Holy Week.

I have loved the Maundy Thursday service since my first year at Saint James. The meaning of the Eucharist is so clear, the stripping of the altar is powerful, and the hymns always seem full of conviction. It's a service of contradictions: joy and horror, life and death, light and dark. Maundy supposedly refers to the Latin "mandatum," or commandment. It refers to Christ's command that we love one another as He loved us.

This idea of loving each other is easy to think that we got down, but it's perhaps the greatest lesson I have been learning this year as a parent. I took Will to church by myself tonight (Clay was in Nashville for a soccer game) and initially I brought him into the sanctuary to worship with me. As the service became more reflective and solemn, Will became more restless and vocal, so right before the sermon I slipped out and took Will to the nursery.

Now, we love Carmen and Alisha and all the women in the nursery--they couldn't be any nicer--but the handoff is never easy. Tonight it was downright painful. Will looked at me, clenched his tiny fists onto my shirt, and started to cry. As Carmen lifted him into her arms, Will wailed and kept reaching back for me. I tried to reason with Will, but Carmen was clearly more experienced than I and eventually ushered me out the door. But it was hard for me to just walk away, and fortunately I found a spot to sit in a church hallway where I could hear the sermon and hear Will in the nursery. I plopped down one the floor by myself and listened.

Lucky for me, Suzanne was preaching. I love her. And as a mother and grandmother, she often references her love for her little ones. At one moment in her sermon, I could hear her take a deep breath and then I could hear her shaky voice. She seemed on the verge of tears. She talked about the love that is involved in this holiday, the love based on sacrifice and trust and hope in the future. She talked about how we are told in Christ's final hours to love one another as best we can. And in the moments when she paused, I could clearly hear my sweet Will's cry. And so there I sat, in the church hallway, crying because once again life was more magnanimous than I expected.

I know it's a cheesy saying, but it's true: "Being a mother is having your heart walk around outside your body." This love I have for Will is greater and more encompassing than anything I ever expected. I now understand why people sign up in dozens for Race for the Cure or why my students' parents care so much about their daughters' progress in my course or why people go to such lengths to adopt children. I look at children now and I feel such responsibility to be a good person, to do the right thing over and over and over again just because this world is tough enough as it is.

I know that I won't be able to comfort Will forever, or hold his hand and stroke his cheek forever, or hold him and rock him to sleep as I did tonight forever. I know those moments are precious. And I thank God that I have moments like tonight over and over again when I realize how sacred they are. But Will makes me more committed than ever to being a thoughtful, generous, understanding woman of integrity. He makes me think all day long about what the right decisions are...

I may never fully understand Christ's love for us, but my understanding of love has exploded since Will was born. So this year I thank God for showing me how holy and whole love can be.