Stooping For Manna

Dear Barb,

I sure hope there isn’t a statute of limitations on writing a thank you note, because this one is twenty-one years overdue. You might not even remember what you did for me, so let me take you back to September 14, 1998.

My husband, Fess, and I had just driven home from ten exhausting days in the NICU with our newborn daughter, Lily. As first time parents, we felt thrown into the deep end of the pool – with a baby with Down syndrome and a hole in her heart – struggling to keep our heads and hearts above water. In retrospect, there were funny moments, like my husband trying to help me figure out how to use a breast pump – pro tip: if it doesn’t work when the dial is set on the lowest level, don’t let him turn it to the highest setting! As E.T. said, “Ouuuuch.” But the rest of that night we took in the overwhelming reality of caring for our four and half pound rosebud of a girl who didn’t have the strength to nurse and without all the doctors and monitors that had sustained us her first tumultuous days of life. What lay ahead was seven months of quarantine to keep Lily from getting sick before her open heart surgery, pumping and coaxing her to eat every three hours to build up her strength and weight. Fess’ work kept him out of town most of the time so how was I, a domestically impaired, people person, going to do this?

Barb, that’s when I read your letter that changed my life. When I opened the envelope and saw your return address, I thought how kind of my mother’s friend to write me. I braced myself to read another well meaning condolence/congratulations card, which are hard to write when someone has a child with special needs and often are hard to read.

Oh, but not yours. The anointed words you wrote me on your blue monogrammed stationery were like supernatural oxygen breathing hope and strength into my deflated spirit.

“Child of my love, lean hard, and let me feel the pressure of thy care; I know thy burden child, I shaped it, poised it in Mine Own hand; made no proportion for even as I laid it on, I said, ‘I shall be near, and while she leans on Me, this burden shall be Mine, not hers; So shall I keep My child within the circling arms of My Own love.’ Here lay it down, nor fear to impose it on a shoulder which upholds the government of worlds. Yet closer come; Thou art not near enough. I would embrace thy care; So I might feel My child reposing on My breast. Thou loves me? I knew it. Doubt not then; But loving Me, lean hard.”

“Lean hard” became my life motto. I kept your letter in my bedside table for many years, reading it over and over again that first year and then through the births of our daughters, Grace and Hope, and the deaths of my sister and parents, and all my life’s countless joys and trials. At every twist and turn, I prayed that I wouldn’t be a Lone Ranger or a fearful victim, but that I would lean into God’s love and power and presence. Sometimes my leaning hard looked more like a petulant child handing her Father a broken toy demanding, “Here. You fix it.” And other seasons, I would lean hard with my loneliness and collapse into His Emanuel promise to always be with me. And He always has been.

You wrote that this quote had meant a lot to you over the years and I wanted you to know that it has for me too. As I’ve leaned hard on Jesus, He has kept me “within the circling arms” of His love. And like you did for me, I’ve tried to point those in my path to lean hard on Him too.

With all my heart, thank you.

Mary Suzanne

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Mary Suzanne Crockett is stuck in the same boat during this quarantine with her dear husband and three darling daughters. She, like all extroverts everywhere, is going a little bit crazy in this hostage situation. She vaguely remembers a world where she loved speaking about the wild adventures she has had as a follower of Jesus. She is leaning hard (without tipping the boat over) during this strange time and looks forward to hugging the first thousand people she sees when this is over.

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