grace

The letter

/ Fran Haley / 23 Comments

I found it in one of my old Bibles when I was preparing to speak at a women’s conference.

A letter from my grandmother.

Postmarked September 29, 2001…not long after 9-11. In the wake of what seemed the end of the world.

She wanted to surprise me with a letter. She’d written dozens to me throughout all the years we lived in two different states, since I was six. In her eighties, however, her fine penmanship had begun to look shaky on the page. She had taken to making phone calls more and more.

She writes of the beautiful day: sunny and bright, the sky so blue. I’m planning to walk a short distance when I finish and feel good…

She writes of family, that she talks to my daddy every night, and tomorrow she will see him. She writes that my mother seems to be doing good, better than we even thought! I no longer remember the context of this statement; my mother was frequently in poor health, in body and in mind.

She writes of my Aunt Pat’s moonflower, presently blooming, and asks if I remember her moonflower growing around the stump of Granddaddy’s pecan tree by the old dirt road and that she once had another by the pump house…its runners grew on the pump house, shrubs nearby, and the fence.

For a minute, I am there, walking in long ago, seeing the profusion of white blooms, breathing their perfume…

Then she tells me not to worry about her. She had given up her house and had come to live with my aunt; at 85, unsteady on her feet and occasionally falling, she could no longer live alone. She writes: I have accepted it, like a death. You have to carry on.

She admits to crying a lot at first. Then: I’m not going to complain. I still have so much to be thankful for. I read recently that to be happy, you should act happy, so I’m trying to think happy thoughts and smile more…I think of you often because you have always been a big part of my happiness as well as Grand-daddy’s!

She read books; she played tapes of gospel music; she prayed for God to see fit to take care of our world problems. She writes of violence and violent people not knowing what being happy is.

She misses her piano, her most-prized possession. She says that since she couldn’t take it with her when she gave up the house, she’s glad I wanted it: I hope it will bring much happiness to you and the boys.

She would never know that my youngest would learn to play on that piano, that he would become a phenomenal musician, that he would learn to sing all the harmonies in gospel songs, that he would eventually obtain a college degree in this, that he would lead choirs.

She writes that she hopes to see me and the children soon, even if for a little while, knowing I’d go visit my parents, too. She so wanted to spend time with my children…

She closes with her love and prayers too.

Two tiny notes are included also, one for each of my children, then ages twelve and four. In the note to the youngest she mentions hummingbirds…they will soon be flying to a warmer climate but will come back at Easter.

As I hold these written treasures in my hands, savoring every word, a little shadow flickers at the kitchen window. A hummingbird, coming to my freshly-refilled feeder.

A year to the day after Grandma wrote this letter, my father would die suddenly. The flood of grief would overwhelm her; dementia would soon settle in, and she would be in a nursing home for four years until her death at age 90.

I reread of the beautiful day, sunny and bright, the sky so blue, that she’s talking to my father every night, that my mother’s doing better than anyone ever expected… I reread her words of acceptance and carrying on, of her great love and prayers for me. I think about how these buoyed me through every day of my life…even now.

I fold the letter back into its old envelope. I finish my lesson for the women’s conference, on learning the unforced rhythms of grace.

I carry Grandma’s letter with me.

I carry on.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Tuesday Slice of Life Story Challenge

Easter echoes

/ Fran Haley / 20 Comments

Easter morning. I am six. My little sister is four. We’ve torn apart our Easter baskets. The green plastic grass is strewn all over and we’ve eaten the heads off our hollow chocolate bunnies. We didn’t go to church because Mama isn’t feeling well. She has trouble with her back and sits in traction for a while every day, in a chair by the bedroom with her chin in a sling that hangs from the top of the door. I am in the kitchen when the phone rings and she comes to answer it.

Oh no, she says. Oh, no. She starts to cry. Tears stream down her cheeks.

Listening to her side of the conversation with her friend from church, I learn that our pastor died this morning. At church. Standing at the pulpit to give his sermon when he sank to the floor. People thought at first he was kneeling to pray, strange for a Baptist, but…it is Easter…

In the days to come, the church people will comfort each another by saying this is exactly how he’d have wanted to go.

