The other day, it was my turn to receive a revelation in the frozen food aisle. A few weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon I went shopping for groceries without the girls. List in hand, I had hoped for an efficient trip, one where I wouldn’t forget anything or have to stop to sort out a disagreement between the sisters.
Yet as I pushed the cart through the store, I was surprised by how much I missed my daughters. I wanted to share a laugh or a song with them. I wanted to see their smiles.
Wandering down the frozen food aisle, in the midst of the potato products, I realized that I wanted not tater tots but my own tots. I realized how much I loved my little girls. In this mundane moment, in Safeway, on a Sunday, I felt overwhelmed by my own motherhood, ration driven away by passion and longing for little Abigail, Michaela and Elisabeth.
As we celebrated Michaela’s birthday a week or two later, I felt so grateful for her and my other daughters. I’ve had a hard time relating to God recently. I’ve wondered whether He exists and what He is doing in the world. But as we marked Michaela’s fourth year of life, for some reason, it felt easy to thank God for her. One night as we sat in the hallway together as a family, I felt surrounded by God’s goodness in my girls.
It was a new feeling, both amazing and frightening in its intensity. How much I love these girls yet I can’t control what happens to them. Life and love are fragile.
I thought of Christine Dente’s song, prove it, one she had written from her own love of her children, and her fear that God would test her like Job.
I said I love you and I know it’s true
Oh Lord, but please don’t ask me to
Prove it to you
I said I love you. As I was sitting with my daughters feeling both intense joy and anxiety, the song started singing in my mind. But suddenly it wasn’t me singing the song. It was God singing the song to me. I saw that God was speaking to me and loving me through my girls. I said I love you.
I began to wonder whether I wasn’t seeing life right. Or if I wasn’t hearing it as I could be. What if God is saying I love you to me in myriad ways every day? What if I am missing out on hearing a million little love songs in every moment?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Kai Jones (formerly Kris) // Oct 20, 2004 at 11:22 am
Oh, to be mindful of G-d’s love all the time! I cherish those moments when I can make myself conscious of it. Imagine how happy and confident you’d feel if it were as constant as the air on your face.
2 ilona // Oct 20, 2004 at 9:00 pm
Sometimes when it is hard to understand and hard to follow… we have to answer, like Peter,”Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
The joy in children and the joy in the natural creation often recreates me and renews my vision- thanks for sharing your experience of that.
3 Rod Kratochwill's Weblog // Oct 21, 2004 at 8:12 am
Thoughts on missing
Julie talks about some things that I have had on my mind recently.