...like mothers do

The Lord is never far away, but through all grief distressing,

an ever-present help and stay, our peace and joy and blessing;

as with a mother’s tender hand he leads his own, his chosen band:

to God all praise and glory.

---Johann Jakob Schutz, 1675

The hardest place in the world to be. Is it stuck in a rip current? At the beginning of a final exam for which you have neglected to properly prepare? Sitting in the doctor’s office, where no one will meet your eye? At home watching the clock, waiting for a child out long past curfew, again?

In my experience, the hands-down hardest place in this world to be is alone. Almost anything I can think of can be faced down successfully with an ally beside you. And almost anything can seem insurmountable when you feel that you are facing it by yourself. Jesus himself seemed to understand the human craving for “with-ness”, for his promise recorded in John 14:18 is this: I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

In this text, hymnist Johann Schutz imagined God as ever-present and tenderly guiding as the mother of a toddler, continually offering a hand to steady, to guide, to reassure; never more than an instant away, so that the stresses and dangers of life, its hurts and heartaches, need not be faced alone, but in the loving presence of One who bore us and loves us fiercely. And tenderly. Like mothers do.

And won’t let us go it alone.

...the best sorts of Mothering

Like a mother with her children You will comfort us each day,
giving guidance on our journey, as we seek to find our way.
When we walk through fiery trials, You will help us take a stand;
when we pass through troubled waters, You hold out Your tender hand.

—Jann Aldredge-Clanton 

My ideas of good mothering have matured along with me, being shaped by the act of mothering itself, moving from theory to practice and from toddling to dancing. Okay, okay...so, there  may  only be minutes that my mothering approaches the lithe grace of dancing, but you know what I mean. As my maturity as a mother has increased, I have grown to trust more in the preparedness, capability, and potential of my children, and to see my role as less of a rescuer. I’ve learned to provide more guidance and support  than unsolicited direction and dictation. And it is more and more evident to me that presence in the storms of life is to be desired over protection from any discomfort. Somehow I bet life is not through teaching me, either. 

When I look at the ways God loves me, I see the tender strength and steadfast presence of a Mother come through. Comfort, Guide, Courage, Presence—God embodies the best sorts of Mothering. And whether we had a mother who did for us, or not—imagine what it would feel like to know that we all have a God who mothers us so well.

Thanks be to our good God, whose love never fails. 

...like mothers do

The Lord is never far away, but through all grief distressing,

An ever-present help and stay, our peace and joy and blessing;

As with a mother’s tender hand He leads His own, His chosen band:

to God all praise and glory.

---Johann Jakob Schutz, 1675

The hardest place in the world to be. Is it stuck in a rip current? At the beginning of a final exam for which you have neglected to properly prepare? Sitting in the doctor’s office and no one will meet your eye? At home watching the clock, waiting for a child out long past curfew, again?

In my experience, the hands-down hardest place in this world to be is alone. Almost anything I can think of can be faced down successfully with an ally beside you. And almost anything can seem insurmountable when you feel that you are facing it by yourself. Jesus himself seemed to understand the human craving for “with-ness”, for his promise recorded in John 14:18 is this: I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

In this text, hymnist Johann Schutz imagined God as ever-present and tenderly guiding as the mother of a toddler, continually offering a hand to steady, to guide, to reassure; never more than an instant away, so that the stresses and dangers of life, its hurts and heartaches, need not be faced alone, but in the loving presence of One who bore us and loves us fiercely. And tenderly. Like mothers do.

And won’t let us go it alone.

...in our best moments

Like a mother with her children You will comfort us each day,

giving guidance on our journey, as we seek to find our way.

When we walk through fiery trials, You will help us take a stand;

when we pass through troubled waters, You hold out Your tender hand.

---Jann Aldredge-Clanton, 2000

Motherhood is often a balancing act. When to insist on vegetables first at dinner, when to sneak a little dessert in? When to stretch that last bedtime story to two (or three, or…)? When to let the baby cry it out, when to gather her up in your arms and tuck her in beside you? When shorts pants and knickers, when blue jeans and khakis? When to protect, when to challenge? When to comfort, when to brush off? When to support, when to caution? When to hold on, when to let go?

The same could be said of fatherhood, I’m sure (don’t know, never been a father). The thing is, this holy dance of parenthood is a weaving, the weft and warp that colors the character of our children. And God, in whose image we are created, and our pattern in all things, models for us both the compassion and the courage of a mother or a father for us.

For God offers both comfort and guidance, each in appropriate measure and at appropriate time. And when flood waters or trial fires rise around us, God’s hand is reaching out --- ahead of us, to rescue us; or at our backs, to urge us on to our own brave action. Because, in our best moments, that’s what mothers, and fathers, do.

We can hear You gently saying, “Do not worry, do not fear;

for I’ll always go beside you; every moment I am near.”

...like a mother

Like a mother with her children You will comfort us each day,

giving guidance on our journey, as we seek to find our way.

When we walk through fiery trials, You will help us take a stand;

when we pass through troubled waters, You hold out Your tender hand.

---Jann Aldredge-Clanton, 2000

Motherhood is often a balancing act. When to insist on vegetables first at dinner, when to sneak a little dessert in? When to stretch that last bedtime story to two (or three, or…)? When to let the baby cry it out, when to gather her up in your arms and tuck her in beside you? When shorts pants and knickers, when blue jeans and khakis? When to protect, when to challenge? When to comfort, when to brush off? When to support, when to caution? When to hold on, when to let go?

