When I was a young mother, reading Beatrix Potter to my two-year-old and cradling my newborn, I remember feeling called and overwhelmed.
Called, and delighted, to be a stay-at-home mother of two precious baby boys, and overwhelmed by the enormity of responsibility called motherhood. Jon and I were early to marry; the first of our friends to be ushered through the halls of parenthood. Amid such change, I had been transplanted to the southernmost state, our midwest college days growing dusty in the rearview.
We were young, poor as church mice, and faithfully attending a certain church each week for all of the wrong reasons. God worked out that knotted mess rather beautifully in his time and in his way.
I say all of this to give you, my kind reader, context: I loved my husband and my children and my stay-at-home work, dearly, but also experienced pangs of displacement. Parched, and quite desperate for cool water.
One ordinary day during this stretch, I was gifted a subscription to a beautifully written, monthly magazine. I say magazine, but there were no glossy pictures, no Gap ads, no fragrant cologne samples. It was simply a small collection of true stories written by stay-at-home mothers, women in the trenches, who bravely shared their lives by way of Times New Roman displayed on thick cardstock.
I meandered to our apartment mailbox each day with my two little loves in tow. Caleb’s hand tugging mine, his gravelly voice counting our steps; Jacob’s baby soft hair brushing my chin as he napped on my shoulder. Caleb and I studied clouds and trees and birds, along with his favorite cars in the apartment’s parking lot. I slowed as he crouched and examined each caterpillar and anthill and butterfly, as I gifted him splendid words–cumulonimbus, magnolia, osprey, Monarch, Mercedes— terms he soaked up and practiced, smiling as he sorted them out; new words savored to repeat to his father over modest dinners served at our humble table.
We eventually arrived at the mailbox and collected the bills and flyers. My heart warmed as I spotted it.
My subscription!
Later, after lunch crumbs were swept up, and the boys were tucked in for afternoon naps, I heated the kettle for peppermint tea and curled up on our sofa.
I read.
And I read.
Soon, the hard, jagged edges softened.
That dull ache had vanished, replaced by the beauty of story. The cobwebs of life had cleared.
The stories were far from grandiose and favored the mundane, which I loved, and still do. I soaked it in and gave myself permission to see my own quotidian life with fresh perspective while embracing the joys of playing blocks and cars and stuffed animals with my sons. I was armed with rich stories, narratives from other women not so different from me. Normal mothers wading through oceans of sickness, shoestring budgets, and discouragement in the daily grind.
Yet paired with these were simple pleasures: gratitude in the intricacies of family life. They sparkled everywhere, didn’t they? I closed my eyes and went treasure hunting: my baby’s first dimpled smile, toddler hugs smothering my neck, the softness, the gentleness in smoothing freshly scented bedsheets, cool beneath my sons’ damp hair after bathtime. The symphony of crickets and tree frogs chirping by dusk as I read Goodnight Moon to my loves. My husband’s intentionality in working hard to meet the needs of our growing family.
That monthly publication became my trusted companion. I attempted to savor it, hatching a plan to read one article per day, thereby stretching the delight to last for weeks.
It never worked.
I feasted.
***
That publication spoke truth; honoring the exquisite beauty so mysteriously found in the quicksand of hardships. The authors refused to gloss over the gritty places of life but instead pressed in. I was bolstered to search for the pearls formed by the sandy irritants that greatly disturbed the oyster.
Those bits of writing were certainly not fairy tales. They were dear treasures, articles that plunged into the deep, cold, intricate waters of motherhood. The writers, pens in hand, chose to play the long game, bleeding onto the page for many to read, exhorting moms to stay the course, come what may.
I recall one prolific piece, written by an older woman whose children had grown and left the nest. Her words went something like this:
Mothers of little ones: You will never regret laying your life down for your family. Every hug, every bandaid, every read-aloud, every damp, cool washcloth on fevered brow spells love; devotion. Your children will remember. And those soft places you grace them to land will help them to soon forgive your many, many mistakes. This I know.
***
One day, when Jacob was learning to walk, I took my two little boys to our mailbox where I discovered a thin envelope, a slip of paper informing me that the magazine had folded.
