For all you mothers out there:

Yesterday, I traveled to Birmingham to be with Katie, my baby girl, on her birthday. Yes, she is still my baby girl, though we celebrated 22 years together. As most girls would, we thought it fitting to treat ourselves to a pedicure in a nice salon.

While we soaked our feet and turned up the massage chair, I looked around the salon at the various women of all ages. As usual, I began to wonder what their stories were. I am fascinated by people’s stories. Everyone has one. God is the master author of each and every one. Every story has conflicts and drama. Usually, there is some comedy thrown in for good measure. But the Master Author continues to write our stories every day, and if we trust Him, we can be confident that the story will have a stellar ending—much more than we could imagine.

In this vein of thinking, my eye fell upon a young woman with two children who had just entered the salon. The children, both curly head girls, were beautiful. They had big bows placed strategically to the side to keep back the curls. They had precious matching outfits. They both looked to be similar ages, so, I assumed they were either twins or at least born very close together.

While both children were beautiful, what caught my attention was the one in the wheelchair. The one who had her eyes closed, and would sometimes loose control of her head causing her beautiful blond curls to cover her entire face. My heart squeezed at the sight.

And then my attention turned to the mother. She, too, was beautiful. But she looked worn out, haggard, and a bit overwhelmed. She was dressed in gym shorts and a t-shirt, hair in a ponytail, and no make-up. And did I mention she was beautiful? I thought to myself, “I am so glad she took time out to do something for herself.”

In two seconds, I had walked through the past thirty minutes with her. I could picture the hard work that it took to get there, dressing two little girls, one of whom could not help at all; packing a “diaper” bag, years after a diaper bag should have been unnecessary; loading the girls into car seats; loading the wheelchair. I remembered how exhausting it was to simply get everyone in the car. Only, I struggled with strollers, not wheelchairs.

And since I could imagine what her past minutes had been, I began to imagine what she must be thinking at that moment. Which section has the most room for the wheelchair? I began to look around trying to select a spot for her.   I saw her speak to the receptionist, and then point to the wheelchair. Yes, I thought, they will help her find the right spot so maybe she can relax for just a moment.

My thoughts continued to the next set of issues. How will these little girls keep entertained while their mother gets a manicure? I hoped she had thought through this one. I hoped the bag hanging from the wheelchair was filled with snacks and toys and an Ipad—at least for the girl that could walk. The other precious angel still had not opened her eyes. Her head had fallen two more times, so the mother had titled the wheelchair back to reclining.

I turned away for a moment to answer a question about what color I wanted my toes painted. When I turned back, I saw both mother and healthy daughter sitting side by side in the manicurist chairs. Only the little girl was the only one with soaking fingers. The little girl was the one getting the manicure. And the mother with tired eyes was watching and beaming with delight. It took a moment for me to comprehend the simple sacrifice playing out before me. A wave of emotion swept over me. I wanted to cry and hug that mother and tell her how amazing she is.

I wanted to shout across the room, to this complete stranger whom I suddenly loved,

“I SEE YOU!”

“I SEE YOU!”

“I see the sacrifices you are making every day.

I see how tired you are.

I see how difficult it is.

I see that you are holding on and making the most of heart-wrenching circumstances.

I see your courage and your strength.

I see your joy, which is so obviously displayed as you give your little girl the manicure you deserve.”

Like a slide show of snapshots my mind traveled back 5 years or so and glimpsed her life. I imagined a beautiful young couple walking the aisle in front of family and friends vowing to stick together in sickness and in health. I guessed they never dreamed they would need to stick together in sickness and health of their children.

I imagined the day they knew something was wrong. Was it during pregnancy this syndrome was discovered? Or was it later, after months of wondering why her baby was not developing like her sister? Whenever it was, I can imagine the horror and grief when she realized that this information totally changed the course of her life.

My Katie saw me looking and without words, I could tell her mind was following the storyline, too. We looked at each other, on the 22^nd anniversary of her birth, and she said quietly, “That could have been me.” I nodded as I remembered my own story. Long, hard labor, cord wrapped tightly around her tiny neck, the rush of doctors and the flurry of the emergency team.

Then, the silence. Holding her and rocking her and wondering what the effects of oxygen deprivation may be.

Twenty-two years later, I praised God that we were spared the storyline I saw at the manicure station across the room. I knew God had been faithful to protect Katie, who is about to graduate college with a double major.

And yet, the truth is, God is equally faithful to the beautiful woman with a different story. In fact, she must be very beloved of the Lord to be trusted to handle this difficult and beautiful life she is living.

I believe He, too, wants to shout to her, “I SEE YOU!” And this is what He says to her and to each of us: I will be faithful each and every day.

Together, my friends, let us declare the truth found in His Word:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning;  great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”                                                                                           Lamentations 3:22-24

This week I have so enjoyed learning from Lane Yoder and the lessons revealed through the Single’s Survival Guide to Valentine’s Day. It caused me to remember a particular season of longing in my own life. I was young and single.  I was at times content and focused, and other times I was longing for more. My heart’s desire was to be a wife and mother, yet God had not brought about “the one” yet. I wanted to give the Lord every part of my life, even my longings and desires. Yet that is often so much easier said than done. I felt my heart moving toward one particular person–a young man that was, in fact, one of my best friends. The transformation of love in my heart from that of best friend to much more was a very difficult transition.

