Truth – it’s a tough word. Sometimes tough to live. Even tougher when your truth isn’t believed. Tougher still when these children we birthed, filled with the best we know how to give, our cool hands on fevered-foreheads, our lips praying, choosing books to inspire, trying to love it right – and then one day, they catch us failing at it – and, suddenly, they doubt the truth of our love. Maybe it’s part of growing up – this doubting the genuineness of this love we have, the self-less-ness of it.
For me, that’s been the hardest part of this mothering. The cascade effect of the doubt those God gave me to love. I think if I wasn’t dancing this dance with God – my ability to love would be so crippled, grace walked out with two left feet until grace was no longer recognized.
Love – it’s a pretty hard gig
This mother kind of love
This neighbhor kind of love
This wife kind of love
This love it seeps, spills, drains, sometimes freely
Sometimes like a sink clogged
This love, like fresh water, just wants to nourish
To fill, heal, refresh
truth is,
sometimes God gives us hearts to love
those who
don’t believe it, don’t trust it
who say it’s not truth
who say it’s manipulation, full of mistakes,
all wrong,
judged
defective
this love, like dancing,
when uninhibited, whirls, slows,
twirls Grace ’til someone judges the dance
as artifice, graceless
and,suddenly,
grace steps become second-guessed,
awkward, unsure,
and doubt begins about
this grace
the worthiness in this love I’ve been
dancing
is it . . .
good enough
true enough
in need of fixing
missteps turn to stumbling
and in that stumbling
I call out to the Father
because I never meant
this love I pour out
to be ugly, graceless, untrusted
as I cry out, I find him
already there,
pulling me into
a Father-Daughter dance
telling me
He knows the truth of my heart
that one day
the my heart’s truth will be revealed
for those who need to see
the truth in the love
poured out
danced out
loved out
doubt maybe the works of love,
he tells me,
but never the grace of it
because a heart that loves not to gain
but to just love
is never graceless
always truth
there’s freedom
in that kind of love.
Blue Cotton Memory 
This was a beautiful post! I am so glad I stumbled on it when I connected with 5 minute Friday. I enjoyed the imagery of love being a dance with God.
This is excellent. It really spoke to me as I think of my own 2 boys I love more than anyone in the world, the trials they live through, the pain I witness because they have to make their own decisions and choices now, my words demoted from commands to advice.
Beautiful! Found this through Five Minute Friday and so thankful to have read it. Thank you for writing freely and for sharing the truth in your heart!
It is heart-breaking when love is doubted. I can’t imagine how many times a day I break my Father’s heart in the same way when I doubt his love. Maybe not overtly, but every time I worry, I’m doubting him a little…
Such a poignant post. Thanks for sharing the truths that we all feel.
I love that the grace God gives keeps on flowing to us. Without it there are times when we’d have not a thing to give.
Thank you for these words today, Blue Cotton friend!
“I think if I wasn’t dancing this dance with God – my ability to love would be so crippled…” Yes. True words. And, yes, again–it sure can be a hard gig, this loving. But you know what the Good Book says. It covers a multitude. Lovely thoughts, my friend.
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing this with us. Praying for you today, mama. xoxo