Untangling Threads of Words

Motherhood and the Creative Life

“I have these threads of words coming out of me. I have to untangle them.”

I said this in a dream. I was so close to sobbing I could barely get the words out. I was speaking to the woman I hoped could teach me how to do it.

She asked me if I was an artist. I said I make sketches. I wanted to tell her all the things I could do if I had the time or resources, but that open ache in the back of my throat and the weight on my chest kept the words back.

“I need help.” I managed at last, choking on my tears.

She turns her face to me like a mother looks at a child and says, with compassion in her voice, that I will have to do it myself. She assures me I can and will.

“I have nine kids.” I say, looking back at her, imploring her to understand.

I woke before I could hear her response.

I sat on the bathroom floor in the early hours of the morning, transcribing the memory of this dream into my journal. Picture me sobbing like a baby, moving my pen across the page as if my life depended on it.

I need help. I have nine kids. My time and resources are limited. What am I supposed to do with these threads of words that are coming out of me? I am the only person who can see them, and sort them, and make sense out of them. They are valuable to me, and I don’t want them to end up in a tangled heap, rotting in a dump somewhere. How will I get them unknotted and neatly-wrapped into a tidy skein of thoughts and sentences that can made into some useful garment or tapestry? How will these words ever be woven into something beautiful if I don’t have the time or energy to separate the threads?

So much of parenting is laying aside your own desires. But what do you do with the desires that are innate to your very being? The desires that are God-given and are part of the very purpose for which you believe you were created? This has been a question I have asked myself over and over these last sixteen years of parenting. There are things that only I can do. Getting these words out of my head and onto paper feels so crucial to my own sanity and to the work that I know I am supposed to be doing as a human.

Motherhood has shaken so many dreams and desires out of me that were tied to my very identity. I have looked in the mirror many times wondering who I am. And yet, I know that motherhood has been the very process by which God is shaping my life into something useful and beautiful, apart from myself. These children that were woven together in the secret place of my womb have moved out into the world and their lives are living tapestries that tell the story of God’s grace and goodness.

But what do I do with these tangled strands of words that grow longer when I sleep each night? What do I do when I wake with a knot that can’t be untied before the needs of the day overtake my hands, my mind, my energy—every resource that I have to be a kind and loving human being, a mother who can lay aside her own desires for the desires of her children?

I ask for help.

I ask for help from my husband. He knows the look in my eye when I have to go behind a closed door. We give this to one another, because he wakes up, just like I do, with a jumble of words and melody lines and musical arrangements playing in his head like a broken record. He needs my help, and I need his.

I ask help from my children. My ten-year-old son is playing musical chairs with his little brothers, ages 2 and 4, in the basement while I am writing this. I am trading him an hour of MarioWorld for two hours to write before the rest of the house wakes and comes down for breakfast.

I ask God. I ask him to make something easier that is hard. I ask him for a breakthrough. For ideas to make this season of life work. I ask for time. For money to buy takeout or easy food that I don’t have to make from scratch. I ask for encouragement that I’m on the right track. For vision, so I don’t waste my time. When I don’t even know what I need, I ask God to do more than I can think or imagine, to give me the grace and help that I don’t even have faith for yet. That if I am supposed to untangle these threads of words, he will give me the time, energy, and resources to do it.

And then I do what I can do.

I have seen the hand of God reach into my need in miraculous ways. I could tell you stories of miracles—absolute miracles—of God reaching down and making things that should not be possible a reality. Like the time a friend dropped by and left a gallon of milk and a thousand dollars on my front porch, just in time to pay bills that I had no idea how I was going to pay. I counted the twenties one by one, sobbing at the kitchen table, feeling seen and heard by God. Or the time that I bypassed a year-and-a-half wait, extensive paperwork, multiple trips to Atlanta, and money I didn’t have for an autism diagnosis and a road paved to getting the help we need for my son. Instead, he and I took a leisurely walk to two evaluation appointments, and two months later, we are setting up OT visits. I could tell you about the time when we were bursting at the seams in this blessed house, when a woman I didn’t know had God-given dreams (literal, sleeping dreams) about me and my dungeon-basement. She showed up on my front porch one night asking if I had a basement and if she could see it. Three months later, she had gathered over sixty volunteers who completely transformed that cold, dank space into a picture in a magazine, fully finished and furnished with a new bedroom for my teenage daughters, a bathroom, a kitchenette, three storage closets, and a beautiful, open space for our family to spread out, play, and entertain friends. In all of these circumstances, I was at the end of my own resources. Nobody knew but God the depth of my need. He made the hard easy. He made my feeble hope grow beyond anything I could ever think or imagine. He sent help.

And so, I continue to tell the story of his goodness and faithfulness, thread by thread, stitch by stitch, and he continues to send help. I do the work that I can do when I find the time to do it, and then I try my best to turn wholeheartedly to the work of motherhood. It is all the same work. These words weave in and out of both worlds—the creative life and my life as a mother of these beautiful, blessed children. One informs and inspires, shakes down and refines the other. The words help me to slow down and find God in what sometimes feels like the tangled mess of my life. But when I sit with them long enough, I can discern that he is making something beautiful from all of it. That He is with me in every moment. That these threads, though significant, are a small part of the tapestry He is weaving from the story of my life. And if I will continue to trust him and do the hidden work, he will always send help, and I will always have words to tell the story of his faithfulness.

Have a beautiful week, dear friends. May you see the hand of God at work in your lives. May he make something hard easy, may he provide for needs that you can’t provide for yourself, may you find him at the end of all your own ideas and resources, and may you allow him to use your life to tell the story of his love and faithfulness. Sending love and all November’s beauties.

Mackenzie

From the Podcast (New Episode):

Today’s episode is for anyone who wakes up in the middle of the night with questions that don’t have answers. If you are struggling with fears of what might happen, or wrestling with thoughts of if only things had happened differently, pull up a chair and let’s talk about finding God in this moment, the discipline of trust, and how we can truly cast our cares upon Christ.

From the Family Archive:

Recorded live back in January of 2022, here is a cover of one of our favorite love songs, Besame Mucho. Hope you enjoy it!

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Sending so much love to all of you. Thank you for being here with me, week by week. It means more to me than you will ever know.

Love,

Mackenzie