My brother, Ken, had shared with me about the freedom of relinquishing our desires to the Father. He told me that he pictured his desires, whatever that may be, as a small box, like a gift. And in his prayers, he would offer the box, symbolizing his wants and desires, to the Lord. He would imagine leaving the box at the altar, and praying, “Not my will, but Yours, O God”.

So, through prayer, I brought my desires to God’s altar time and time again. However, I kept picking it back up, analyzing and trying to control it over and over. It was a vicious cycle of lay it down, pick it back up, lay it down, and pick it back up.

And then one day, I read about burnt offerings. It was February 14th, Valentine’s Day, 1991. Once again I was tempted with discontentment and sadness. I had begun reading the One Year Bible, as a New Year’s Resolution. I was tempted to skip the Old Testament reading, because it seemed so irrelevant to me. However, I wanted to hold true to my resolution, so I trudged through the assigned reading. The reading that day was about the preparation of the altars. I began to pray, saying, “Lord, I’ve tried that. I have tried again and again to lay down my desires and my unfulfilled dreams and hopes and wishes. I have tried to lay down my sadness and heartache, but I keep picking it back up.”

And then I read further about the preparation of burnt offerings. You see there were different types of offerings that the people presented to the Lord in the Old Testament. There were offerings of grain, and first fruits, there were offerings of sweet smelling incense, and drink offerings … and there were burnt offerings. And I began to think about the burnt offerings. If I offered my desires as a burnt offering, one of two things could happen. Either it would be something made beautiful, as silver refined in the fire, or it would be a black charred mess that I would not want to pick back up anyway. So I prayed that my desires would be as a burnt offering. I finally found that place of surrender. And the things that God had been trying to teach me during this difficult season suddenly began to form as truth in my heart. He was enough! He was what my heart longed for more than anything else. And, as time would tell, the burnt offering turned out to be a thing of beauty, refined by the fire of pain and surrender.

Within a month, the Lord had turned my situation totally around. The Lord rather dramatically told this young man, Mont Berry, that yes indeed I was the one He had prepared to be his wife. And yet, the refining fire had sealed my heart for my first love to be Jesus. I have found throughout our years of marriage that keeping Jesus as my first love allows me to love Mont and my children more purely, more completely, and more abundantly than I ever could if I had placed them first in my heart.

By July, I knew that we were going to be married, I just didn’t know when. I was to meet Mont in Nashville, where he was doing a rotation at Vanderbilt. The night before I left, I could not sleep because words kept rolling over and over in my mind. I got up and simply wrote down, in about five minutes, what the Holy Spirit was stirring within me. It was basically a summary, in the form of a poem, of the great lessons I had learned through that season of my life. I wrote it down in calligraphy on nice parchment paper, rolled it up, and put it in my backpack. I thought I would share it with Mont, if God so led. That Saturday, we went for a long drive, as Mont expressed his need to “get out of town”. Of course, I did not care where we were, as long as we were together. We drove to Black Mountain, North Carolina, and climbed the mountain trails to the top. There was a beautiful view, and Mont told me that it was the place that he had prayed to receive Christ as his Lord and Savior. I reached into the bag, and unrolled the poem and handed it to him to read. He read:

Though You Are Enough

Jesus, my love, my truest friend,

Joys you give me, and pain you mend.

How can I thank you? How can I express

What’s in my heart of gratefulness?

Though You are enough to satisfy,

You’ve given me another, in whom my trust can lie.

You’ve given me another love and friend

Who will stay beside me to the very end.

Though You are enough, my wholeness, I know,

You’ve given me someone faithful, someone I can hold.

Someone who my joys will share,

Someone who will see my pain and care.

Someone who loves You as much as I.

Someone who for Your Cause would die.

Though You are enough, I know it’s true,

I thank You for this other love, so fresh and new.

And when the newness fades away

By struggles and pain that will come our way,

We will still have You, our truest friend,

To rekindle our love and make us one again.

Though You are enough, this truth will ring;

Though I love You more, my Lord, my King;

Though You are enough, that’s plain to see,

Thank You, precious Jesus, for this other love for me.

After reading the poem, Mont reached into his backpack and pulled out a beautiful engagement ring, and asked me to marry him! Through the years, I have made a conscious effort to remember those lessons learned through that hard time. And I can truthfully say that Jesus is enough. I love Him more, yet He fills my heart with such an abundance of love for my husband and children, the depth of which I cannot even attempt to describe. Even through the difficult seasons of our lives, our Lord is at work. He takes care to prepare us for our future. The waiting is often long and hard. But during those waiting periods we can experience the warmth of faith, and the intimacy of friendship with the King of Kings. His plans are always worth the wait.

For our wedding we put the lyrics with the tune of an old hymn and my sister sang it during the ceremony as a wedding prayer. Ten years later, our dear friend, Rivers Rutherford, arranged to have it recorded in Nashville. Click on the link below to hear the beautiful result.

Dear Friend, as we wrap up this Valentine’s Day Series, please know that everyone has a story of longing and learning and letting go. And the answer to everyone’s difficult story is the fact that HE IS ENOUGH.

Happy Valentine’s Day!