank God that it is; otherwise His perfect Son would not have willingly accepted the most unfair thing of all. We would not be cleansed by His atoning sacrifice. Our sins would not be washed cleaned with His spilt blood. Our meager effort would not be yoked with His perfect one -bringing us back to Him. 

I don’t know why. And to be transparent I still don’t like it or want it but I TRY to have faith, I try to believe, I try to praise Him in the middle of the hard, the disappointment, the helplessness.

That’s what keeps me awake when I should be asleep. 

And then, a gift. I was scrolling (as one does) and Dave Butler posted this. 

I read it and I cried. The Spirit spoke to me. “I have redeemed thee”, not just me but my Grace… and my sister, and my friend, and my child, and all of us… 

I felt seen, and comforted. 

I will continue to pray for the miracle. I will remain hopeful for the ending I want. 

…and I will continue to pray in gratitude for the miracles we do get. I will ask God to show me His hand, to be with me in the struggle. I will pray. 

I will pray “thy will,”…make my will thy will. Help me trust in thy love. Help me find peace in the unfair and when every natural instinct in me screams no! help me be more than what comes naturally,  help me become more like Thee. 

The refiners fire is painful, I am grateful that we do not walk in it alone.