MOTHER-WINGS

For my treasures, Daniela & Jordan

How my mother-wings long to stretch out over & around them!
Protecting, insulating, harboring...
I long to be a barrier between them & life.
Perhaps because there has been so much in the last year that I have been unable to control,
that now I feel an overwhelming desire to overprotect them -
from pain, sadness, from all that goes wrong, from defeat, rejection & shaken theology.
It is not right that they experience any more pain!
Any hint of potential hurt feels almost unbearable to me.
I feel so helpless before their vulnerability, so inadequate to shield them!

I never have been the hovering type -
but that was before tragedy touched us.
That was before our hearts were broken,
before our lives were changed forever.
Now I want the future to look differently,
And their safety has taken on an inordinate priority!
I have never been as conscious of their emotional safety in all my years as a mother.

Herein lies my struggle - the struggle  of all mothers, really -
I cannot keep them safe from everything.
Mother-wings are not enough.
Oh what a defeating thought for the mother bear inside me!

There is only one thing to do...
the thing that is always right to do...
surrender them to the One with Father-wings,
to the One who is Omni-Everything to them in all places & at all times - I cannot be that.

Help my heart at this altar place, Lord.
Help me in this surrender of my babies!
Help me to surrender the safety of their heart, their emotions, their well-being, their relationship with You, their self-confidence...
Help me in this stubborn wrestling to see them be insulated from what feels like a very big, bad world right now.
And please help me lay down my parental weapons and any illusions of control.

They really are safest in your Omni hands.
My Mother-wings are good for certain times & places -
Your Father-wings are good at all times and in all places!
Their safety is, in reality, only ever in Your control, in Your hands...
in the Shadow-Sanctuary of Your very Almighty wings.