And the Sower leads

It keeps happening

Just when I least expect it

And I'm always shocked, surprised somehow, 

At how it feels when I see the swelling skin

Hear another exclamation of another new life

I've waited so long

Spent so many years of my life

Wondering what it feels like

Staring at my silhouette in the mirror, trying to imagine it encompassing a tiny life

Wishing praying wanting

Pretending to be patient with the choice I've made
Hoping against hope

While all around me

Mothers become mothers without trying

Fathers react in shock or trauma or by leaving

Glad families grow and add and pile on yet another baby

And inside me

My womb and heart and soul

Nothing

Spring comes so often around me

New life

Over and over and over

While I

Younger

Weaker

Hungrier

Shrivel and ice over

And die and die and die--

I am so tired of blood--

Winter, each season of my life ends up being winter, and I am so tired

Of choosing death

Look

Babies don't fix problems

And I know it

But it is exhausting to live with death as my most dependable constant

And maybe hope would be easier to grasp

If I could just hold it in my arms

But no

Not now

I've heard the words over and over and over

Said them myself so much that they choke me to gagging
Made the choice not to act on my burning want

And all I can do

All I can say

Oh please oh please, if there is any other way . . . 

but You have the final say

So let my tears fall like rain

I won't give up hope

That spring still exists, somewhere

That maybe, this chilly winter rain that falls from my eyes my heart my soul

Is watering ground I can't see yet

That maybe spring won't come in the shape of a small person with his eyes and my nose and twenty tiny perfect phalanges

But maybe

Just maybe

There's a shape I can't quite imagine

A comfort I can't even begin to feel

A hope that hides just below the horizon

And maybe

Someday

When the sun rises

Instead of blood and tears and death

I'll finally find, in the places that just looked dead,

Spring flowers

desert soul

It's cold here, huddled under the deep night sky. I came here willingly, in the spring, when the desert wasn't quite so daunting. I came when You asked, dragging a wagon full of hopes after me, their flames safely shielded inside lanterns of glass. But one by one they flickered out, as the flowers of spring shriveled in blistering summer, their fires too weak to begin with, too little fuel to sustain them. Now, in the dry bitterness of autumn, all but one of the flames has gone-- and that one, I cup close in my hands, my eyes fixed on it, my body bent over it, my mind absorbed with protecting it. It is all I have, in this place of cold and thirst and long wakeful nights. And I think it can sustain me for a very long time.

But now I hear You, footsteps quiet behind me, and I think I hear You speak in a low strong voice.

Give it to Me. I blink past the flicker in my palms, but I can't quite see You after my eyes have focused so very close for so very long on the blazing heart of my tiny flame.

Give it to Me. I feel Your whisper tug at me like a gentle breeze, and I hunch closer to the weak fire, trembling in my hands, coaxing just a little more heat from its burning. The wind whistles around me and I shrink smaller, shivering.

Give it to Me. You have promised me this-- how could You ask for it back now, when I need it most? How could You take from me my only source of comfort? How could You take back the promise in my darkest night?
But even in the silence, I hear Your whisper echoing, and even as I resist I begin to realize that my world has become so very small since I cupped this flame to my heart.

My God is an oath, yes-- but is that real enough to me that I will give back this one small thing as You ask?

You are asking, and You are crouched in front of me, hands cupped and waiting. And as You put out your hands to me, I open my own cupped palms and watch the flame slip soft into Your hold. You pause, holding Your hand out flat, and for a moment the firelight plays over You and I see all the crags and valleys and paths of Your face in vivid detail.
Then the flame is gone-- blown out or hidden, I don't know. But in the startling merciless black cold, I don't even have time to shiver before I feel Your hands on my shoulders and feel You breathe in my ear.

Stars, darling. I've forgotten what stars in the desert look like. I've forgotten as I stared at my own little flame.

Stars, darling. Your hands are gentle as you hold me. I close my eyes and hear the silence of the desert and I wonder what the world looks like without my small flame.

Stars, darling. I breath in deep, open my eyes. Your hands still rest on my shoulders. I turn my face to the sky and the wind is swept from my lungs as I see, for the first night in so many-- blindingly bright, achingly clear--

hope.

Stars, darling.

You don't know me

How I hate it when you,
 with your smarmy smile and your lifetime in your eyes,
dare to pry into that most private place,
the sweet darkness when my body meets another in the wildest possible declaration of love and trust.

How I hate it when you,
with your delighted arms and your bland ignorance,
insist on asking the same bladed question,
every time you see me,
like maybe something changed in the last week.

How I hate it when you,
with your skin-deep acquaintance with me and disinterest in knowing,
try to tunnel down to the core
in just one phrase.

You don't know me.

Vulnerability and openness are my gifts,
but who gave you the right to tear down to the depths like something you're owed?

You don't know me.

Do you ever stop to think
what it really is you're asking?

You don't know me.

What does it mean to you,
the answer to that ragged question?

You don't know me.

When will you ask me
the questions that matter,
the questions that would actually lead you to know me?

Instead of so are you pregnant?
maybe you could ask
what has Jesus said to you this week?
or
have there been hard things in your life recently?
or
how have you loved your neighbor well?
or,
really,
any number of questions that don't treat me like a breeding animal,
just a baby factory.

Instead of so when will it be your turn?
maybe you could pause and think
I wonder if there have been nights she's cried herself to sleep because her womb and her arms are empty
or
Perhaps the Holy Spirit is doing things here I'm not privy to
or
Maybe there are factors in her marriage that are none of my damn business.

Because honestly
would you ever dream of asking someone
When was the last time you had intercourse?
or
What's up with your ovaries these days?
Yet that's what you ask me
every
single
time
you see me.
(I'm sorry, do I look like a giant sex organ?!?)

And instead of covering your ass when I bite back,
making excuses in the face of my impatience or anger or grief,
and telling me
I just love being a parent
or
Babies are gifts!
or
You're so awesome, you'd be a great mom
or
You two will make the cutest kids
(all such true things, and do you really think I'm just ignorant?)
maybe you could just say
I'm sorry-- it's not my business,
you have the right to be hurt that this is all I care about,
Jesus is good,
and He's alive,
and He speaks,
even to women who aren't yet mothers.

You don't know me.
But maybe
if you started the conversation differently
you would.