Generations of fellowship

I should write more often. Just coming to my blog would remind me that I don't need to be feeling so needy all the time, that I truly have all that I need.

Dared a daydream that I've never done before. I was in the kitchen turning Thanksgiving dinner dregs into soup, listening to my happy silly children cleaning up after company, but feeling a little left behind. Okay, they're growing up, they're not yet as mature as I, God's made them with different passions and temporal destinies than mine, and they have their fun and jokes which seem private just because I wasn't there to help make them. I'm okay with shooting arrows out and away. And God has been so kind to me to let me reconnect with them and their new families. And I love my husband, and I even love his work when I turn towards him, away from my own tasks of raising his kids. And without having to interface those relationships, I will even enjoy life with him alone.

But my thoughts took an unexpected turn: I imagined my mom coming around the doorway and in to see what I was doing. My mom. I don't think of her much at all. I just live all the Christian life she bred in to me. I just look like her and act like her and bless her. But I don't often think of her. And there she was in my heart, as real and as lovely and as totally Marian Ruth Melvin as ever. And the pain of longing made me cry.

A few minutes later I shared it with Grace. Partly so she'd understand why she might have seen me crying. Partly for the fellowship of sympathy, or understanding, or just friendship. But also, I think, partly to flesh out what made me cry in the first place: the beauty of the continuity of the generations.

I miss my mom. I always will. Margaret Taylor told me that. I wish I could put my Meredith and my Hilary in her arms. I wish my kids knew her and could laugh at her Marianness as much as they laugh at my Deborahness. I miss my kids, too, but here I must guard against discontent which is idolatry. Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom; make us to rejoice all of our days. Establish the work of our hands. For Your glory alone.