Today marks what would have been the 6th birthday of our our third – six years of healing, of wonder, and most of all, of honor.
This grief journey never gets easier, it simply gets different, and this year is no exception.
Most years, especially since it is the holidays, it is easy for me to believe the lie that I’m invisible. In fact, that is the single most used word to describe my new book from readers,
Thank you for putting into words and giving me the words to describe how I’m feeling, invisible.
For the first time in six years, I don’t feel this, and not because I feel seen, rather because I don’t need to be, at least not in that way anymore.
For the first time I am beginning to feel the peace settle into my soul right beside my forever wonder and yearning of who they would have been, and of who I would have been as their mother.
And, with a breath, I am realizing that this mother I am here on earth without them is pretty amazing and completely enough, even in, and perhaps most especially, in their absence.
Because they were never mine to begin with, they were His.
And, because they brought me to Him.
Instead of sitting in that lie of feeling invisible today I chose to be invisible sitting in a Starbucks.
I had $33 in Starbucks gift cards from speaking engagements, and admittedly I only get Starbucks at airports because I much prefer my Three Story Coffee at home. After I bought my black coffee I told the barista to use the remaining money for everyone else behind me until it was gone. Then, I asked her not to tell them who bought their coffee. I’ll admit, my heart yearned for her to ask why, so I could say, “This is in honor and remembrance of my three, they would have been six this year”.
And then I sat and watched. I watched people receive a gift, a gift as simple as free coffee, not believing they deserved it. I watched people pay it forward. I watched people look around and try to figure out who bought their morning cup of happy. One man, whether he saw me do it or the barista told him, stopped on his way out, smiled and thanked me.
The card didn’t last long and the experience was relatively uneventful, until of course I opened my Bible to John 1…
Life came into being because of him, for his life is light for all humanity. And this Living Expression is the Light that bursts through gloom?— the Light that darkness could not diminish! John 1:4?-?5 TPT
Perhaps, today a simple cup of free coffee made someone feel seen. I know for me it helped remind me that I don’t have to be seen by the world because I am always seen by my loving Father.
Our three, they made me a mother.
He chose me, bursting through my gloom, in the gift of them.
I am a happy and grateful mother.
~~~
The Complicated Gray now available here or signed copies in the store.