A Mothers' Day Pause -- The Emptying's
/From Glory in Disguise: Seeing God in Our Every Day (details below)
The Nest: Emptying to be Filled
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.
He is the head over every power and authority.
Colossians 2:9-10 NIV
There are lots of emptyings in life. There are deaths and losses of every kind. There are ends of relationships, ends of jobs, ends of school-years, ends of eras, ends of phases of life. Some of these are expected. Some catch us by surprise.
Motherhood, in particular, is filled with emptyings -- from the emptying of the womb in childbirth to the emptying of self in child-raising. The stripping is hard, every step along the way. And then there is an emptying that affects all mothers sooner or later -- the emptying of the nest.
I know. This is what we have been preparing our children for, right? The launch, the flight out of the safety, security, and nurturing of their childhood home, out into the excitement of what God has for them up ahead. But who prepares moms for this? Releasing my children into adulthood, to make their own way, caught me by surprise. It was harder than I ever thought.
My mind goes back to a Mothers' Day at the very start of this emptying. The Lord in a unique way comforted my grieving heart. It was at a time when my children, who were young adults, had just gone through some serious health crises. So I was drained emotionally.
At that time, there were “significant others” in the picture. So celebrating Mothers' Day became somewhat of a dilemma. Those “significant others’ also had mothers. So we decided to postpone our celebration to the following Sunday. That should have taken care of it, right? But to my surprise, being alone on the real Mothers' Day was a grief to me.
I was struggling, trying not to wallow in my sadness, when the Lord surprised me with three gifts. Three delights for a hurting mama's heart. Three God-winks that most likely would have gone unnoticed had we been celebrating that day.
The first gift was finding old cassette tapes of my babies’ voices. They had been packed away for years – precious tapes of Jeremy and Beth when each of them was just starting to talk; others, when they were very young. One was even labeled "doing school and being obnoxious." I listened...I laughed...I cried...as the bitter-sweetness of those precious voices washed over me.
The second sacred wink was catching sight of a mama house finch launching her babies. Talk about the perfect metaphor at the perfect time. The mama of the little family of house finches had nested in a bush next to our porch. She was giving this sorrowing mama a lesson in the circle of life. I imagined mama finch saying her good-byes as each left the safety of her nest. Was she grieving the way I was? Or was she more courageous than I
And last but not least, I just “happened” to come across a monthly ministry letter from Telling the Truth. I had tossed it aside to join my stack of others to be read someday. But by God's grace, in that alone time, I picked it up and started reading. And then it all came together.
Mama road runner sitting in her cactus nest, nurturing her babies, Tucson AZ
The babies launched on Mothers’ day 2023
Stuart Briscoe, describing how motherhood had changed his wife Jill, wrote:
When the baby was born, I stood by helplessly and watched the transformation that took place in my wife. Motherhood changed her irrevocably. As she nursed her child I detected a mysterious gleam in her eyes--a certain glow, a knowing, a secret insight that she shared with the new arrival. She and he knew something that I didn't know. I could do nothing more than observe and wonder at the mystery of motherhood.
Stuart went on to say...
It occurs to me that the unique bond between mother and child makes possible an intimate nurturing relationship that men never know for they, by definition, are removed--they stand at a distance from the mother-child phenomenon. But hard as it can be for the father to make the adjustment to the beloved intruder, there is divine genius in the arrangement. For the day comes---all too soon--when the child must spread his wings and take flight from the nest. Guess who struggles at this point? The mother, of course! Releasing and relinquishing are not mother gifts. Guess who knows how to handle distance? The father, naturally. So as the wise mother has steered the puzzled father through the mysteries of nurturing, so the wise father now steps forward to guide the fearful mother through the anxieties of relinquishment. And the child receives what he needs -- a healthy balance of mother nurture and father freedom...
What a comfort these words were. Having never gone through this phase of life before, I was struggling. And as hard as it was and would continue to be for some time, it is God's way to move my children into responsible adulthood. It was their turn to step up to the plate of life and fulfill the will of God in their generation (Acts 13:36).
Emptyings are never easy.
So dear mama-sister, if you are going through “the emptying of all emptyings” (or so it seems at the time), open your eyes. There may be God-winks all around you, visitations from your Abba Father God to comfort a relinquishing mama's heart.
Don’t Let Me Miss You
Every day has
Its share of disappointments.
When that is what I focus on
I miss Holy Spirit appointments!
I miss your subtle messages
You leave me everywhere.
I miss the gentle nudges
Which show how much you care!
Don’t let me miss the blessings
You send along the way
Give me eyes to see your hand
Touching my life each day!
Penny Mandeville
Prayer
Lord, I acknowledge that I am as full as I can ever be because I’m filled with You, dear Jesus. No matter what the emptying in this life, please remind me that I have all that I need in You. But open my eyes to Your “winks,” Your gifts all around me. I don’t want to grasp at anything in this life to fill my emptying. You are my all.
Reflections
1. What are the “emptyings” going on in your life? What are the disappointments that you are still holding onto?
2. Journal them, handing them over to the Lord, and ask Him how He may be filling you with new things.
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