*******

Easter morning. I am eighteen. I’m not in church. I quit going a few years ago. I have been cutting my college classes more and more to run with my colorful theater crowd. I’ve decided to make my living perfoming on stage. It’s all I care about. My aunt, Mama’s sister who never married nor had children, says I’m “caught between the moon and New York City.” Deep down I know this is not the best that I can do: I don’t want to be at home anymore, I’m not getting along with my father, my grandmother is worried about me. I know she prays, because…

I have lost my way.

*******

Easter morning. I am nineteen. I am not in church, but I’m looking at a card that arrived at the end of the week. A beautiful Easter card from Miss Margaret. I didn’t know she had my address. I met her during my recent hospital stay, when I ran a high fever with a virus and needed an IV. Miss Margaret was my roommate. A large Black lady with a beautiful smile and a voice as warm as as a blanket. She was in for a mastectomy. She’d asked me, just before I left and before she went for surgery: Do you go to church?

No, ma’am, not like I should…(I didn’t say not at all).

Hmm, she replied. That young man who’s come to see you. Brought you those flowers. Have you been going out with him for long?

No, ma’am. I haven’t been out with him at all yet, actually. I got sick on the day of our first date and ended up here instead…it was also opening night of the play we were both in and I missed that, too.

What I didn’t tell Miss Margaret is that I was afraid the guy would give up on me…but he hadn’t, yet.

She nodded. Listen to me, Child. You are young. Watch out for yourself, hear? He seems a nice young man. You ought to get yourself back to church.

So here I am on Easter morning, not in church, looking at this card she mailed me… an Easter prayer signed Love and Blessings Always from Miss Margaret, P.S. I’m doing fine.

II wonder: Is it too late to get to church today?

I call my boyfriend.

*******

Easter morning. I am twenty-one. I’ve come back to my childhood church with my husband…the guy who didn’t give up on me when I got sick and missed our first date as well as opening night of the community theater production we were both performing in…a play entitled “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” We’ve been married for a year and a half, we’re both working, we just left our one-bedroom apartment for a new townhouse, first time homeowners. Up until these last months, we thought we would move to New York and pursue acting careers. I’ve been accepted to The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and they have allowed me a grace period to come….if we can figure out how we are going to afford to live there.

But my husband has recently told me: Honey…we need to talk.

And then he just says it: I know God’s calling me to preach.

His beautiful face is so earnest. I tell him the only thing I know to say: If He’s really calling you, then you have to try.

The huge sanctuary is packed today. Hundreds of people. The pastor has been here for fifteen years, the successor of the one who died here on that long-ago Easter morning. Today he preaches from Acts 17, Paul addressing the Areopagus on the resurrection of Christ; Paul is mocked, but one man and one woman are called out here in the passage by name for joining him in belief: Dionysious and Damaris.

When the pastor offers the invitation, I grab my husband’s hand: We are rededicating our lives today.

We walk the aisle. In all that crowd, we are the only ones who do: One man, one woman.

I tell my pastor that my husband is called to preach.

He will take him under his wing, the fifty-third and final young man he ordains to the ministry.

He will tell us later: It won’t be easy; I had to step into the pulpit of a man who died there. But the Lord will provide. He always comes through…sometimes at last minute when you are thinking all is lost, but He always comes through.

Then he’ll look at me: You were in my teen Bible School class, I recall. It’s been a while. I remember you coming to church with your mother when you were a child. Your dad didn’t attend and your mother didn’t drive.

Yes, sir. That’s right. My dad works most Sundays. Mama didn’t drive. She’s just recently gotten her license.

He will nod: You walked to church until we got our bus ministry started. Your mother was the first person to sign up for it.

I didn’t know that.

*******

Easter morning. I am twenty-five. Life is a blur with a baby boy to care for. I meant to change the old wreath hanging on the front of the parsonage, over by the wide porch swing. When the weather is warmer I will sit here and sing to him, but right now it’s still a little chilly, with the beach breezes blowing up from the bay. Before we go to church, I will put up the Easter wreath. Better late than never.

When I reach for the tattered old wreath, a bird flies out, startling me. There’s a nest in it, with babies cheeping… I had no idea.

Awed by the discovery of brand-new life on this particular morning, I let it be.

I save the new Easter wreath for next year.

