Tag: parenthood

Love’s Thrill

  

 When the children came, “thrill” left

 Replaced by care and caution and love’s breadth

 Not always safe: the pursuit of safe.

 Lots may die in the wake of hesitate.

 But ah! That is not all there is.

 Before them wonder was a largely private (selfish) affair

 After them – with them, because of them – I am expanded

 Expanded in delight not just my own, but in delight in theirs

 What a gift! What a gift to be enlarged

 And stretched beyond my own thin skin

 These trenches and crumbs are not beneath me

 These are where the real life is – the full life is

 Forced outward love stretches all my womanhood

  – anyone’s personhood through parenthood – 

 Battle waged I am forced to reckon with these, with me

 To find that my self’s death is the truest liberty

 To be present and free from my own way:

 (Not just in order to indulge another’s whim)

 – But to provide what’s needed –

 This is liberation: realizing wholly the love within.

 So to find I’ve grown – and am willing more still –

 Becomes the delight of sacrifice – true love’s thrill

 To find that before I gloried in the small

 I’d venture I knew Glory not at all. 

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Darlings Away

Oh how I love you.

And so very wildly surprised

(And delighted) at how

Motherhood spins all these

Invisible threads that

Palpably

Bind me to you.
Hoping this solidarity’s (desperation) will

Defy time and space,

Carry over, blanket you in all things needed.

Hoping these while-you’re-away prayers

Are reaching the throne of heaven.
Hoping that somehow

My love for you is an offering;

That these frantic hopes please Him and

See you protected and good-showered

– help to defeat all that would harm or steal.
My darlings,

I pine for your return:

But I celebrate your going

As I try to bravely (not cut)

Stretch the cord enough that you feel free

But still fully supported.

That you feel free to go

And (always) free to come back, to be, to bound to me.

Not stifled, not held back,

But wholly loved that you’re filled full up,

Ready in turn to fully live, fully love.
Be free, my darlings.

Be open, be wise, be strong, be kind.

Be impervious to evil’s wiles.

Be engaged in love’s beauteous play,

Life’s glorious possibilities.

As you’re away,

Be.

And know that I am grateful that you are (at least little bit) mine.

Be you…

And most of all,

Be His.