Dandelion Centerpieces

I can see a tiny sign of Spring starting to speckle our yard. On a lawn that has yet to decide whether it will be brown or green, pops of yellow appear. The dandelion has begun its conquest.

As our resident “flower child,” last Spring my daughter Lyla spent hours outside picking bouquet after bouquet of them, filling every vase I own with water and creating a hodgepodge centerpiece of wilted, smelly weeds on my kitchen table.

Dandelions are an interesting little flower. I’d never realized before last year that they open and close as the sun moves across the sky. They also morph from soft little yellow flower, to fragile puff ball consisting of tiny soft chimney sweeps that are sent flying easily by wind or by breath to plant more, little yellow flowers.

Once my favorite season, this year Spring brings with it a melancholy hum. An undercurrent of impending change, and that which is unknown twinges in my soul.

I have entered into my third trimester of pregnancy. Baby girl will be a Spring baby.

Though, as I rub my belly, a bearded man wearing red and white striped pants and a star spangled top hat holds my husband’s broad shoulders and steers him out the door, across an ocean, and away from me. Away from our two kids and the baby on the way. Away from the dandelion spotted grass.

As I fold and place tiny onesies into drawers, C.J. stuffs issued uniforms and really big socks to be worn with big boots into giant green duffel bags.

“How are you doing?” Well meaning, loving friends and family ask me. How AM I doing? I wade through the hormones and search my heart to sift out the genuine emotions and I come to the conclusion: I am okay.

Okay. How is it that I’m okay?

Had you told me as an adult in my early twenties that this was to be my life, I would have shut you down quickly, because I would not have been okay. The life of a military spouse was so unbelievably foreign to me. The idea of potentially giving birth without my husband by my side would have been too much for me to even consider.

I had believed that I lived my life surrendered and ready for whatever call God placed on my life. As the daughter of some pretty bold missionaries, I anticipated my calling. I married a man I believed to be called to vocational ministry, and for a time he was. I waited to see which jungle and unreached or broken people or church God would send us to. “Here I am God, send me!” I prayed with my hands stretched open.

Little did I realize that I held one finger tightly back. The bony index finger that would extend at us from a patriotic poster. YOU.

I rebelled against this call. This was my exception to surrender. The asterisk next to my “I *trust you!”

I can look back over my 35 years and see the people that God placed in my life as guides and teachers. One such woman held me as I cried in panic over the unknowns and said something along the lines of “When you get there, you will be well equipped. God will make you ready.”

I feel like I am living at the particular “there” that I so feared at that time, and I look around and I am somewhat surprised to see that I’m– okay.

I know why I’m okay. It’s because I have been here before. Standing at the cavern of the unknown.

And I know the one who has filled my lungs with air.

Some days I will be far from okay. His breath will feel more like being given CPR, puff by puff. Sustaining me for each tearful bedtime, each broken appliance, each lonely Friday night, and when the time comes He will give me breath for each contraction.

For now, I will relish in the okay, and the resilience of the dandelion. With ten open fingers I will release my husband because I can feel that warm, familiar, wind on my back. The divine current that has proven trustworthy; that is not confined by miles nor time zones. The breath that gives me life and sends me flying.