falling asleep this past wk has. not. been a problem
but tonite a different story, it must be excitement in the air b/c i fell asleep shortly b/f 11p woke up at 2p, and then again at 3:33 on the dot - after the routine trip to guess where - i maneuvered myself back into bed laying the covers over me - and as i did, felt the softness of a 9 yr old blue blanket... and the mixture of untired eyes with a heart pricked by someone who'd been on my mind all day lead me up and out here to write
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it was the last day of the school year... May 2005
i'd been sick w/ the weirdest viral something and hadn't been to school for a wk... I really shouldn't have gone in that day but it was the last day and couldn't not say goodbye
i'd returned to the empty room after dismissal and was standing at my desk when she came to the door... "Oh... I knew you'd be here..." This was a mom of a former student of mine, and I don't remember the exact happenings of the moment - but the short of it - she carried w/ her a blue blanket that she'd had made by a group of praying ladies who made the blankets and as they did, prayed for the babies of the women who would be receiving them. She said she'd been waiting a while for her blanket, but as the time drew near she kept feeling God tell her to give her blanket to me.
I remember her telling me she was actually happy each day, that past week, when I wasn't at school - I felt kinda bad taking her treasure, but at the point of exchange there was resolve in her, she wanted me to have it.
I kept it stored for years, thinking the first person to use it would be the baby... and not sure at what point I actually decided to use it... but I'd guess around '08. If this blanket could talk, it'd have intermingled faith and doubt thoughts of mine to share with you... times of being used well (even RB slept on this blanket!) and times of storage b/c it just seemed like a joke of a blanket. I'm pretty sure I even had it in the Goodwill pile at one point in the last 2 years... (which isn't really that dramatic if you know me well).
When C and I became pregnant... I was pretty excited to share the news w/ this woman. I'd last seen her in 2009 and was well aware she was still praying for us to have children. The only contact info I had was an email and that address didn't elicit a response from her so I actually found her via facebook and sent her the news.
Her reply was life in action, sharing about such a season of brokenness she was thrust into when her husband recently left her family of 5. She closed the short paragraph with, "AMEN on the baby."
Oh my heart. It isn't the first time I heard the ache of a woman left, it won't be the last, but the ache is unmistakable, a pure reminder that God's way of setting the stage for new things in our lives rarely comes packaged the way we'd wrap it given a choice.
After my conversation w/ her, the look of my blue blanket changed... not in a bad way - in a deeper... God I love you - don't understand your ways - but do know I want to trust you. I pray this for myself, for this parent and prayer warrior of mine, and for my friend today whose pain pricked my heart often and prayers went up that God would be her light admist a dark season of stage setting.
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sharing an old post to close... sometimes God downloads post to me in minutes, this was one of those - rereads of it still teach me of him - written days before Christmas 2009 and in a season where I myself couldn't see the stage he was setting for me
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