The same could be said of fatherhood, I’m sure (don’t know, never been a father). The thing is, this holy dance of parenthood is a weaving, the weft and warp that colors the character of our children. And God, in whose image we are created, and our pattern in all things, models for us both the compassion and the courage of a mother or a father for us.

For God offers both comfort and guidance, each in appropriate measure and at appropriate time. And when flood waters or trial fires rise around us, God’s hand is reaching out --- ahead of us, to rescue us; or at our backs, to urge us on to our own brave action. Because, in our best moments, that’s what mothers, and fathers, do.

We can hear You gently saying, “Do not worry, do not fear;

for I’ll always go beside you; every moment I am near.”

...held close in her mother's embrace

Name, my heart is not racing, 
my gaze doesn't search the stars;
my mind doesn't dwell on 
what will always elude me.
Instead, my soul is silent and still, 
content as a weaned child held close 
in her mother's embrace.
---Psalm 131:1-2 (para. laca)

When I nursed my babies, there was a closeness between us, a symbiosis, that is like nothing I have ever shared with any other person. These tiny beings grew in me for months, dependent on my body for every bit of life. Then, the sudden violence of separation. From the warmth and closeness of the womb, shadowy and quiet, to the cold and glare of real life. From that moment of birth, of separation, when somehow one being becomes two people, the search begins. The unquenchable thirst --- for nourishment, yes, but for more. When a babe snuggled into me, it was also in search of that warm, dark place that had been home for so long. Every nerve, every sinew was laser-focused on latching on and settling in, drinking urgently, as if life depended on it. Because life depended on it.

And there were times when I was weary of it. The inconvenience of entertaining a toddler while nursing a baby, all balanced on a toilet in a dirty bathroom stall at McDonald's. The messiness of nursing. The on-call-ness of it. The soreness of it. The way brushing my baby's cheek could set off the craned neck of a Pavlovian response, feeding time or no. The Pavlovian response of my body to the sound of my own baby's cries. There's a weariness about it, no doubt.

But in a little while, or a lot, you and your baby find, together, that the time has come for moving on, to a sippy cup with a whale on it, or a cow, or to a bowl of strained peaches or rice cereal. Nursing, when it happens, loses the frantic searching quality of early infancy, and it is time. Your babe is not a babe, but a child, weaned.

And your child still comes to you in the shadows, nestles into you, head tucked into the space under your chin. You still wrap your arms around your child, you breathe together, you rock back and forth. There is no more frantic striving, none of the urgent needing of infancy. In its place, there is stillness. There is silence. There is contentment.

...not one more December tragedy

Lully, lullay, thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay:
Lullay, thou little tiny Child, 
By by, lully, lullay.
---Robert Croo, 16th cent.

The bleak midwinter reveals a rock-hard core once again. At its base--- under the sleigh bells. and snowflakes, and merriment ---it seems,  lie loss and mourning. Buried in the Christmas story in Matthew is the violent subplot of King Herod's slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem. In his burning jealously over guarding his throne against usurpers, Herod sent his soldiers out to murder all the boys in Bethlehem whose births fit the Magis' calculations. In The Coventry Carol, featured in a 1534 pageant on the birth of Christ, mothers were shown rocking their babes, singing one last lullaby as Herod's army approached.

The grief of a mother over the loss of a child is, perhaps, our true picture of grief. Think of Michaelangelo's Pieta, with a diminutive Mary cradling her full-grown, newly-crucified son in her arms. Think of Jeremiah's prophecy, quoted in Matthew's gospel:
"A voice is heard in Ramah, 
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more."

It seems we would have learned, through the years, the centuries, to quit killing our children, to quit breaking our mothers' hearts. But we continue to observe our December tragedies, to see bleak midwinter run bleaker still at the point of a sword, the trigger of an assault rifle, the detonator of an IED. Terror looks like Herod's soldiers in Bethlehem, like Adam Lanza and a Bushmaster in Newtown, like the Pakistan Taliban in Peshawar.

If we've got a hope in this world, it is that, when God came to us, it was as one of us, flesh to flesh. As if to say, "Your lives can be holy, and the way you live in this world can be holy. Watch me."

Because we can. Not one more December tragedy.

...speak comfort

"Comfort, comfort now my people; tell of peace!" So says our God.
"Comfort those who live in darkness mourning under sorrow's load.
To my people now proclaim that my pardon waits for them!
Tell them that their sins I cover, and their warfare now is over."
---Johannes Olearius, 1671

Tell of peace. Tell of covered sin. Tell of waiting pardon. Tell of obsolete warfare. Speak comfort. Speak comfort. Speak comfort. Let the words drive off darkness, and lift the burden of sorrow.

We sit, today, hunched over under the weight of our corporate and our private sorrows --- our Boko Harams running roughshod through northern Nigeria, our Mideast opposite-of-peace, our Fergusons, mothers with empty arms and overflowing hearts, generations with unquenchable appetites and easy payment plans, multiple social networks and not one friend to call in a pinch. We wait for a prophet to walk in off the dusty road, crying out "Comfort!" We are so ready for it, it is almost as if we can make out the sound of it. Listen...

A voice, crying in the wilderness...