The Story...

We each have one - don't we...
The story of our lives - the sweet intermingling of different people who touched us, moved us & made us who we are... The ones who have grown alongside us - winding the vines of their story through our own, till it's impossible to tell one from the other.
i was struck the other day with the idea that -
little Caleb has a story too.
Little son of my heart - whose brief life was lived in it's entirety in my womb. Whose mama only got to lay her eyes on him when he was already gone.
My memory holds you tenderly, with your precious face laying on your exquisite hand. Peaceful babe - not ready to be born.
Oh, son, your story is like a little vine - grafted into me.
i felt the cut when your story sliced into me - & i thought at the time- that maybe i was too damaged by that cut & that neither one of us would make it. Slowly, where you were grafted in, a little bud began to grow. Over time, the wound no longer hurt as badly as it once did... and i felt that the graft was complete... i could hardly tell where one began & the other ended. i looked different than i would have, had you not been grafted into me. i was like a maple tree that could grow lilies because of you, or sweetpeas because of Hope. i could never have done that before.
When Hope went home early too, i felt like an expert gardener. The wound was gaping, but i knew better now,the blessing that this little one was - and that Hope would always, always be a part of me. Not in a new age mystical way - but in the way that my Father had allowed me to be changed by a little baby that nobody else even got to meet.
Hope was grafted in, like Caleb before.

i am a monster tree.

My branches seeming to morph before your eyes. The tendrils of my children trailing around my roots.
There is sadness - but not despair. There is longing, but it's sustained by Hope. There is a future - and it's a heavenly one. These little ones cause me to keep my eyes firmly locked on my Father - who is faithful to provide what we need.
For now, i will encourage these little grafts, and every leaf and branch and fiber of my being, to point to Jesus - i will allow my sorrow, and it's beautiful fruit to be seen.
A mama will never forget that which has become a part of her.
Heaven means finally feeling complete.