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Tuesday, September 12, 2023

A Different Kind of Cind37ella Story

Saturday evening, the night before my 37th birthday, on the ride back home from my sister’s lakehouse to my parents’, I swiped through pictures on my phone I had taken earlier that day. I stopped on one that caught my breath: Lucia, Benji, and Silas (my sister’s lastborn) were holding hands about to jump off the raft into the lake. I stared, my thoughts stopping time. I dreamt of this moment


 I used to pray that God would give me a pause button just once, so I could stop life around me in order to catch up or just breathe. In that moment, I swear He pressed pause for me. Life flashed back to both Christmases and summers where I’d be home for a visit, spending time with my family, especially my niece and nephews. As wonderful as it was spending time with them, there was always a piece missing; I couldn’t stop thinking, “Ah, Lucia and Benji would love this!” or “I wish the girls could see this!" or "If only Ben and Lu could meet their cousins; they’d have so much fun!” Ever since 2014 when I made the fulltime move, my heart was ever in two places – never quite whole.

 On Sunday morning, at 8:39 a.m., minutes after Mass began, I became 37 years old. During the opening prayers and Gloria, all I could think was – awe. Standing beside me in the very smalltown Catholic church pew I grew up in were two of my Swazi daughters, Ayanda and Chloe. I remember the day I met Ayanda like it was yesterday; she was 13 years old. One of my favorite early memories of Ayanda was when she once asked me (after I stopped at stared at the stars for the hundredth night in a row), “Mama Kate, do you not have any stars in America?” I laughed and told her of course we do but I had never seen them so beautiful as the ones in Swazi. I also remember her first time in a hotel room. She screamed like she had won the lottery, ran around the room, cuddling the pillows, jumping on the bed, and jumping in and out of the empty bathtub saying it was so great she could sleep in it! And to think, she was standing right beside me in my home church, two years after returning from America for her 4-year social work degree. She opened the way for Chloe, who was now just beginning her college journey at MATC. Looking over at Chloe standing in the pew with me, I smiled recalling the first moment I met her.

 It was 2014, just three months after I had moved fulltime to Swazi and became an immediate mom to many. I slept in a bunkbed but would get woken up at night from loud cockroaches on the floor, mice in our storage room, or knocks on my door from some of the girls who had nightmares and couldn’t sleep. But three months in, Chloe was my first personal placement. I remember picking her up and seeing how shy she was. She was so little, just 10 years old, and she pretended she didn’t know English. Until I said something that made her laugh, and she outed herself. After that, she spoke some of the best English of any others and has ever since impressed me with her language skills (she tested OUT of the college English placement test! That’s beating some Americans y’all!). Can it really be? That same 10-year-old is now standing in the very church I grew up in? She slayed her fears and took the giant leap of faith to follow her dreams, and now she’s here.

 Dreams. I couldn’t stop smiling. I wonder if the priest thought something strange was going on by the giant smile beaming from my heart to the crucifix above while he talked. Awe. I was just in awe as more recollections of the past month flooded me. My girls in America? Did that really just happen? Our tour, Scars: Up from Ashes, did that really just happen? My other brother and sister who had never met the girls before but now know many of them by name – did that really just happen? Lucia and Benji hand in hand with Silas their cousin? I mean… I cannot wrap my head around it, but my heart is swollen with it. Awe.

 I am just in awe of the way God has given me the desires of my heart. I am Cinderella, and this is my story. It’s not the traditional one, but it’s a royal one nonetheless. It’s a story of a Prince unlike any other giving me a world I only dreamt of and never thought could be mine. Two halves of my heart became one in a story so magical, only the King Himself could make it happen.

 So, although Lucia’s birthday note said, “I’m sorry that you’re turning 37 years old but to me you’re 30 and I love you so much!...” I couldn’t be happier turning 37. I’ve lived the heck out of my 37 years, and I have no regrets. (Mistakes, yes – regrets? No.) If God took me Home now, I’d be fully satisfied. I haven’t missed out on anything the world has to offer because my God – He is out of this world. My Father has blessed me with the desires of my heart: making it whole.

Lord, may my 37th year of life be a living testimony, an aura of glory, pleasing to You and perfected in Your presence. I know I complain of loneliness now and then, and I still pray for an earthly husband, but honestly, with all my heart, You are enough. My Prince, You have already given me my Cinder37lla story, so I can’t even imagine the best that’s yet to come. <3



Thursday, July 20, 2023

Even When It Hurts

Part of motherhood is the sword that pierces your own soul, too (Luke 2:35). 

I get that often enough to make it hurt – deeply. Words hit their mark, assignments sent to distract, disappoint and destroy. I think every one of them goes through this stage at some point, a wall of hatred and rejection, “I hate all of you!” and “I can’t wait to leave this place and be on my own” are the most recent. There’s also the “I don’t need you” and “I don’t want you” because “I am here because I had to be, not by my own choice.” Fortunately for me, I have the most magnificent armor, a prayer army of family and friends, and a love so resilient from a God who loves me like my own Hosea. My Lord is so close, and He speaks through my writing.

I had written out anger and poured out my hurt into my journal pages and then paused to ask for God’s truth, what does He say about this situation? I wrote with hands that were mine but words that were not my own:

“She is hurting. She is drowning in her own fear and tears. Carry her to Me. Only I can heal her. Only I can love her back into life again. Hold her for Me, Kate. Don’t scold her, just hold her. Be My physical body. I love you and have chosen you for such a time as this.”

Only because He loves me first can I love others even when it hurts.



"I have found the paradox. That if we love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt. Only more love." 

-Mother Teresa

 


When the World Stops

 Rays of gold and streaks of orange, this copper sun, setting like an African crown on the horizon, creating a magnificent backdrop to our basketball court.

A light breeze – no longer hot like the summer months when evening still holds the heat of the day.

A symphony of sounds – the birds chirping away like they own the place, not a worry in the world.

The touch of roughed up rubber, yet smooth from wear and the sound it makes dribbling the ball on the cracked cement.

The look of their smiles – oh their smiles – just a random afternoon of unplanned hoops with a few of my girls, and the feeling of their admiration at my “swish.” My soul smiles and pride of the past creeps in like the voice from the newscaster, “Hot-shooting Mary-Kate Martin hits another!” I may be old but I’ve still got it, I wink to myself.

She looks at me and says, “This is peace. This is the most peace I’ve felt in a long time.”

No words are necessary. Just the sounds of the ball on the cement, hitting the backboard, birds as our melody, a captivating sunset, and breath of heaven that prickles the skin.

The world stops in moments like this. Peace. Joy. Contentment. No “duties”, no “to-do” lists, no overwhelming feeling of time slipping away. Simply being present. Oh, the greatest present.

In moments like these, the world stops – joy is alive where peace resides.