Their small and loyal following was unfortunately not enough to sustain their publication.
I was crushed.
The month after the last publication arrived, I found a monthly mother’s group at a church 40 minutes from our doorstep. We owned one car at the time, which often meant that I stayed home with our boys on weekdays. My husband and I worked out a plan, which would afford me the luxury of wheels on the first Tuesday of each month. So the boys and I packed PB& J’s and danced across town, making a fun day of it.
While my sons played with other children, I met some lovely women who in due time became friends. Friends who pulled our family into their church. Within a year of the first mother’s meeting, we moved, joined the congregation, and watched as God slowly grew our faith. Soon the Lord gifted us two more beauties, only twenty-one months apart. Our Marcus and Lauren.
The loss of my magazine, something so small, had sparked delightful, life-changing events, prompting me to pursue connection and leading us to join a new church family.
But also? I never forgot the power of words, and of story, to befriend.
Our life was full, blossoming in fact, as I began homeschooling our older two while changing diapers and going to sports practices around the clock. Jon coached our boys in church leagues and also became increasingly active in his men’s small group Bible Study.
We moved into our forever home, and life was a happy, rushing, river of dreams.
***
And then everything so familiar and stable and lovely came undone.
Jon met me in the high heat of our Florida garage, to carry groceries inside. Our baby girl was two months old, and I had just returned from shopping. I carried baby Lauren and Jon carried the bags.
Something was wrong.
Or right.
He told me that he was being called to full-time ministry.
***
Four months later:
We are fully unpacked, and 1,100 miles away from the familiar. Jon is working full-time and taking seminary classes. I am homeschooling and keeping everything spinning in our new home.
It is late. So late that it is early.
The house is dark, still, quiet.
I cannot sleep.
I slip out of bed and tiptoe into the living room, noticing by way of moonlight, that even Swimmy, our betta fish, is resting. I creep up the carpeted stairs to the bonus room, which has three expansive windows, unhindered by blinds or shades. The harvest moon illuminates: round, buttery, glowing.
Here, in the hush of night, I brush up against stark reality, the knowing that my sense of normalcy has completely evaporated. I am displaced, nomadic, a foreigner in a strange land. It feels reminiscent of those early motherhood days before my magazine and mother’s group. Only bigger, greater, and frighteningly insurmountable.
Here is what I did not know in that moment:
The cross-country move would rock me, tearing me wide open in private, silent, ways for years. The pain of the moment, there in the bonus room, beneath the watching moon, and the insufferable pain yet to come, would unravel every thread of self-sufficiency.
Soon, I would see Christ, fully. Everything, everything would change through my suffering.
The magazine, the mother’s group, and the easy church friendships, although good, would never, could never, be my savior.
But I don’t know these things yet as I cinch my bathrobe tighter, cross my arms, and study the magnificent, broad, unshakable sphere hanging heavy in the night sky. All I know, then, is loss.
So I pray in desperation: Tell me something true.
God is silent. The moon is quiet. Everything, save the ticking clock and my rumpled soul, is still.
***
The next week God met me in the library.
He told me something true.
We went to the library every single Friday in those days, as part of our homeschooling plan. I loaded my basket with bunches of good books for my beauties, and on this particular Friday, I impulsively grabbed one for myself: The Pleasures of God.
This book sparked curiosity as I read–Can these things be true? Is this what pleases God? –and sent me running to Scripture. I remember those early tremors of insatiable delight, flipping through many, many, passages, sixty-six books of truth that in my uncertainty, were soon to become my everything.
What had I been doing my entire life? Why had I only cherry-picked verses? I could not believe that I had missed such riches.
Suddenly, my appetite for God and the Bible infused me. Instead of curling up on the couch with a mother’s magazine, I was meeting the God of the universe on our sofa.
God speaks.
Did you know this?
He does.
Page by page. Every word is true.
***
Tell me something true, you say.
My response?
I just did.
Open your Bible, feast, and come alive.
God will speak.
To you.
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ~John 17:17
The Palest Ink 