The Lucky Three

This was a post that I meant to write just after Easter- but life got in the way, and frankly my own head did as well. Thinking over what I had to say on this particular topic multiple times, mulling over just what did it mean.

The number three has had this repeated position in my life- it was my lucky (and first) jersey number when I played softball as a child.

Recently, it’s also popped up a lot. The Tridiuum- the three days beginning with Maundy Thursday, the evening of the Last Supper, leading to the Risen Christ at the end of our Easter Vigil.

Three Easters since someone walked out of our lives for good. For better.

Three years since we came back to church in person- my Facebook memories telling me it was three years ago that it had been my first time in three years having had communion.

And the reason we came back to church: my third child, who was born that year on Mardi Gras day, the day before Ash Wednesday, a day that holds significance in my Mobile based ancestry.

This third child, born out of wedlock- with a side eye from so many, we have not progressed that much in my neck of the woods of the American South, not in the circle I was once a part of.

This third child, three, the third child to bear his name. He brought us back into church, and to a church that I had not attended in person as a member even though I transferred my membership during COVID.

It’s funny because- my kids in so many ways have literally kept me alive. My older kids were my motivation to work hard, to go back to school, to keep improving myself in so many ways.

And this little guy comes along and saves me in a whole other way. He gets me back into church. Life giving work. 

But also, there’s this:

OP link here: https://www.threads.com/@jterry.07/post/DJ7Jhd7pSqV?xmt=AQF0WWGHkXzWlO1DSTpwkgl-BmA2eZh-HU5Gu6GJsjCFzg

And y’all? I get that. I get it hard. There have been times when I’ve felt that way myself. And as I read this I thought about… when my middle child is a senior, this youngest one will be a first grader. That’s overwhelming sometimes. In this place where I live so much of a woman’s worth is still placed on what man you’re attached to, or if you are at all.

I easily could have been an empty nester in a short time. I don’t see myself as settled by then. I don’t have much faith, even though I’m seeing someone fabulous now- it’s still way too early for any predictions here- but I don’t have much faith that I’ll be settled by middle child’s graduation. So much of my identity and worth for so long has been caught up in being a mother and a potential partner.

And so much of my worth has been tied to whether or not I’m partnered. It’s not as much there anymore- as I’ve written about- but could it still lurk in the shadows? Set to unleash once my home is just me? 

I suspect God’s timing was once again golden- that this child’s timing was divine… just like his siblings was. The third child brought me into this place where my church work has been so healing, has allowed me an identity beyond just being a mom (though it is an identity that I cherish!!).  

And there are other ways the number three has shown up in my life, which I’m not ready to talk about yet, they may mean nothing or they may mean something. But for this particular reflection, I am thinking about my youngest child. My third child. The one that came when I wasn’t married. When I wasn’t allowed to celebrate him in so many ways. When I was made to feel shame.

This is the child that brought me back into church. Born on Mardi Gras, receiving ashes with me in the hospital on Ash Wednesday, alone. Easter Sunday was our first day back in church in person, the first time receiving communion in three years, his little body pulled up close to mine- swaddled in a wrap. Me- and his two other siblings brought him there. Just us.

And it was from there that he would be baptized, and we would find renewed community as so many others shed me from theirs. I would find a bigger, more confidant voice to talk about my faith and to live my love of God out loud.

The third child brought us, me- my two older kids, here. I am grateful- for love of God, for community, for a path that shows me that I am more than just a vessel for other’s broken promises and dreams.

I’m going to continue my project of doing good, simple things to help others – as I did during Lent. It gave me some direction to come up with something new each week. For now that something good is to love myself. It may sound strange, but to actively say that I am truly enough is something that I have – and still do- struggle with.