The words written on the palm of my son's hand...

Another day chock full of regrets and wishing I could take those words that flew out of my mouth so freely and shove them back down my throat.
Having a kid that has special needs is so hard sometimes.  And I know that others have it so much harder than I do.
But the way that he responds when he is hurting is the very thing that fills me up with this anger that bubbles and spits until the fire is rampant and I can't put it out.
He left and I held my head in my hands and cried.
I picked him up at lunch time to tell him that, although he didn't have the right to speak to me that way, mom is an adult and has a responsibility to act like one.
He holds up his hand and shows me the inside of his palm where the words, "I feel sick," are written in sweaty, smudgy ink.  He looks at me with pools of water teetering in his eyes.  One blink and it will all come pouring down like a building being completely demolished in one fell swoop.
I take his hand and I turn it over in mine.  Those uncalloused hands that I admired the day he was born.  The valleys that have been forged between now and then...
On his ring finger, the word, "yes" is written.  On his index finger, the word, "no," and on his pinkie, "I don't know."
"I didn't feel like talking today, so I wrote words on my hands," he says looking down at his untied tennis shoes.
"That's a pretty creative way to avoid talking," I say.  "And good," I tease, "that you didn't write anything on your middle finger, or people might think you were flipping them off."  
He smiles wryly.  I take him by his shoulders, square him up to my face and look him in the eyes.
"Nobody has a right to yell at you.  Ever.  I'm sorry."
He tells me he forgives me.  We hug and get smoothies and french fries and talk about Indiana Jones and video games.
Yes.  We are that dysfunctional.  Saying hurtful words, crying, offering grace and asking forgiveness.
We are all of those things and I am painfully aware of the gamete of human emotions a single person can feel within the span of a single day.
The heart is always learning and re-learning and it is a very tiring sort of thing.
But I lay my head down tonight...forgiven, broken, a vessel being filled up with so much that I crack daily.
And tomorrow, we'll do it all over again.  Today, I hope we've learned to do it with less carelessness and greater grace.  
The beautiful is inextricably bound up in all of those gaping wounds.  I teach grace out of my own brokenness and redemption through my own failings.  
And that thing about beauty for ashes rings heavily in my chest and in my mind.  It's what I cling to.  What I hope for.  What I hold on to with white-knuckled hands so that the ugly doesn't get the prize that I am fighting so damn hard for.