This Is What It Means To Be Loved....

I can't help it.
My eyes well up as my 17 year old son literally spills over with joy as he ends his conversation with a lady from Sobey's who has called after weeks..and offered him a job in the Deli section.

This is a big deal.

A BIG deal.

I am the eldest girl in my family...I have an older brother and three younger siblings.
I have a sister next to me who is four years my junior..and then a brother and then the youngest is another sister who is eight years younger.

Us girls go in four year steps.

I grew up for the first years of my life ( until grade four) in the city and then the suburbs of Halifax.

Then we moved 2.5 hours out of the city to the small community in the country where my mom grew up.

It was an idyllic existence.

I wandered forest trails..walked through brooks..swung on ropes across rivers..walked over the footbridge and down dirt roads to my great grandmother's farm.
I climbed trees and jumped from the rafters in the barn into mounds of hay.
I picked crab apples, strawberries,blackberries,raspberries and raked blueberries...
I swam every day in the summer and skated in the winter under starlit skies...reflected in the black ice of the lake.
I fished, hunter and trapped...snared rabbits for the firemen at my dads fire station.

I excelled in school..passing with honors and was all-star and MVP..in Basketball and Volleyball.

I loved to read. Devouring books like they were air and food and drink.

I was surrounded by family...siblings..aunts, uncles, cousins...grandparents..great-grandparents..

I had a community around me...who grew with me.

I was one of many...

I was unique.

I was different.

I was insecure.

How can that be?

I have been married for almost 20 years now...by the grace of GOD.

My parents are divorced.

As are many of those I love.

I have four sons of my own, with only 5 years separating the oldest from the youngest.

This is just a slice of who I am.

Watching each of my guys grow and develop I marvel at the profound uniqueness of each of them.

...wondering at how each person on the planet has a journey...a road...that they alone walk..as they interpret their surroundings..their relationships..their experiences and become somebody as a result.

It is terrifying some days being a parent.

Intentions never seem to produce the results you anticipate.

My second born son... who got the call from Sobey's today..is one who wears his heart on his sleeve..you never have to wonder what he is thinking. He stands awkwardly..not knowing what to do with his hands..he bites his lips when he tries not to grin to widely..he is passionate..like his mother..he struggles with boundaries and confidence...what is proper etiquette for a young man his age. He is not interested in so many things that his peers are...

He said to me the other day...

" Mom...I am happiest..when I am serving someone!"

He intentionally approaches me every day to tell me he is glad I am his mother...
He asks me how I slept...
He is generous..and a bit obsessive...
He is diligent and thoughtful..
He sees people as needing to know they are appreciated... or just seen...
He loves.

When I was growing up...I faked confidence.. I faked a lot of things.
So many people who I grew up with never knew my awkwardness... my terror...
My need to fit in...or to be invisible...

I used to pray for unconsciousness.. to be unaware...

I figure now..at 41 I am beginning to see...
I takes me a while....

This is what it means to be loved... for someone to see you... and accept into their heart what they see... in spite of what they know or think they know...

My sons know me... I have lived my flawed existence within their viewing.

Humbled.
Broken.
Repentant.
Thankful.

This is what it means.. to be loved...

When one can stand and watch the transformation of another..the birthing of the true person in all its messy glory...and accept the process that makes them...them.

Love does not wait for worthiness.

This is what it means to be loved...

The journey is the making.

The knowing..is the loving. ( and vice-versa)

I am being made...

and yet...in the One who does the making..

I am complete

This is what it means..to be loved...

Be loved..

Beloved.