15

TRUST AND FORGOTTEN LUNCHES

by Lesley Miller

There is no hour of the day more stressful than seven to eight in the morning when I balance eight hundred various tasks, including but not limited to: flipping pancakes, finding the missing shoe, changing the poopy diaper—twice sometimes—fixing the library book binding, dispersing Pteranodon vitamins (“Not the T. rex, Mom!”), calming an irrationally hysterical two-year-old, making lunches, and maybe, if I’m lucky, putting on eyebrow gel . . . a crucial and necessary step in making me feel like a woman rather than a personal chef and housecleaner.

A few weeks ago my mother-in-law came to help for the day, which meant that our usual morning chaos was slightly better and worse all at the same time. She helped get breakfast ready, and I made lunches while we chatted. Before I knew it though, we were running late. (When will I learn there is never time for chitchat when trying to get out the door before 8:00 a.m.?) This was definitely a morning without eyebrow gel.

It wasn’t until we pulled into the preschool parking lot that I realized we’d forgotten my four-year-old daughter’s backpack and lunch. In her short school career, we’d never forgotten a lunch, and while I knew there’d be plenty more instances like this one, it felt like a defeat. I even had extra help getting out the door! With no time to return home, I promised her a special treat instead.

“How about I pick up a PB&J box at Starbucks for you today?” I said, as if this had been my plan all along. I work part-time as a freelance writer, and the Starbucks closest to preschool often acts as my office.

My sweet child took the bait.

“A lunch from Starbucks? Oh yes, Mommy! Yes!” she said, skipping down the steps to her classroom, thrilled by the rare treat of a take-out meal.

I promised her that I’d drop off food before her class started eating, and she asked no further questions. On my way to the car, I popped my head into the preschool director’s office to confirm what time lunch started. My plan was perfect.

With my eyes on the clock all morning, I sat at Starbucks and barreled through deadlines and assignments, constantly aware that I couldn’t run late. At 11:35 I scooped up a PB&J box with carrots and apple slices—ironically the same lunch sitting on our counter at home—and headed back to school for the noon deadline. I didn’t want her to worry that I’d forgotten about her, so I planned to show up five minutes before lunch started. But when I walked into the classroom, everyone was already eating. Twelve little bodies, wiggly and loud, compared their lunches while discussing important things like juice boxes and Dinosaur Train. My sweet girl sat at her seat, hands folded on the table, observing the action. My heart sank thinking how concerned she must have been, waiting and wondering if her food would ever come.

I rushed in the door with a flustered smile. She gave me a huge grin of her own.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, sweet girl,” I said, handing her the lunch box. She grabbed it eagerly.

“It’s okay!” she said back, without concern.

Her teacher smiled at me.

“I offered her some of my lunch, but she assured me that you’d be here soon. She wasn’t worried.”

I pictured Anna, just moments before, turning down the teacher’s kind offer. My mommy will be here. My mommy is coming. My mommy can be trusted. Tears filled my eyes as I realized her complete confidence in my capabilities as a mom.

I think back to the early days of motherhood, when her needs were constant and unclear—that first night in the hospital when I’d fed her, changed her, swaddled her, and she was still crying. That first weekday morning alone with her at home. That evening when our friends came over for dinner and I bounced her in the living room, at a loss for how to soothe her anxious wails. She was upset and I was too. Would I ever be the mom she needed, or was I not cut out for this parenting gig?

I think back to the first night we let her cry it out. I stared at the ceiling, heart pounding and hands sweating, nervous she’d never trust me again. I think back to the first time we left her with grandparents for the weekend, and she ignored me when we returned forty-eight hours later, burying her head in Grandma’s shoulder instead of running to me like I thought she would. I think back to all the times over the last four years that we’ve made decisions we know are best for her long-term growth, but at the time made her feel weary and unsure—the traumatic swim lessons she eventually came to love, the long-fought battle to accept the church nursery, and the idea that using a potty is indeed a cleaner experience than diapers.

There’s a bookshelf full of motherhood insecurities in the stores of my brain, and she, in that moment at her preschool lunch table, shrugs them off. No big deal that you’re late. I trust you, Momma.

In that moment I realize that her trust muscles, while tinier than mine, might actually be much stronger. It’s as if she’s thrown out every hard moment and instead only stores the ways I’ve met her needs and showed her the way. All the late-night feeds. The approximately five thousand meals I’ve made since her first year of life. The ways I rush to her when she falls on the playground. The times I rubbed oils all over her feverish body. How I’m rarely late to pick her up. I fail at times, of course, but in the grand picture of her life, I give her few reasons to doubt that I’m a person she can trust.

I hug her tightly before leaving the classroom, awed at the little lesson she’s taught me without knowing. I have my own Father, a great Provider of love and comfort, but oftentimes I remember the pain more than I remember the provision. I remember the horrible moments of waiting more than the glorious ways He answers.

Moment after moment in my own life, God continues to show up when I need Him—providing for us financially, healing our bodies, healing our hearts. But sometimes in my small worldview, He runs far too late. Sometimes, I question whether He will even show up at all. With every health crisis, and every friend who gets a bad diagnosis, and every terrible car accident and every terrorist attack and every baby lost—my trust in God is tested. We all do it, I think. We lose trust that He will show up at the right time, with the right lunch, just as promised. But that’s silly, really, because my belief in God is not one of blind faith. I can see His consistent, loving character in the words of my Bible and the pages of my aging journals, which hold story after story of answered prayers and modern-day miracles.

I want to be more like my preschooler, who waited with eager and confident expectation for what she knew was promised.

And in the moments when I do let her down—because I will continue to, despite my best efforts—I’m thankful to know that while I might not always be mom enough, God will always be big enough. He can always be trusted. He’s always on time. He will always show up, for her and for me.