My daughter

The heat radiates from all sides.

It's 8 000 degrees.

Or at least it feels like it.

The tiny apartment is suffocating and the even smaller air conditioner cannot keep up. The Walmart fan whirls and wheezes, incapable to keep up with the rising temperatures.

I sit with a bag of frozen peas to keep my sweating body cool as I continue to search online for jobs. It's another day unemployed. The bills loom above like the sun and my anxiety level rises like the summer's heat.

My tiny apartment has quickly become a cafe, the food going out faster than it comes in. I remember the faithful words of my auntie, who so many years ago taught me that as long as you continue to feed the hungry, the food will keep coming. I know this is true as my roommate and I rummage through the cupboards, searching for a meal to prepare for half a dozen neighboring Marines and friends. I know this is true as I read the words of Christ, commanding me to seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness, and all my other needs will be taken care of. 


So we stir a pot of goop and chop vegetables and remember the One who gave us this food to share, not to stockpile.  It is in this moment that I am reminded that I am not my own.


These cupboards, these shelves, 
these silly ragamuffin things - they are not mine. 
They belong to a God who lived and died 
and was sent to slaughter only to rise again;
three days later, it was death He had conquered
if only to say "You are my daughter."

My phone buzzes, falling off the stacking-crate-turned-coffee-table as it vibrates. My feet sweat on the industrial polyester carpet as I bend over to pick it up. Another friend looking for lunch? A mother needing a babysitter? A manager offering a job?

No. It is none of these.

A pit falls deep into my stomach and my soul threatens to explode as I slide my nail-bitten thumb across the screen to find a text from the one woman who has the ability to destroy me to pieces.

My birth mother.

It doesn't matter what the letters say; an insult, a plea, an offer of money, a crazy story to get my attention. Ethos, pathos, logos - she's tried them all. So the screen goes black and my view does too as I close my eyes and pray "Lord, not today. Give my wisdom, but please, I cannot take this on today."


The scene cuts back to one of two girls dancing around the kitchen together. The sweat from my palms is no longer due to the heat alone. I chop vegetables; but really, I am cutting into the nagging feeling that tugs at my soul. My mind creeps back to a woman who is lost and lonely and without God's love.

My life quickly becomes a paradox as I stand in a boiling kitchen with a self-proclaimed servant's heart, ushering near strangers into my home, as I ignore the truths of forgiveness and grace to the woman who brought me into the world yet does not realize that the miracle was not her own.

This soul, this heart,
they are not hers to throw around.
They belong to the same God who created me from the dust of the ground. 
My mother, she has her own;
a heart and a soul that will perish and weep
if left untouched, exposed to the elements of bitter distrust.
But as for me, I stand with a heart re-found,
a soul reborn, a spirit resound juxtaposed against
a mother who never knew the Father.
My stomach is tied up in knots, my heart is left unsettled
if only to say "She, too, is My daughter."