Love Is A Shape

He was the boy whose eyes were downcast more often than not.  He was the boy who thought he had to be the man because there wasn't another one around.  He was the child who didn't have any friends, the boy with ADD, the boy who always felt like he wasn't good enough, that he was somehow different than everyone else, that he didn't have a hope or a prayer. 


But after a time he came to believe that he was good enough to get in the water and try it out just like everybody else.

 

He's not at that age yet where he doesn't care who's looking....

But he is at the age that he knows he wants to do it anyway.  So he got into the water and professed to everyone standing around just what he believes in, that anything is possible if you'd just take the time to wade in a little water, and that it doesn't matter about the shape of your muscles, or size of your chest, or anything else on the outside.  All that matters is that the size of your spirit is not measured by anyone else but Almighty God.

You see, I've messed up more times than I can count.  But on this day, all of my mistakes were washed away, just like his were.  My broken gifts to him were glued back together. 

We all put things together and just try to make them work.  We put in our resources, and our time, and our efforts, and they just aren't enough to do it justice.  But the glue of God's water is eternal.

So we accept the brokenness, because it hopes for greatness.  We accept the attempts, because ours are no better.  Even when we can plainly see where it has been broken, we can also see what a person tried to give...

 We take a long, hard look and find out that the shape of giving hands is love...even when all we have left to give is brokenness.



All Photos by: Mae Grace Eatmon, Eatmon Photography,

except "Heart" photo by:  LK

Find Your Teeth

He screeched to the front door with his two brothers, my youngest, and shoved the plastic container holding his first lost tooth right in my face.  "Mommy, I lost my tooth, I lost my tooth!"  "You did?" I asked excitedly. 

He had waited so long...watched his brothers each lose tooth after tooth after tooth, and he just wanted to be big like them.  I remember one day recently when his older brother had lost yet another tooth.  Jonah's bottom lip puckered out like he was about to cry.  "Don't worry," I said to him, "you're getting bigger every day, and the day is coming when you will start losing your teeth, too."

And oh, I wished this day would never come.  It seems the early years are so hard, but since the youngest turned five all I've wanted to do is stop the clock.  Not yet, Lord, not yet.  I'm not ready for them to leave me.

I watch them grow bigger and stronger knowing that one day they will leave my nest, and I will miss them so much.  But also I can't wait to see how they end up helping others with these many precious gifts of character God has given them.  My boys are turning into young men every day right before my eyes.  The Father overwhelms me.

But see, Jonah had lost that same tooth twice....at school when it came out of the socket, and later that evening when he dropped it while watching TV.  You've never seen a bottom lip pucker like this, or eyes well up so full...  "Don't worry, baby, we'll find it.  We'll find it."



I went to a homeless shelter this week.  You know, there are only supposed to be adult drug addicts at homeless shelters.  But that's not what I saw.

I saw the physically disabled who's luck ran out, stuck between a rock and a hard place, but at least with a temporary roof.  I saw a young boy whose mama just trusted the wrong man again. And he sat in this strange place, watching TV, just trying to look like he wasn't afraid as 40 people he didn't know shuffled back and forth along the hall.  I saw a room full whose only hope was the next right step, who slept hard from exhaustion reaped from a day full of the stress of survival...

...Those that have lost way more than just their teeth, those that have lost way more than they could ever be proud of.  I looked into eyes that just wanted to turn back time.  They just wanted their clothes clean and their hair washed for their second chance.


I pulled my own boys' clean underwear out of the dryer and I thought of that boy.  See, that's all his mama had asked for, was a pair of clean underwear for her boy, and I didn't have it to give. The Father says to give to he who asks, and I didn't have it to give.  So instead I blessed my hallway carpet with a million tears and held that underwear to my chest.



I don't know how we can get so sidetracked worrying about who said what to whom, so cutthroat about our jobs, so snooty about our skills... intent on keeping people out, looking down our noses at lost causes.  For you see, these same people are closer to bare bones and the spiritual side of things than even you and I right now...you can't deny it save mere ignorance.  Us in all our luxury, them living hand to mouth from the mighty hand of God.  While one man's luxury is a five bedroom, 3 bath home in the woods, and mine is a two bedroom apartment in a duplex....tonight theirs is a dry roof over a cot not too far from the cold breeze that cuts under that bridge.

I encourage you to take 10 minutes out of your day tomorrow to call a local shelter to find out what its residents' needs are.  Maybe you can donate $10 to go towards supplies, like coffee cups, toothbrushes, and soap.  Maybe you can work a shift once a week, once a month.  Maybe you can be an ongoing supplier of gently used clothing. 

Maybe all you can provide is that one pack of underwear for that little boy who had to leave his home in the middle of the night.


Finding a life once again after falling so far and so hard takes time and a whole lot of determination and heart.  And I can tell you from experience that coming from a low place is made all the more bearable when someone doesn't reign judgement, but instead fills a need.  Those that catered to my needs in my low places helped my spirit shift from just surviving to just thriving.

I want to find my teeth, and grit down against the unpleasantries and inconveniences, and give the little that becomes so much to someone else in order to say, "Don't worry.  We'll find it.  We'll find it."



"We'll find it."

Driftwood Prayers & Christmas Khakis

They were there for me in a way no one else could be in that moment.  Angels from heaven may wear robes of white, but the Holy Spirit sometimes hides himself in khakis and polos, sometimes in humble threads on the corner asking for money, sometimes on the trailing notes of a song on the radio, and in gifts of money and McDonald's and fixed cars two weeks before Christmas.

And each Christmas in succession teaches me this:

From the success of the hidden birth of the mightiest King on Earth ever in existence we can deduce that the most helpless have an honored place in the kingdom of God.  And that though others would see dirty animals and straw, we know that there is peace and safety in the glory that shines upon the hay.





I work and create and drive and care and love just as hard as I possibly can, but find in the end I can be one of the most helpless.  And He says, "You don't have to be anything more than what I've made you to be.  Already you are my creation."

I have prayed and prayed and prayed for one thing for Christmas for my boys.  Many Christmases I have prayed.  These prayers seemed to move so slow, like... driftwood in a lazy river -- water getting into the holes and weighing down the dreams, to what seemed like, beyond hope, beyond finances, beyond my means -- slowing down to an eternity the wait for what I've wanted for so long.

But this year God answered my prayers in a way that could only be Him.  And though I'd only asked for one, He gave me two.

 

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I kneel down and praise the God that gives me the desires of my heart because I delight in Him.  His mightiness right now is in the tears that fall down my face.  He is reminding me, once again, that His purpose will come to fruition, and that He has entrusted to me three of His children for a reason.

 
Special thanks to Chris Alvarado of Driftwood Guitars for making our Christmas a most memorable one, and for being the worker in answer to my driftwood prayers.


Also, thank you to the many good people at the Worship on the Water Church at the Flora-Bama for helping me stay on the road, and for the many gifts that will help my boys' eyes light up this Christmas morning.


My love to all of you.  May God richly bless to your lives a hundred fold, and may your spirits Float this Christmas season. 

Merry Christmas.

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