goodbye

there was something about the way the sun caught the "pumped- up pink" toenail polish on my tan feet leaning on the passenger side dashboard that reminded me of when the biggest problem in my life was whether or not to get a perm. we just drove away from dropping zoe back at school and my eyes were blurry with tears.  when did life get so hard? that is what i've been asking God since about 4 am, but really for about the past 18 years. She must be getting tired of me but Love is okay with tired so i keep on asking it.

periodically i have these awakenings to my own life. you would think they are 'ah-ha moments' except that i've probably had the exact one already, but am awakening to it again. it's like i've forgotten and then it's new to me. this happens when i re-watch a movie or TV show also because i often forget the ending and it seems new (which is an advantage- currently rewatching homeland, and it's actually exciting!). at 4 am i was awakening again to the reality that my sweet zoe will never ever be independent and that no one will ever love her like her parents do and this has major implications for my heart and my physical being too.

leaving zoe this time felt different. harder. definitely harder. in six days we fly back to uganda. through a series of miraculous events we are heading back on a repatriation flight. the world is topsy, turvy in a way it never has been before. my 20 year old reality is unchanged. and i'm getting on a plane with what feels like a wing and a prayer.

so at 4 am i found myself at the foot of my bed leaning on the window sill crying out to God. 'why are you making this so hard? you could have blocked this! you could have held our work permits, made the flight full, anything if you wanted us to stay here with her!' you know God speaks to me in the trees and the wind and She did. zoe is my child. I love her even more than you do- I made her. and you. I've got her. I've got you. you need to go. I know it's hard to leave but there are some things I need you to do to be ready for what is next.  the entire row of mighty, tall, maple trees shook with words. and then there was stillness and then i had that moment of awakening.

i went back to sleep.

a few hours later, the Celtic book of prayer had a morning reading that is one of my favorites.
a poem. i heard it as God speaking. a dialogue again, i took it one line at a time.

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart,
but there is so much unresolved. hold these tensions? let them sit? as they are? it's soooo uncomfortable!!

and try to love the questions themselves
"the truest and most beautiful life never promises to be an easy one" love the process

as if they were locked rooms
or books written in a very foreign language.
love the blessing in the challenge of it all.

Do not search for the answers, which could not be given to you now,
stop wasting precious time spinning my tired wheels

because you would not be able to live them.
oh i couldn't live those answers now anyway!

And the point is to live everything.
there are seasons.

Live the questions now.
this is my season.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually,
without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
perhaps, (or, gulp, perhaps not). far? (deep breath) it will come naturally, as i grow and change and allow and transform with my life and the people in it....the answers. or maybe different questions.

Rainer Maria Rilke

there was so much in that poem for me today. and in the trees. God speaking in ways that i needed to hear. knowing that my girl is being cared for by the God who made her- reassured of the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

still driving her there i cried a bit behind my sunglasses. i got through the actual goodbye with out tears and she did great. but as we drove away- my heart hurt, as i remembered my awakening at 4am- and i tried to recall the poem, instead of simpler times - and perms are almost always a bad idea anyway.