5.11.2013

From the Inside Out: On National BirthMother's Day

You're looking from the outside - in, and from your perspective you see...

A woman whose children have been taken away.
                       
For good reason, you say.

You see children who need to be rescued and offered a better life.

You say the cycling wheels will keep turning, and perhaps hope should not be spent where hope will die.

You say education, finances and strategies could fix her life if she would only listen...

But are you listening?

Turn your glass inside - out, and look through her lens.

She sees walls of fear, every way she looks.

A future of dead ends.

She claims it's not as much that her kids need to be rescued, as it is that she longs to be redeemed.

She sees a past that has always been as it is now.

And she asks you how can she be a mother, when she has never been taught. How can he be a father, when he has never been fathered?

And the things listed from the outside, are the cards stacked against her.

She knows her stakes.

She understands what could be lost.

She has secret wails over the thought of the losing the ones who think she hung the moon, of being misplaced from that space in their lives.

Paralyzed from intimidation, she thinks you must have it all together, because of the very things you mentioned: the education, the finances, your plans....

Because she knows your definitions of success will never be the same.

And she wonders if you could only teach her, walk with her, enter in...

She maybe could possibly begin to think about sharing this precious space, her greatest treasure with you: the hearts that have her on a throne, the only claim she has left.

If you would only listen.

And from where I sit, I see...

Courage, to pursue and invite the rule makers and critics into her life, even if it's required.

Patience, as she counts down the million of seconds every two weeks until she hold her daughter's hand one more time, another hour to look into her face, even if it's what demanded of her.

Perseverance, to jump through the necessary loops as she faces the ways her punishment has fit the crime...even if it's what is commanded of her.

Grace, as she humbles herself to share the only place of her beloved's heart she has ever known. The place of Mother.

They say today is National Birthmother's Day. 

Some call her Birthmother or First Mother. Some call her Mommy. He calls her His masterpiece.

And the only way she may ever know, is if we are willing to look from the inside - out.

Because of the One who never stops listening,

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