*****

Easter afternoon. I am thirty. My family is gathered at the Baptist church in Daddy’s hometown for the funeral of his sister, my aunt. She was fifty-four, spent the last years of her short life in a nursing home, bedridden with mutliple sclerosis. For all of these years my grandmother drove a sixty-mile round trip each week to visit, taking her daughter’s soiled laundry home and returning it fresh and clean, and trimming her nails because the nursing staff said they weren’t allowed to.

Beside her in the pew, Daddy is pale. He’s recovering from a heart attack and four bypasses.

When my husband and I followed the limo to the church, I could see Daddy and Grandaddy in the back of it, side by side…two silver heads, exactly alike.

Grandma is broken but her faith is not. She says, I’m truly glad she isn’t suffering any more but oh, it hurts. It hurts.

She died on Good Friday, Grandma, I tell her. Like Jesus.

Grandma looks at me a long moment, her watery blue eyes gleaming: I can’t belive I haven’t thought of that.

The service begins. On Grandma’s other side, Granddaddy bows his head. Tears are trickling down his cheeks.

This is the only time I’ve ever seen him cry.

*******

Easter morning. I am thirty-seven. My husband and our boys have only been in our new house for a month and I’m still scrambling to get organized. I love the house, not that I wasn’t grateful for parsonages having been provided all these years, it’s just that eventually we will retire and you can’t do that in a parsonage. Plus…I can’t say exactly why, but this place somehow reminds me of my grandparents’ home. The great irony being that they’ll never see it. None of my childhood family will. Granddaddy’s been gone four years. Grandma’s in the nursing home; she’ll never travel again. Daddy died suddenly seven months ago and I’m still trying to process it, especially since everything fell apart with my mother afterward and there will be no repairing the ripping apart of our family…I think about how she took me and my sister to church…how she was the first person to sign up for the bus ministry…I have to remember the good, I must choose to remember the good, for it was there and real and even though a person may be destructive with those wheels already in motion long before she brings you onto the planet, there were always good things.

I cannot dwell on this anymore, I have two children of my own to get ready for church now and Easter is our biggest day…it really won’t do for the preacher’s wife to be late. Again.

*****

Easter morning. Today. Let’s just say my fifties will soon be coming to a close. Depending on when you read this, I will either be headed to church or having returned home. My husband is still preaching. Our oldest is in his fifth year of pastoring a church nearby, close enough that our two granddaughters come over often, including these past couple of days, to play with their Franna. Our daughter-in-law is an extraordinary pastor’s wife and mother as well as an incredible artist. So many gifts. Our youngest is playing piano for today’s worship service and he’ll sing the solo for the choir on “Rise Again” in his beautiful, beautiful voice… his fiancee is deeply compassionate, loving, always smiling. They are happy. Yesterday I wrote of digging the past and mining your memories for the stories that matter…today I write, my heart overflowing with abundance of life, for now, now, now. Today I write of the peace that passes understanding, for with God, the story does not end. The message of Easter that echoes through the ages is not one of death, but of life; not of lost causes, but of new purpose; not of despair, but of overcoming…it is a message of redemption, sacrificial love, forgiving, being set free. I think of those words, rise again, as I drive out of my neighborhood to see a hawk take flight, the morning sun flashing on its white belly, and discovering, that same day, the house finches have, indeed, built a new nest in the front door wreath, despite last year’s tragedy of all five babies dying suddenly. The mother began laying eggs during Holy Week.

Five of them.

The father sang a beautiful song after each egg was laid.

A song of new life, hope, and joy.

I know it so, so well.

The echoes of Easter.

*******

Composed for the 31st and last day of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

—thank you all for being such a loving, supportive community;
please keep writing ❤

Grace reflections: Spiritual Journey

/ Fran Haley / 9 Comments

My fellow Spiritual Journey writers post on the first Thursday of each month. Our host for September, Patricia Franz, offered these bursts of thought for reflection: Life at the speed of grace. Grace is my shorthand for God. How will Grace find you?

To me, grace, like love, is a many-splendored thing. It has many facets, casting fiery rainbow-sparks like a diamond ring.

When Patricia says It’s my shorthand for God, I remember discovering my aunt’s spiral-topped notebook when I was a child. The pages were covered in curious swirls and curls, an otherworldly language, impossible code. I was awed by the way my aunt, a civil-service secretary, could interpret these runes into words which would become an official letter typed on behalf of the U.S. military. To this day I cannot read or write shorthand. In this way, grace is code written in the offices of Heaven, authored by God, signed and sealed with His unfathomable, unconditional love. It is the language of love. To be a true recipient of grace is to be an authorized and expected giver of it, in turn.

