Life Without Mother

These were the words I said just this past Sunday — that is, Mother’s Day — to one of my sweet sisters-in-the-Lord.

After my last post, and some time spent further with the Lord that afternoon, I went, heart full, to our church’s Mother’s Day fellowship. While there, I got to love on and — more accurately — be loved on by the wonderful mothers in my life, here in this new chapter of NYC. At the end of this time of fellowship, with more happy memories of testimony and laughter added to my heart, a sudden moment standing face-to-face with this sister-friend and this statement settled in my heart: “I’m okay.”

It was so unexpected that I said it out loud to her, with a little hesitancy: “I think I’m okay…”

To clarify, there was no context of conversation prior to this statement. As far as my friend was concerned, this was utterly random to the current moment. But, as though her spirit knew at least the spirit of the words, her immediate response: “Praise God!”

I repeated it the next night to another dear friend — one of those mother-figure mentors of mine — with a sense of nervous excitement. It was as though I stepping from the edge of a cliff, with only the harness of a zip-line transforming a sure drop to death into an exhilarating journey through the air to some unknown end-platform.

This week, I’ve reflected on it. A week of work and time with friends and church — a normal week in the life. And, even as other struggles threaten my peace of mind, this statement still rings true. Other struggles threaten my peace of mind, but they are not overlaid with the (at most) debilitating or (at least) depressing weight of grief.

Time to move on? Perhaps that’s the simple answer of it. Yet, the grief will still come, I know. Even this week there have been moments of missing Mom. But, it’s been colored with the light of life and future dreams.

The Lord has brought about some big dreams in my life: dear friendship and community, the opportunity to study my favorite subject in school, a new home in the city in which I’d never imagined I’d actually live. As I’ve expressed before, these dreams have been so much out of the pure generosity and abundant grace of God. And now, it’s as though I’m in a new chapter of partnership with Him. Of Him setting a new, seemingly impossible, task ahead of me: pursuing my dream of editing and writing.

Whether it continues to look as it does now in the realm of freelance or within the structure of a larger company, I do not know what my future holds. But, this I do know: with the Lord before and behind, beside and within me, I will walk on.

Because — praise God! — I’m okay.