Gentle Reader – Page 2 – Jesus is for the Wounded

O.k. let’s loosen up a bit first for a funny story that my beloved told me today:

Steve was having his hair cut by an older stylist who shared with him a little something about back hair. Yes, Steve already “knows” about back hair and somehow his stylist found out about it too. I’ll call her Mabel to increase my comfort level with another woman musing about my husband’s body hair. (My apologies to anyone named Mabel out there!)

Mabel said she had a client one time that wanted her to trim his back hair. You see, the furrier gentlemen types can have hair that sticks out of their shirt collar horrifying the fair skinned, younger female crowd for sure. (I’m thinking of Steve’s daughter here who usually helps Steve out with this kind of thing when she is in town. It’s some kind of daddy-daughter thang. Yeah, no problemmo. Keeps me from having to do it!) So Mabel did her duty and trimmed up the guy only to have him ask her to do a little more please. Then he must have asked for the shave to go further down his shirt because the story goes that she had to profess, “If I go any lower sir, you are going to have to tell me your middle name and buy me a drink!” Tee hee.

Steve and I cracked up for a long time after he told me this little ditty! Then my intended beloved confessed that his chest hair was getting a little long. I reminded him that his daughter would be visiting in a couple of days. Nuff said. Besides, I already know his middle name! Lol.

There’s no clear segway from here to the topic on my heart tonight. Today was Mother’s Day and technically I am not a mother of anyone. Steve has four adult children whom I all met when they were becoming independent adults so the step——- term never seemed appropriate. I was left in an awkward ambiguous role of “my dad’s wife” as if I was an expendable associate to whom they would have to be polite until one of us went away again. They are all well-trained young adults in politeness, avoiding difficult topics, and loving their dad just the same even after their parent’s divorce. The silence was still deafening, the emotional distance between us palpable. In time I would discover that the fact that I never had children would be one of the reasons their respect for me would remain superficial for a long time.

Only the Lord knows why I did not become pregnant when every indication at one particular moment in time suggested that a child would be in my future. Conception never happened. Four months later I discovered that my husband at the time was having an affair. The affair had lasted almost a year before I found out about it! If we had conceived a child at that time, the precious new life would have been dragged through a painful divorce process and horrific life challenges that I ended up enduring in addition to the divorce. In my humble opinion, both that little life that was never born and I were spared a multitude of heartaches. Surely if I had gotten pregnant the Lord would have provided and guided our lives, taking care of important details like finances, medical care, and a place to stay. The stress would have been unbearable for me, however. At times I did not function very well at all for a couple of years just taking care of me. My spirit was so broken . . .

The Lord knew what He was doing when He placed me in another “broken” family with a Godly father with four children four years later.

⁵A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows,
Is God in His holy habitation.
⁶God sets the solitary in families;
He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; Psalm 68:6-7a

Over and over again I have witnessed the special role that the Lord intended by my presence in Steve’s family, my family. Those musings may rarely if ever be spoken to the children. I will not say more about that here lest they read this one day. I am honored and blessed to be here in this family. And when the grandchildren started coming, I was delighted to be welcomed as “Grandma!” So sweet. So worth navigating the older kid’s awkwardness that came in gatherings during of our first seven years of marriage. Grandkids are fun!

Tonight I decided to post a message on my Facebook a message that speaks to my heart this Mother’s Day. Many of us come from broken homes, broken marriages, childlessness, or the loss of children in our lives for some reason. Love is like that sometimes. Things don’t go right and it hurts terribly yet I hope we still choose to love again anyways. I can tell you this night that I am glad that I did not give up too soon. I hope that you do not give up too soon either Gentle Reader.

The Lord never blessed me with my own children then he blessed in other ways instead. I count it all joy to be related to Christina, Patrick and Kate (Jackson and Warren), Rebekah and Daniel, and Daniel and Elizabeth. Know that I pray for you often, whether it’s in the shadow of your amazing dad or trying to find my way when I do get to see you. I think I now understand a mother’s heart. She just loves. Me too. Hope your day was meaningful . . . :J

Gently he pulled the brush through my hair as if each stroke was a special salve for my soul. You could hear nothing in the silence, not even his breath or mine. The darkness fell between us. The moment hung there in time. We had just witnessed so much . . . there was no need for words. Only love moved from his hand to me, gently freeing the hairs once tangled in the madness that had just gone before us. You might see this as an act of romance I suppose. But this night no romance would explain this kind of tenderness that now drifted between us. We simply enjoyed the silence, the calm, the love lain there slightly wounded just up from the floor.

That love was near me that night alright, well within my grasp. Oh I felt it with each stroke of the brush that was the tool he could reach first in the awkward darkness. I felt it from his warmth standing closely behind me as I sat with my legs uncomfortably collapsed underneath me on the hard tiled floor. The rug, marred with uneven loops from the dogs paws underfoot where she slept each night, gave little warmth. My hair was wet and so were my shoulders. The stuggle that came with forcing myself to wash my hair in the tub at the tail end of a convulsive episode had subsided into a senseless stupor. With my broken sentence my beloved found my grooming basket under the sink. It made no difference what implement he chose. His love would find its way to me with soothing swiftness followed by the tempo we might take one fine day, walking along a seashore somewhere beautiful.

Oh that I should have such an opportunity again! Will his capable hands finger their way through my auburn hair blowing in the warm sunshine of a summer day? Would he tighten the drawstring clasp beneath my chin of the paddling hat matched with our tandem outrigger canoe as we headed out onto the glistening lake? Or when his arm slips around my waist as we laugh at our pup racing along the stream of a wooded path, will I forget that our tender moments were once matched with sorrow so deep? I do hope so, Gentle Reader. For all of us who suffer what we ought not to endure, I do pray that restoration, healing, and mercy will cover what was once ugly with that which is lovely again and again.

Until that glorious day for me, I shall keep my eyes fixed on the sunshine streaming through my bedroom window. I know by Whose creation it shines and that one day all will bow and marvel in His glory, fully well, fully at peace. The love of our Lord, Jesus Christ will comfort and redeem our suffering beyond what the ones we cherish could ever do for us. And yet their heartache for sharing this journey with us shall be rewarded too. The darkness shall fade away forever for all of us one fine day. Only His light will reign and the darkness shall be no more. In that day my friend, we will comb the heavens never finding an end to joy for all who believe, for all who hold out for the hope of heaven. Together we will dwell in the presence of the King of Glory! Yes, indeed.

Sigh. That day is not here yet. What is here is the love of my life holding my comb in the shadow of night. He lifts me gently into bed and covers me with love that I could never imagine in the past. He is my Jesus with skin on when I need them both. I am so blessed. How could I ask for more?