But what IS grace, aside from aesthetics: clean lines, beauty of movement, a blessing over food before we partake? One dictionary definition says it’s the unmerited favor of God, something echoed over and over in the New Testament. My favorite grace-verse is probably Romans 5:8: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (ESV).

I have a bracelet that bears this paraphrase: I loved you at your darkest.

Grace.

In preparation for a lesson I recently taught at church, I arrived at another understanding of grace. In the same epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul writes: For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned (12:3). In this message to the Roman community of believers, Paul expounds on the characteristics that (should) set them apart from the rest of the world. That opening phrase is what catches my attention: For by the grace given to me…suddenly a portion of the code becomes clear. Grace is more than unmerited favor writ in the blood of unconditional love. Grace is a force for living. A sustainable fuel for powering us throughout all of our days.

I can never write about grace anymore without thinking of Eugene Peterson and his paraphrased reflection of Christ’s words in Matthew 11:29: Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

Which of these word holds the most transformational power?

unforced

rhythms
grace

Learn.

For me, it’s learn. That is where I must begin. Grace begins with God. The unforced rhythms of grace are currents that have existed long before me and will continue long after me. Learn, as in learn to swim. Therein lies a unique freedom, being carried by that current and never being swept away by it. Grace seeps into one’s heart, becomes a beat in one’s blood, in one’s soul. A rhythm, a song, a dance. A unforced force for living.

Learn.

Of this, I will be forever a student. But all around me, every day there are reminders, endless grace-analogies making themselves known. During Hurricane Idalia last week, the hummingbirds never stopped coming to my window-feeders. The gusting wind and rain appeared to have no effect on these tiny creatures. Completely undeterred, the feisty hummers came for their nectar amid the storm, steady, straight, and sure, same as they do every day.

I have an entire bluebird family that appears, morning and evening, like clockwork, around their little log cabin birdhouse on the old grape arbor. When the birdhouse was on my dilapidated back deck the parents raised several broods in it. When I removed it for the deck to be torn down and rebuilt, the puzzled parents came searching for their home. It shattered my heart. I put the birdhouse on the arbor, not knowing what to expect. They found it immediately. The bluebird family followed it. They still lay claim to it, still operate from it. They are devout about it. I might add that there’s a little cross on the top of the birdhouse; my granddaughters call it the bird church. I might also add that it held during the hurricane…during several hurricanes, actually, including a few before it was moved.

I consider the makeshift birdbath my granddaughters and I built with an upturned trashcan lid and rocks. The solar-powered fountain kept spraying in the storm, even though there was no sun that I could see in the grayness…

For me, all of these echo unforced rhythms of grace.

Most every morning and afternoon since school has started again, on my drive to work, I’ve seen the great blue heron I love at its pond in the corner of picturesque little farm. I’d much rather be birdwatching and soaking up nature than playing around online, but I couldn’t resist a “what bird are you” quiz I came across online. I gave it a try. The results: You are a snowy egret.

That same morning, when passing the pond, I didn’t see the blue heron. Instead I saw a white egret in flight, reflected in the pond.

The very image of grace.

I am more amused than awed: If that egret represents me, I’d be the reflection of it. I cannot be the breathtaking, winged creature itself, skimming with perfect ease above the water. But somewhere in my being is an image of it.

And so it is with God, in whom all things connect, from whom all blessings flow.

Unforced rhythms of grace on the wing, in every breath, in the often-turbulent currents of life, a never-ending song, a ceaseless rising.

Funny how I’ve just now remembered a thing, during this writing: When my husband became a pastor many, many years ago, I was asked to sing my first solo at church. I was twenty-two. Scared and unsure, I tried my best. I fell dismally short of what I hoped for. But an elderly man, a woodcarver, made a gift for me to commemorate the occasion: a white egret on a little base. Underneath, he etched the title of the song: Amazing Grace.

Let me throw my wings wide
to rest in and ride
the currents,
O Lord.
Let me abide
in the depths of your grace
as a wanting but willing
conduit.

Snowy Egret reflection. Wendi Schneider.

The blessing

/ Fran Haley / 3 Comments

My Dear Firstborn,

You were always the Lord’s.

