After The Clouds Pass By

It has been said that every cloud has a silver lining. After messy, unexpected, and distressing moments and days pass, shafts of light will break through, releasing those pent-up breaths, limbs go loose. A few weeks ago our daughter had emergency surgery. "I'm in such pain," she said that day. "This hurts bad!" And those words seared right through to that mama place that still wants to fix-it. Fix everything. Forever. Take away anguish and all that causes pain, since both my children graced our life I simply wanted to protect them from harm. A mother's shelter where door never closes. A scraped knee, nasty bad ex-boyfriend, migraines and marital spats I want to wing it all and nestle children under loving sanctuary. Like any crisis we do the doing and when it eases up a bit emotions start chattering, and the noise I heard the day after her surgery reminded me that I might be a grandma, but in the beginning, I was mama. This grandma epiphany caused  tears to snake down cheeks right there in the gym. I still want to fix. It. All. And the song emanating through ear buds, stark-real love proclaiming His great grace, I swiped damp eyes. I might still want to shelter our adult children and yes, I want to run wild scared when they share hard pain and I know now instead of running I stand wild scared and do the doing.

Only after cloud has passed can I do the crying-mama-can't-fix-this-for-you thing. Oswald Chambers says it so well: "What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds-He does not come in clear-shining brightness." And I held the book, scanned words I had missed after reading same page numerous times, tracing pointer finger over writing both gritty and soft, like after the sanding down and all you see now is pure authentic beautiful. "Yet it is in these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith...Through every cloud He brings your way He wants us to unlearn something." A hospital bed under wispy cloud-cover. A mama who wants to surrender cavernous desire to fix-it-all. A God who knows it all anyway and sends those beaming rays of light right down into that scared space. I like to picture Him gloving this mama's hand while I carefully positioned Band-Aid's over child's gaping wound, listened to bleeding heart-ache, watched a baseball game go sour, and him standing alone on pitcher's mound. The cloud has passed and I feel it then, His breath fanning my face, and this grace, I inhale it slowly, knowing deep down to ruby-red pedicured toes, I really still want to fix-it-all. The light after the cloud passes, it gently reminds me this burning desire to mend it all back together is OK. But I no longer need to hold all the pieces in my own two hands. Like a child's squeal of delight blowing translucent bubbles through grass green plastic wand, unleashing beautiful; each time I let go, I am unlearning something. And that, is magnificently OK.