Lilac (Repost.)

(This is a repost, just because I'm still thinking on these themes, and want to keep them in the fore. A new post is coming soon, I promise.)

Last night, a dear friend watched The Fay for me whilst I whittled away the hours on bed rest. That's a good friend, my friends. As I lay dying of terminal boredom, Jes, her daughter Aspen, and Fable did all manner of crafty things.

One is wont to notice all kinds of things while horizontal. (Keeeeep it clean, people. Jesus reads this blog.) First off, popcorn ceiling is the everyday Rorschach Test. I got a glimpse into my psyche last night as grinning circus clowns, old ladies with crooked spines, and stampeding horses emerged from my wall. That was a fun five minutes. Then I was back to having nothing to do.

So, I tossed and turned a little. Did some praying. Daydreamed about what my life would be like if I had longer hair (radically better, with far more fashionable montages). At about mile marker 2000, I decided to get out of bed. Who says bed rest needs to be literal BED rest? I mean, aside from my doctor and all.

I putzed around the house in my usual style, albeit more slowly. Tidying this thing and that (read: moving it from one unorganized drawer to another). I started a skein of crochet, only to undo it again. Went up the stairs for some reason, only to forget why when I reached the handle to the bathroom door. (How does a person forget what she intends to do in the bathroom? There are only so many things one can do in there; the options are easily exhaustible.)

Finally, I bunkered down in the black armchair in the living room. I sat in the quiet. I'm so shamefully bad at sitting in the quiet, either in my head or in reality. (Philosophy majors, feel free to quip that what's in your head should count as what's in reality. When you're done, call yourself a pretentious twit for me.) Truth be told, I didn't know what to do with myself without Fable around, yapping at my heels.

I've become so accustomed with multitasking, with putting on a puppet show with one hand and disinfecting the countertops with the other. At the end of a day filled with Legos and puzzles, meltdowns and "More juice, Mommy!" I am thoroughly exhausted and satisfied. I'm acquainted with that form of exhaustion. It's fulfilling, unlike the kind of exhaustion that camps in your bones when you're sick. This kind, the new and harder kind, makes me cry at the drop of a hat. Makes me need to rest in the middle of doing the dishes or having a conversation with my husband. It makes me restless and irritable, but somehow more contemplative.

I feel like a butterfly pinned down by the wings, under the giant lens of the Lord. It was C.S. Lewis, I believe, who said something to the effect of, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." Oh, Lord. Have I been deaf? Is that the root of this pain?

Lord, I prayed, let me hear you. Still me. Wrestle me to the ground as you did Jacob. Leave me with a wound, but don't leave me here.

Over the last week several doctors have lain me down, told me to prepare for the pain of a needle or of morphine coursing through my veins. But nothing has compared to this, the pain of holding still for the Lord.

And so, I finally did some musing. In a silent house, in the space inside a whirring mind, I settled-- as much as I know how. Minutes passed, but they felt much longer, as if the Lord were stretching them to their fullest. To think of all the minutes in a day, and how few of them I spend before the presence of God... no wonder it hurt so much.

My time alone came to a close. I heard Jes and Fable approach the door. Finally, my sweet, sticky distraction was home. It's indescribable, the way her rosebud mouth and forever curly hair warms me up from the inside. The warmth was almost unbearable within the walls of my freshly scrubbed heart.

Fable trotted up to me, as she always does, in the the style that so reminds me of a baby beagle tripping over his ears. Sometimes I just want to hold her so much, I can't help but scoop her into me. When she is 16, I will still be pulling her into my arms, despite her protestations.

This time, though, the singularly most amazing thing happened. Fable held out her hand to me.

"Here go, Mommy." And just like that, the Lord came rushing in to mend the wound. Clutched in her tiny, sweaty palm was a thick shoot of lilac.

My first ever flower from Fable. It smelled so good to me.

I found a glass for it, but by the time I filled it with water, Fable had all but demolished the poor thing. No matter-- none at all.

With all the pride and thankfulness in the world, I put the dilapidated petals and naked stem into the glass. It sits now on my dining room table, proudly displayed for all to see.

Today I don't feel so raw. Not much better physically, truth be told. But no worse. And my spirit? It has rarely been better or healthier. I suppose this whole blog started when I realized that I sit here, in this dilapidated state, proudly on display for *my* Father.

There's no better place to be.