I tug at the white root exposed by the teeth of my hoe. Kneeling down, I slide bare hands through sandy soil and lift. I am careful. Like a Mother untangling gum from hair, I remove weeds from soil. As I work, salty winds sting my eyes, my sunburn, my bug bites. Silently, I follow the tapestry, digging up more and more. Until, at last, the final thread slips out, and I laugh alone with my victory. Then I grab my hoe and swing again. Again, I pull up roots. Again, I kneel to clean the soil.
As a wife and Mother, much of my work is work unseen, with small rewards. I fold clothes and wipe toilets, plant and weed a garden, cook meals and care for chickens, clean-up after friends, praying as I do; in the unseen realms of daily life. At the end of a week, or I suppose the beginning, as I wander into church, friends ask, “How was your week?”
“It was good,” I think, “but please don’t ask me what I did.” What I did was small, quiet, boring. I pulled weeds and taught letters. I picked up toys and taught my four year old to pick up too. I prayed. I worked all week at little doings with very little understanding. What is God doing here? This is not the work I imagined for myself even four years ago.
Four years ago, I slowly laid my daughter in her crib. I have one hour. First, I slip a blue pill onto the back of my tongue and swallow. It leaves a dry, sweet taste. “Estrace” is the name on the bottle. Then I shove a golden couch out from the wall and take a photo. I lay measuring tape along the ground for a second shot. Length, height, width are documented.
“Lightly used with a stain on the back,” I type, checking for mistakes before publishing. This is the last piece of furniture I have to sell before our move. My husband is already several states away house hunting, as I care for our eight month old while trying to keep our second child growing safely in my womb. He is also our second embryo adoption.
Five years ago, we were diagnosed with infertility, and found ourselves in the world of embryo adoption. Many IVF cycles have leftover embryos for various reasons, and one option is to place them with other families. After following the necessary protocoles, we claimed two little sibling embryos. The first is our almost five year old daughter, and the second was that tiny little baby staying alive through synthetic estrogen and progesterone.
The process is work–tedious, emotional, painful work. It’s private work. Only your body can carry this child, and only your body can release them when the time comes. I miscarried at 8 weeks. In the middle of our move, with my daughter crawling around me, I went into our bathroom, crying and praying my child into the arms of heaven. It’s private, dear work to pray a child home.
In all the toil of keeping and releasing life, I found myself wanting proof. Proof that what I had none had not been a huge waste of time. Was this work meaningful? Has my faith in the value of human life been wasted? Could I have spent my money, body, soul somewhere else where the rewards were more certain? Would I accept the work of Motherhood when it felt like defeat? This love given from God to me to him had only a small task ahead of it: share your body, daily prayers, thoughts of tender love. I had for a short moment been allowed to Mother. It was just a little work, and I guess I wanted proof that there was something in that work worth seeing.
Five years later, I still remember, still find myself wanting proof. I recall the first seeds I laid into this very soil, right after planting that tiny child into Virginia’s red clay. We moved to Florida the day after I buried him, and I watered every seed of my new garden with the tears of loss.
“He gives me clay; He gives me sand; He never gives me fertile ground,” I murmur half to Him and half to the Crow. Then I quietly pray, “Here I am, Lord. Available for service, only give me a heart to accept the smallness of the task.”
Small tasks, given by a great God, are the nature of most of our lives. Do you ever doubt He is giving it, in it? Sometimes, I do. I wonder what eternal doings meet me here. I can not usually explain the greater wisdom that would make my body infertile. Just as I do not understand the eternal value of weeding a garden. I only know He has given me a garden, so I pull weeds. I don’t always understand how He produces fruit from my toils. I am uncertain, unsure that these daily doings have eternal bearings. “Wipe the toilet? Wipe the toilet again? To what end?” I am like the Prophet confused and tired in the midst of work that breaks me, until:
“This I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope;
the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
therefore I will hope in him.” Lamentations 3:21-24
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, and therefore my steadfastness in the face of the mundane is certain for He has won it for me. His mercies never come to an end, and I find them in the endless toils of my day. They are new every morning, and every morning I drink from that fountain of mercy. His faithfulness to me is my peace here. What He gives, I take. What He takes, I let go. If He gives me weeds, I kneel to pull them up. If He takes a child, I kneel to lay them down. I find that the proof is not in the seen or unseen, but in Him, for He is my portion.