Mary Marantz

“Grief is a liar and an ocean. Just when you think you’ve reached the shore, it rises up again and swallows you whole. Weeks can go by without any tears at all, and then an unexpected card stuck in a book can knock you flat on your face sure as any tsunami. And your throat burns and sputters and chokes, drowning in a torrent of salt-stung water, as you gasp for air and try so desperately to wake up from this dream.”
― Mary Marantz, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful

“I think about that often.

I think about the boots and the bones, and how I didn't want to be so lowly as to stoop down and help another human being take off their layers of mud. to wind up with their dirt on my hands.

I think that's because for a long time I believed freedom looked like getting to a place where none of the people were muddy. Where everyone was shiny and clean and took care of their own front yards. Where everywhere you looked, there were white picket fences and perfectly manicured pansies lining the front walkway.
...
And then I think about God and what neighborhood He would live in.

I think about Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. Those dusty busted-up, sandal-blistered feet they rolled up with to His supper table. I think about the Savior of the world kneeling there at His last meal, before His body was broken and His blood was poured out, first making sure that none of them had to walk around with muddy feet.

At this I picture Jesus kneeling at the feet of my father.

I think about the conversation those two might have. I think about the care Jesus would take in removing those heavy weights from around Dad's ankles. how He would hold all those broken parts in His light-filled hands and weep with Dad for all the pain he'd been walking around with. I think He would tell him that He sees how hard he's been fighting to hold it all together, sees all the sacrifices that he's made. I think Jesus would sit with him there for a while in the mud, not even caring about Dad's boots leaving marks all up and down His crisp, white robes.

There comes a time when every person who believes in God also has to decide what kind of character they believe He has.

Is He a cold and distant God, withholding every good thing, just waiting for the chance to take back what little He has given?

Is He a God who only gives out begrudging scraps of joy after first putting you in very hot water, His red-letter way of ensuring that you've been washed clean?

Or is He a God who sits with you in the mud, who stoops to serve before the sacrifice?

I used to think freedom looked a lot like being around people who aren't muddy.

Now I realize we're all pretty muddy and maybe just a little bit broken too, no matter what kind of place we call home.

And when it comes right down to it, getting each other's mud on our hands--this serving one another in love--that's what true freedom has always been about anyway.

Because love, like integrity, is also about what we do when no one else is looking.

And how we do anything is how we do everything.”
― Mary Marantz, Dirt: Growing Strong Roots in What Makes the Broken Beautiful