I rejoice

that His divine purposes
cannot be thwarted

that your preacher-father
lived to see this day

that your first daughter
sitting beside me
as you receive your
Master of Divinity
is the same age you were
sitting beside me
when your father
received his

seven,
representing
fullness
and completion

in an endless
spiral of blessing
that flows on
and on
and on.

You have always
been my joy,
baby boy.

With love
and gratitude
and awe
at the divine work
of the Master

always,
Mom

‘Succinct truth’ poem

/ Fran Haley / 4 Comments

Today on Ethical ELA, Maureen Young Ingram invites teacher-poets to compose “succinct truth” poems for VerseLove. The idea is to write about a difficult subject with a message of hope in 10-20 short lines, playing with lack of punctuation and capitals.

Mine’s twenty-two lines but I’m letting it be.

Dichotomies

humans
are a dichotomous race
desperately desiring
dutifully demanding
historically unable
to extend grace
at least
each other-ward

the tome of our existence
a work in progress
pages of pain
penned in blood

some say that babies are a sign
that the world should go on

forgetting that worlds go on
without humans at all

although my dog doesn’t think so

there’s hope
isn’t there
as long as dogs
haven’t given up
on us

My son with his dog, Henry, who surely has a soul
and who loves with his whole dog heart

Ashes

/ Fran Haley / 28 Comments

a combination Slice of Life & Spiritual Journey offering

I grew up hating ashes.

They were a part of my everyday life.

My parents were smokers. Salem menthols. When their friends came over or when some of my mother’s family gathered at our house, smoke hung in the air, thicker than fog, like some conjured ghost constantly materializing, encompassing, lingering…

Sometimes I was given the chore of cleaning out the ashtrays. A debasing job. Dirty. Ashes are pervasive. Everywhere and never really gone, no matter how hard you try. Even now, remembering, the stench is my nose, the metallic taste on my tongue…

It would be a long time before I’d learn the seeming incongruity of ashes as the main ingredient of an age-old cleansing agent. Lye. Which was also used to make hominy and that Southern staple, grits. In spite of my heritage, I never learned to like them.

It took me longer still to understand ashes as symbolizing something holy. Ash Wednesday and Lent weren’t part of my Protestant church or family tradition.

I got the humility part early on, however. From stories. First there was Cinderella, named for the soot that clung to her skin and her clothes from ashes that she (too!) was relegated to cleaning. Ashes are pervasive… then the Bible. Job, stricken with boils, scraping himself with broken pottery, sitting in the ashes. The repentant king of Nineveh mandating sackcloth and ashes after revival preached by the pouting prophet Jonah. Eventually, the vivid image of Tamar placing ashes on her head, sobbing, in utter humiliation and grief after the assault by her half-brother. Priests were commanded to change out of their sacred garments before disposing of burnt offering ashes.

Ashes are pervasive…

At fifteen I stood outside watching flakes falling from the sky in late May. Not snow at that time of year, in the southeastern United States. Ash. From the eruption of Mount St. Helen’s on the other side of the country. The volcano’s side exploded with such force that plumes of ash rocketed skyward for miles. The snowlike flakes settled across the nation and parts of Canada. I caught these curiosities in my hands. They didn’t melt. They looked to me like flakes of human skin.

I thought of war.

I think of war now. As I write, scenes are all over the TV. Bombs. Destruction. Death. What once was, now in ashes.

I think of the gorgeous churches of Kyiv.

I think of the dead.

My second son is a recently-certified crematory operator. Traditional burials are steadily giving way to cremations now. One day I went with him and watched while he placed someone’s ashes in an engraved box urn. These ashes are different from other kinds. Pale powder, fine as talcum. One of the most reverent acts I’ve ever witnessed, my boy tenderly packing that human dust.

The ancient Romans had a saying, Memento mori. Remember that you die. It is the same idea behind Ash Wednesday rites: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return, echoing God’s words to Adam in Genesis 3:19, after the Fall.

I’ve never had a cross of ashes placed on my head by a priest, but I understand the call to repentance. It echoes deep in my bones. I know the desperate desire for holiness in the face of raging unholiness. The need for whole–ness. I believe in repent and believe. I do. I repent. I believe.

I believe there’s an eventual reckoning.

Ashes are pervasive.

