"I will…"

"Who knows
how long I've loved you,
you know I love you still,
will I wait a lonely lifetime,
if you want me to, 
I will..."

This post is not for re-posting. I will not be sharing it on Facebook. And there are dozens of love songs that I could have used to keynote this piece. But none of them said enough -- and most said too much.  Allison Krauss' "I Will," comes closest to saying everything and nothing -- all at once.

This post is written to put on record the heart of a man who loves genuinely, selflessly, and intuitively. He is my husband. It is to put on record for his children -- and their children -- his legacy of grace.

He is kind -- inimitably so. He is generous -- and in this time of "me first" social politics -- it would seem, to a fault. He loves me in ways that none have ever seen, or will ever know -- until today.

When I was a child, I never knew what it felt like to have  unconditional love or support. Everything was earned. Everything was reciprocity-based. Babysit your siblings, and you were shown appreciation.  Be accommodating, and you might know some kindness. Share your wages, and you would be fed. Do unto others, or nothing was done for you. 

I became a sponge for approval. An achievement junkie. I became addicted to proving -- to anyone and everyone -- that I was likable, deserving of friendship, worthy of the company of others.

As I have sought to become a woman of integrity -- and it has been a difficult, painful journey -- I wanted nothing more than to give my daughters the kind of support that I hadn't even realized I was starving for. I dreamed of being the kind of parent who put their children's successes above their own. I wanted to be the mom of my dreams.

Asking my daughters to live through a divorce and remarriage was devastating to me. In its wake, I felt a greater sense of failure than I could ever have imagined. I almost didn't survive my own self-doubt and sorrow.  I would not be here today if it hadn't been for my husband's constant reminder that I was - by divine design - inherently good. And that I was made so, not by my own efforts, but by the very nature of my one and only Parent who loved me without variableness -- God.

Over the last decade my husband has given me a glimpse of what God's love actually looks and feels like -- up close and personal.  He has helped me discover the coincidence between divinity and humanity.  He has put our children's needs, dreams, and successes so far above his own that it has taken my breath away.

And he has put my need to parent -- in a way that redeemed my own childhood -- ahead of everything else.

He has loved the part of me that was broken, shattered, vulnerable, and fragile.  And in doing so, he has given me a view of myself that is whole -- deeply grounded in spiritual integrity. There is no part of my life that is at variance with my desire for growth in grace.

I love him for what he has taught me about selflessness. When his sense of duty and service-to-mankind urged him to take a job in a distant city, he lived out of his car so that all of his earnings could come home to serve the greater needs of our family. His weekends were spent traveling to another state to care for his mother, and he spent every spare moment working a second job to support our home, and our children's education.

He rarely takes a moment for himself, often working through the night. And I've never heard him turn away from a friend -- or stranger - in need. He listens without judgment, he gives without condition, and he serves without any need for recognition or appreciation.

If I am becoming a better friend, mother, healer, and neighbor, it is because he has given me the rich soil of his unconditional love to grow in. He never ceases to encourage me to turn to God more fully, trust Him more courageously, and love more generously.

His love for all five of our children is knee-buckling. He has never complained that all of our resources go towards making their lives better, their dreams more achievable, and their potential for blessing the world around them more possible -- every day.

I am blessed. He has given me the gift of redemption. Through his generous love, he has allowed me to walk away from self, and into an ever-higher sense of who I can be as the perfect, pure, innocent, honest child of my divine Parent.  He has shown me that I am not a product of my past -- but the promise of God's love.

This post contains no quotes, it tries to make no connections, I am not seeking to say anything pithy or profound. It is simply an utterance of love. I testament to a man of great kindness, integrity, and selfless devotion to family, friendship, community -- and to God. Most supremely to God.

I am grateful. Our children are blessed.  He has been a gift of grace.

offered with deep love and gratitude to Love,

Kate

"What I hear when You don't say a thing...."

"It's amazing how You can speak
right to my heart...
Without saying a word
You can light up the dark.

Try as I may
I can never explain
what I hear when You
don't say a thing...."

Okay, I admit it, I've got a little bit of a Ronan Keating musical (only) crush right now.  I love his fresh take on songs I already love.  "When You Say Nothing At All." is just another example of how this Irish songsmith can take a favorite, and make it feel new...not better, just new. 

This is surprising, since Allison Krauss' version of "When You Say Nothing At All," has long been one of my all-time favorite songs...from one of my all-time favorite CDs.

But listening to Ronan's interpretation, tonight, I was reminded of how often, when God speaks, there are no words to explain what I have heard. 

As Mary Baker Eddy says of her earliest expositions on spirituality and wellness:

"She lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."

I understand this.  There are so many times when I have spent hours in silence and still have no words, only a deep feeling of peace and trust...and even those words... "peace" and "trust"...now seem empty, once I've typed them. 

Yes, there are times when I hear God speak in prayer, "as man speaketh to man," but that said, it is in those moments of darkness, doubt, or anxiety...when His presence is just a warm wash of spiritual knowing...that I know Him most intimately. 

Last night I was reading from "Fruitage,"  ...one hundred pages of letters from readers whose lives were transformed by reading Eddy's "lispings," which were later published as Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures...and this letter [excerpted below] touched me deeply.  It speaks so poignantly to the presence of God speaking to the heart, and yet, unutterably felt:

"It was in April, 1904, that I first heard the "still, small voice" of the Christ and received healing through Christian Science; and the blessings have been so many since, that it would take too much space to name them...a dear friend [had] left Science and Health upon my piano one day, saying that I would gain much good by reading it.

Glad to get away from my own poor thoughts, I opened the "little book" and began to read. I had read only a short time when such a wonderful transformation took place! I was renewed; born again. Mere words cannot tell the story of the mighty uplifting that carried me to the very gates of heaven.

When I began to read the book, life was a burden, but before I had finished reading it the first time, I was doing all my housework and doing it easily; and since that glorious day I have been a well woman....There have been some mighty struggles with error, and I have learned that we cannot reach heaven with one long stride or easily drift inside the gate, but that the "asking" and the "seeking" and the "knocking" must be earnest and persistent.

For a long time I was always looking back to see if the error had gone, until one day when I realized that to catch a glimpse of what spiritual sense means I must put corporeal sense behind me. I then set to work in earnest to find the true way. I opened Science and Health and these words were before me,

"If God were understood,
instead of being merely believed,
this understanding would establish health."

       I saw that I must get the right understanding of God!  I closed the book and with head bowed in prayer I waited with longing intensity for some answer. How long I waited I do not know, but suddenly, like a wonderful burst of sunlight after a storm, came clearly this thought,

"Be still, and know that I am God."

I held my breath - deep into my hungering thought sank the infinite meaning of that "I." All self-conceit, egotism, selfishness, everything that constitutes the mortal "I," sank abashed out of sight. I trod, as it were, on holy ground. Words are inadequate to convey the fullness of that spiritual uplifting, but others who have had similar experiences will understand.

From that hour I have had an intelligent consciousness of the ever-presence of an infinite God who is only good."  -  C.B.G.  Hudson, MA

I thought about author, Mary Baker Eddy, receiving this letter and selecting it for publication as part, and parcel, to her primary text.  It made me realize how much she loved her readers. Over and over again, she encourages us to seek these "silent utterances" of the Divine.  To feel the presence of what cannot be described adequately with words. 

He says it best, when He says nothing at all...

so grateful...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Aaron McMullin 2010]