Real Stories, Real People

The girls are nestled into each another — two bodies holding one book called “Friends.” They were born sisters, but are growing into something else entirely.

  

As they grow older, they need me less and less, it seems. They lean on each other more and more.  Just yesterday, I found my girls on the bathroom-tile floor. My oldest daughter was leaning over her little sister, applying a Band-Aid to her little sister’s knee-scrape. It was a minor injury — I promise — but one that I had earlier dismissed as “no-big-deal.”  

So, then, it was Big Sister — not the Mama — who came to the rescue.

I felt the ache, thumping in the heart.

***

These two girls come from this one womb, but they have birthed something all their own.  

I watch them through the zoomed lens of my Nikon, and I snap a few frames while they read their “Friends” book. Standing on the other side of the camera, I wonder: How do they see me through their own lens?  What words would they use to frame a portrait of me?

Years from now, when I’ve grown gray and wrinkled and hunched, how will they talk about their Mama when they are gathered ’round a Thanksgiving table? How will they describe me to their own children at Christmas?

When I am gone, what will be my legacy?

These are the questions I ponder when I watch my girls together, two sisters on full-tilt toward friendship. These are the same questions I’ve been asking myself this month during The High Calling’s recent Community Writing Project, which I have been honored to host this month here at Getting Down With Jesus. 

During our writing project, many of you have shared stories of aunts and neighbors and grandmothers — people who’ve shaped you in some important way. You have shared from deep, authentic places. You haven’t given us the polished version of your family “characters.” Rather, you’ve given us the unvarnished truth.

I think this is best. For if we are to be fully known in our humanity, we must be willing to share our brokenness.

I hope my girls will tell their children and grandchildren the truest stories about me — not the varnished ones. I really do. For I am no saint.

I am a sinner, saved by grace.

And really, isn’t this the unsurpassed truth to be told and retold through all ages? Aren’t redemption stories the most elemental ones of our human history — the stories of broken people made whole?

Isn’t that your story?

***

Check this out! High Calling Family Editor Ann Kroeker is featuring some of your Word-Portrait posts over at TheHighCalling.org today! Click here to read Ann’s beautiful bookend to our community-writing project. Or click here to find the links to all of the writers who participated.