Mothering A Miracle

The open air truck backed into the orphanage.  To say I was unprepared is an understatement.

It had been 5 years since my eyes had seen an orphanage…the last one held my own baby, my Liv, sights that can not be un-seen, heaviness that has been hard to shake.  I had walked the grounds of her make-shift home, her humble beginnings, shaky legged and overwhelmed.

I did not make the connection of the significance until my feet hit the dusty ground in that Haitian orphanage.

The babies came around the corner and I felt the blood leave my face…I felt the familiar crushing weight of heart break, of loss, of feeling unable to do enough.

And these babies, they were hungry, I mean really hungry.  Skin and bones they danced and sang and giggled and hung around my neck.  All the while I was drowning in my own heart…frantically searching for the surface to come up for air.

What was it?  Why was I paralyzed?

One little one in particular seemed to take a liking to me immediately.  Hanging on me, kissing my face, laughing at my nose ring and tattoos and short hair.  (Apparently … I’m a lot to take in… ha)

She was as close to me as skin as I walked around the orphanage trying to place the panic.

And then, I was told she was 5.
The age of my once-orphaned one, my once skin-and-bone love.

And it hit me.  I felt as though I was looking at a fast forwarded version of Nima’s life, had God in all of His glory and nature and grace and mercy, not chosen us to intervene.

I stood there gazing into this sweet one’s eyes and all I could ask the Lord was
“What do you want me to do?”

“Mother her for these moments.  Be her mama, even if just for a minute.”

What happened next was so full of the Holy Spirit, and I know it was because I felt like running and hiding in all my emotions…trying to escape all the feels that I was feeling.

I automatically knew what to do.  I bent down, cleaned her face with my spit, tied up the straps on her dress so that it didn’t hang in the dirt.  I fixed her hair, smoothed it out around her face and then kissed her gently on the cheek.

The physical act of mothering is all I could muster up in those moments.  The checklist that a mama does for her baby.  Care taking, doting, fussing over…

She flung her arms around my neck and I picked her up, light as a feather, skin and bones, ribs pressing against mine, and we danced.  She placed her face in the crook of my neck, just like my little-love does now (Liv calls it a comfy hug) and she began whispering creole into my ear.

I don’t have any clue what she was saying…but my heart translated it.  She was elated, filled to the brim with joy…and all it took was a minute of mothering.

And then, just like that it was time to go.  The team began loading back into the truck and I felt myself melting into the ground.  How would I leave without her?  How could I swoop in and simply tease her with the love of a mother?

And in an instance my ache for Esther came screaming to the top…how could I walk away from this wide eyed one…smiling back at me.  I felt the surge of desire to hold my coming one in my arms…never to be left behind again.  I felt the expectant mother in me rise up for the first time in this process….she rose and wasn’t going anywhere.

I heaved my soul back up into the truck, turned my back to the group and wept.

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It hit me square between the eyes as I unpacked those moments laying in bed that night.

I had gotten a glimpse into what my little Liv’s life could have been.  I had peered into the might-have-been for the one I treasure more than my own life, what she had endured.

How many people had mothered my own for mere moments?  How many women stood over her, overwhelmed with grief and loss, and simply picked her up and rocked her for the moments they had because they couldn’t find the surface to come up and breath and do anything else?  Thank you, whoever you are, the missionaries, the aid workers…who stepped into my little ones life and mothered her for a moment.

I am mothering a miracle.

An actual, modern day miracle.  A raised from the dead life.  A once orphaned one, dying from starvation, unable to fight for herself…unable to speak up for herself…that was my daughter.

And now she sits at my table working away on her class Valentine’s Day cards. (that she started on Thursday…so we’re up to like 1 an hour…we gotta pick up the pace)

The same one who runs through the house stark naked giggling and shakin that bare butt in our faces….the same one who hides from us and dies with laughter when she jumps out and scares the living daylights out of us. (literally every single time…I don’t know why I fall for it…but I do)

The same one who gets to choose her meals, and even help make them.

The one who calls out mama in the night…and now one comes running.  The one who longs for a papa to sleep by her side…and she gets one…always at her beckon call…wrapped around his pinky finger.

The same one who hears the word of God daily and is learning to worship Him.

The same one who is the smartest in her class, reading and writing and doing math at 5 years old.

Her.  The miracle.

But also the same one who pushes my buttons, who tugs on my shirt, who interrupts my conversations, who makes a mess right where I’ve cleaned up.

The same one who pouts and stomps and doesn’t listen.

The same one who says “mama” on average a thousand times a minute.

Her.  She’s the miracle.

Oh the conviction that set in.  The fire in my belly to push back against the status-quo loop of frustration that moms tend to find themselves in…where they love their kids but they mostly drive them crazy.  The rhythm of annoyance that so easily can slip in.

The exhaustion that we can allow dictate how we steward our moments of mothering.

They are ours to steward you know?  Not just our children…but our moments with those children.

As their eyes gaze into ours searching for meaning, love, affection, direction… are we gazing in the distance desperate for the “next season”….are we gazing at our phones, distracted by things that don’t matter at all.

Or are we gazing back into their miracle eyes.

Are we asking the Lord, “What do you want me to do?”

And then…are we doing it?

The greatest act of stewardship, discipleship, world changing I could ever achieve is sitting across from me at breakfast.  She’s tugging at my shirt…begging to be shaped, loved, cherished, fed, nurtured…mothered.

She is mine to steward.  And oh what a weighted honor to steward a miracle.

So…when that annoyance creeps in…may I push it back and instead make way for miracle moments.  When exhaustion dares to lift it’s head and take priority over my little… I will tell it to go where it belongs…and instead choose to usher in whatever my little needs in that moment.

May I never escape the scope and depth and width and breadth of just what God did for my Liv.  May I never treat that transaction flippantly.  May I view my mothering as holy ground…because it is.

And to my coming one, Esther.  He will do the same for you.  He is writing the same miracle over your life as I sit here and dream of you…I feel it in my gut that He is preparing you, me, all of us for your grand entrance into our hearts.

And I commit to you, that I will try my hardest to parent inside of the knowledge of just how miracle-filled you are.  To never step outside of my dependence on MY Father to tell me how to miracle-mother you.

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I have to give a shout out to Numana, Inc.
The company that my better half works with joy for.
It is an incredible honor to be a part of their “family”.

They are a hunger-relief organization that is fighting daily to rally the church to care about the hungry.

And never have I understood the weight of what Numana does than when that truck backed into that pit where babies dwell…with hundreds of meals.

As the orphanage mama came out and it registered that we had shown up…with food….she was undone.

She had just fed her last meals to those babies.  She had no plan for what would come next.

She raised her hands to heaven and tears streamed down those dry, weathered cheeks of hers.  She could now provide.

Miracle manna.  Out of the blue provision.

And all because people like me, and you, and your church, gave their time and energy and an afternoon to pack meals.

Meals that literally saved lives on an afternoon a world away.

Man.  Don’t ever believe for a second that we don’t serve the miracle working God…even today…He’s doing it y’all.

Check out Numana :  www.numanainc.com

Book an event!  Feed some empty stomachs.  Be a part of the miracle.