Volcano ash man. @Doug88888.CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge every day in the month of March. This is my sixth year participating.

Thanks also to my Spiritual Journey writing friends and to Ruth Hersey in Paraguay for hosting on the first Thursday in March. Ruth chose the theme “ashes” in connection with Ash Wednesday (which is why my post is going up a day early this month).

Unforced rhythms of grace

/ Fran Haley / 9 Comments

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
– Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)

Pay attention to the intricate patterns of your existence that you take for granted.
-Doug Dillon

It may feel like a wasteland
some days
nothing like you imagined
it would be

you might be challenged
to see
that anything of value
anything beautiful
lies within

but it does
it does
it always has

it dances, it sings

reveals hidden things

grace has a pulse
and beating wings

it believes

Girl in the Mirror. Gallery wrapped canvas, hanging in a hotel, Asheville, NC.

She reminds me of me, long ago.

*******

with thanks to Ruth Ayres, who posted this unusual version of the Matthew verse on SOS-Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. I suspect I will write again on learning the unforced rhythms of grace.

Fatherlight

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments

For Micah

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. —James 1:17 (KJV)

The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. —Zephaniah 3:17 (NKJV)

He carries you close
to his heart, walking you through
every brand-new day

Young theologian
experiencing, with tears,
depths of fatherlove

Fierce. Sacrificial.
Sustaining. Protective. Sweet.
Miraculous. Yes

He would give himself
to keep you safe from all harm
his love is that great

I understand this
I carried him just like this
when he was newborn

Precious tiny girl
gift from the Father above
gloriously loved

There’s always a light
in the longest, darkest night
for God is at work.

How I love you both – Franna

Try

/ Fran Haley / 8 Comments

inspired by Ruth Ayres on Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog.
Ruth quotes Elon Musk:
“If something is important enough, you should try. Even if the probable outcome is failure.“

Begs the question: What is ‘failure’? Who gets the final say? Surely not the inner critic…

I shall try…

to believe, during the darkest night
to seek the infinite ribbons of light

to love more, to judge less
to concentrate on words that bless

to remember my job is a livelihood, not my life
to free myself of unnecessary strife

to not crumble under self-defined defeat
to keep trying, and trying, again to complete

daily acts of grace, others and self forgiving,
thereby seizing the joy of living

trusting the sense of second sight
urging me always to write, to write.





Reflections of gratitude: Spiritual journey

/ Fran Haley / 34 Comments

For my newborn granddaughter, Micah

What shall I tell you about the day you were born?

Your Grandpa and I were waiting in the carpool line to pick your big sister up from kindergarten when your dad texted: Micah is here! 9 lbs!

Gratitude flooded our hearts as photos flooded our phones.

We wept at sight of you. Your sister would say “happy cried.”

Looking at your beautiful rosy face, a thousand thoughts fluttered in my mind, like birds descending from the azure sky, landing one by one on soft, moss-covered branches…

I remembered it was supposed to storm that day, and it didn’t; the late October sun shone for all it was worth, illuminating the countryside with brilliant gold, orange, yellow, and scarlet.

I forgot the shadows, worries, and grind of daily life.

I remembered the story of my own birth, told over and over to me by my grandmother: She, Daddy, Granddaddy, and Grannie stood looking at me through the nursery window, Grandma “happy cried,” Daddy said I looked just like Granddaddy.

I forgot to be sad about not going to the hospital to see you on the day you were born due to limited visitors in COVID protocols.

I remembered that I’d be able to come the next day, and that it would suffice.

I forgot there was even a pandemic.

I remembered the joy of your father’s birth, the fierce motherlove which surged in my veins, which surges still, and exponentially now, for you.

I forgot about fearing my own inadequacies.

I remembered to wear Grandma’s locket.

I forgot, until your curious big sister opened it, that your father’s newborn picture was nestled inside.

I remembered the promises of God, that blessings fall on the generations of those who love Him, my precious, precious baby Micah, daughter and granddaughter of pastors: Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments (Deuteronomy 7:9, ESV).

I have never forgotten that.

Thankful for the infinite grace of God. Love you always, Micah. – Franna

********

with thanks to Denise Krebs for hosting November’s Spiritual Journey Thursday group, with a focus on gratitude.

and also to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Tuesday Slice of Life Story Challenge.

I am deeply grateful for you all.