On slow summer mornings, you can find me greeting the sun at a rusted table on a vine-covered courtyard right off of my bedroom.  The kids sleep, the trumpeter vine blooms, the Texas heat is kind for a moment, and I sit surrounded by some of my dearest friends- a mason jar of colorful pens, my prayer journal, and a worn Bible.  It is my very own secret garden and it has my heart

I am never alone though.  I share the space with a couple of flop-eared pet rabbits, four creeping box turtles, and this summer, with 16 baby chicks.  They are too small to move out to the coop with the rest of the flock yet, so they are safely growing right there in my courtyard.  And I love the menagerie, it adds to the magic.  But the rabbits and turtles are quiet, respecting the holiness of the sunrise and this momma’s need for silence.  The chicks are not.  They peck, and scratch, they flap and fight over flies.  Honestly, their charm is quickly being overshadowed by their mess and noise.

 

And some mornings, I have another tiny visitor.  With a whispering whirl of invisible wings, a hummingbird occasionally sees fit to hover above as I pour over the Word, and pray over my heart.  I’m sure I have missed it countless times, distracted by the pecking and the scratching, struggling to concentrate among the flapping and fighting.  But what a blessing it is when I catch the faintest sound of its presence and look up.  In those sacred moments, I know Jesus is there.  After all, if the Holy Spirit can be represented by a dove in the New Testament, why not a hummingbird in my courtyard?

In I Kings 19, we find the prophet, Elijah, running for his life, distracted, despondent, and desperate in the face of Queen Jezebel’s threats.  He has known the victory of being used to bring a widow’s son back to life, called down fire to incinerate a drenched offering in front of the prophets of Baal, and watched his prayers turn from a fist-sized cloud to a drought-ending delouse.  But at this moment, he is tired and afraid.  God finds him, as He always does, and tells Elijah to “go out and stand on the mountain in the Lord’s presence.” (I Kings 19:11 HCSB)  Elijah obeys and a powerful scene plays out before his eyes.  A terrifying wind shatters cliffs around him, an earthquake shakes the ground beneath him, and a fire lights up the sky above him.   But the Lord was not found in any of these.  Finally, ears buzzing I’m sure, Elijah hears “a gentle whisper (19:12)” and immediately recognizes the voice of His God.

I wonder if your ears are buzzing today too.  I wonder if, like me, there are so many things on your to-do list, people clamoring for your care, and responsibilities weighing you down that you are struggling to hear God’s gentle whisper.  I am learning that distractions will grow as quickly as my chicks, in size, in volume, and in the mess, they leave behind.  They peck and scratch for my attention and soon the undertone of their clucking becomes normal and I forget what the still small voice sounds like.  

But He promises, “You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.  I will be found by you. (Jeremiah 29:13-14 HCSB)  Like Elijah, He beckons me every day to position myself, my heart, and my agenda in the path of His presence.  He asks that I step out of the crush of my circumstances to seek Him in His Word, to search for Him in prayer, and to listen to Him in the whisper.   He is always there waiting to be found, but unlike the crowded voices of this world, it takes a bit of effort to perceive Him. 

Can you hear the hummingbird?  This summer, can you catch your breath, find your own rusted table in a secret corner, and listen?  Are there distractions that have grown too large and noisy?  Is it time to kick them out of the sacred space so that you can discern the whispering of the wings, the still small voice?  There are seasons of storms, earthquakes, and holy fires, and then there is the faintest of flutters.  He may have something important to say, and He may just want to bless you with the beauty of His presence, like my hummingbird.  Either way, I pray you fight for the sunrise, the peace, the quiet and notice Him there. 

Now, I think I need to go move some chicks out to the coop.  

I’m not much of a baker.  Something about the preciseness of it intimidates me.  I’m much more of a “little of this, little of that, add a hunk of butter to the sauce and it will taste great, dance around my kitchen to old Jimmy Buffet” kind of cook.  I can host a holiday meal or a summertime cookout for 20 with my eyes closed, but will someone else please bring the pie?  

Unfortunately for me, something about baking with our children has been sold to us mothers as holy ground. There are times one of my children will bring home a cookbook from “library day” at school and request that we spend the afternoon making cupcakes that resemble butterflies or unicorns.  And though I always consider “losing” that particular library book and forking over the $12 to replace it, I walk to the pantry and try y’all.  But, because I’m not a baker, I never have the right ingredients for the unicorn cupcakes.  Inevitably, we find what we need for a cobbler, a dump cake, a loaf of banana bread, and the holiness descends anyway.  Because the magic is not found in the final product, but in the togetherness…in the journey…with the ingredients we have.

I have learned in my 13 years of motherhood so far, that many will tell you mothering is like the careful art of baking.  There is some sort of formula, exact measurements, perfectly timed outcomes, all the while trying to peddle just the tools we need.  “It should look, and taste, and feel this way… See, here is the picture.” But time and time again I have gone to the pantry and realized those are not the ingredients I have.

Motherhood, like all of life, is the journey to embrace what we have, while laying what we thought we would have, what others tell us we should have, on the alter over and over- day by day. 

I thought I would be living this life and raising these 4 children a stone’s throw from my own mother, just the way she had done.  Instead, I have traded the flip-flops of my Floridian youth, for the boots appropriate for planting deep roots in the west Texas desert.  I have cried a thousand tears for that dream, and yet… I have cultivated a sisterhood here I would not have known I needed had that expectation been met.  There have been seasons when my marriage looked very different than the fairy tale we all want, and yet… the muscles built in prayer during those years have made me a strong intercessor and know what miracles look like.  I have children that fit this culture’s mold, and I have children that do not.  When the only successes we know how to measure at this moment are in the classroom and on the sports field, so very much goes uncelebrated.  Things like kindness, and creativity, and epic forts in the back pasture, and childhood.  So I give high fives to the ones on the stage, and I honor the hearts of those who may never be, as I trudge out to admire their fort. 

See, I never want to live in the shadow of my expectations, letting them rob the sunlight of my reality.  This little unexpected piece of promised land may be thousands of miles away from my mom, but there is no more magical spot on a Fall evening to gather friends around the fire pit, lights twinkling in the trees above. It has my heart and has become my home.  And that cowboy of mine?  Oh, we will forever go round and round I suppose, but he loves us fierce and what more could “happily ever after” be made of?  As for these children of ours, so beautiful, so different, growing so quickly… they will all be just fine because they know how to love big even on the days they strike out.  And they know they have a mamma who is not afraid to turn her back on this culture of achievement to celebrate all that makes them unique.

We were not tasked with procuring the “right” ingredients.  We might as well rip that shopping list up the moment we say “I do,” the moment our first child is born, and every moment after.  I can fret over not having what I need on hand for the unicorn cupcakes- the sparkly life I thought I wanted- or I can lovingly gather the ingredients I have been given to create a life that is so much more delicious.  In the end, I have realized mothering is nothing like baking (except for the messy kitchen).  There are no precise measurements, perfect tools, or timers set.  The only way to count every bit of it as joy is to relinquish the picture, lose the book altogether, and dig into the sweet realness of what you have.  So, add a hunk of butter and dance around to old Jimmy Buffet, trusting that God knew the ingredients He gave you.  He only asks us to steward them well, Mamma, knowing that the outcome will be a sweet aroma to Him.