May 9, 2011 | Prayers in Poetry & Prose, The Good Word, The Parenthood
I wrote this just after Baby Brother was born, but today was the day for posting it. I hope it’s an encouragement to you Moms who feel like life’s going a little too quickly sometimes. Please feel free to pass it on. xCC
I lay in a hot salty bathtub this evening, a set of grandparents and a dear friend and a husband downstairs, a two year old delight asleep in his big boy bed, a three day old asleep in the crib in our room.
So much has happened in these few days that my heart is overwhelmed. Two weeks ago my father-in-law had a heart attack, but they waited until they arrived here to tell us, to avoid adding stress to our lives while we waited for this one’s arrival.
The hot summer wind is whipping outside and I’m thankful my hot bath is beginning to cool off as my stitches do their soaking.
This tiny boy arrived without much of a warning. The floor in front of our passenger seat was baptized as we sped to the hospital. Waters of life, pouring out in preparation for life to pour out — it all happened at a frightening pace.
Suddenly he is here and I am home from the hospital, healthy and well, sore and tired. Emotional.
And the juxtaposition of that heart attack hits me like a ton of bricks, set against the backdrop of baby blue life, deep blue eyes, milk and nursing, cradle and grave.
Life happens so fast.
I think about the tiny sleeping boy and experience tells me in no time at all he will reach out and touch my face. He will step. He will dance. He will giggle at his big brother. He will take me by the hands and say, “Comee, Mommy. Blue Clues. Otees. Poopy potty.” All in the blink of an eye.
I bring my hands to my face as I cry out to the Lord:
Lord, it’s so hard! Life is like this water — this river that just keeps flowing. I am in the stream and it is passing and I don’t want it to!
I ponder where I would tell it to stop.
The day he was born? A little too traumatic. The day after? Quite a bit of pain there. A few weeks from now when things are settling in? By then he will already be so many days — so many weeks. I will still want to look back.
The waters of life are around my ankles. I am in the stream and I think of how it could be different. A lake which stays put? A pond which stays still? These things are stagnant.
And the Lord said to me:
The Good Water is the Water that flows.
Yes, Lord. It flows as this baby makes his way into the world. It flows as I fill up this bathtub. It flows as we grow and change and learn and love and walk and die and breathe. And stranded in the wild with the choice between a puddle and a stream we know what to choose.
Good water is water that flows.
I will enjoy what comes down the stream to me. I will splash and drink. Savour and live.
I pull the plug and the water begins to drain from the tub. Before it has drained out, I am up and drying off to look for more.
May 8, 2011 | Baby Photos, The Parenthood
Some see it as an obligation, a duty or a responsibility. Some go so far as to see it as a right. But I was rather taken by the notion this morning at church that motherhood is more appropriately seen as a calling.
Answering that call often means putting other calls on hold.
It often means sacrifice. It often means heartache. It usually means pain like you’ve never felt before.
But it most certainly, for me, has meant unspeakable joy. It has meant life with bountiful laughter.
It has meant a life filled with constant reminders to slow down and enjoy the moment.
And though there are many other appropriate words for motherhood, my favourite of all is privilege.
It’s a privilege to be blessed with these boys for however many days they’re mine. And it’s a privilege worth stewarding. Worth prayerfully covering. Worth diligently and delicately holding.
May grace abound to each of you dear Mothers, today. May God grant you His presence, wisdom, peace and joy as you answer the call to motherhood. May you hold it dear as a privilege, and may your children call you blessed.
Love and blessings to my dear sister who is also a Mother. I love you and think you’re a fantastic Mom!
Much love and many thanks to my dear Mother-in-Love today. Your son would not be the wonderful man he is today without you! I’m so grateful!
And special thanks and praise to my amazing Mother who I love so dearly! You are absolutely, wonderfully one of a kind. Your sacrificial love has been a steadfast companion all the days of my life and I’m so very, very grateful for you. It is one of my most prized, and truly priceless possessions — the joy of calling you my Mom. Thank you!
I pray for those of you reading this, desiring the privilege of motherhood, that the Lord would grant that desire of your heart in His good timing, and that His grace and peace will be yours in the meantime.
Happy Mother’s Day to all near and far, privileged to be called Mother.
xCC
May 6, 2011 | Baby Photos
With exciting deadlines and delightful house guests and a transcontinental move on the docket, I’m juggling a little bit today…but just thought I’d pop in to say hi!
Hi!
{You know those hats they sometimes give you at the hospital for newborns? Baby Brother’s is — and always has been — a yarmulke. Nope, we’re not Jewish… just big.}
Baby Bro hereby promises to share his two-month old photos with you before he’s three months old. They’re great.
More to come…Have a great weekend!
xCC
May 5, 2011 | Stories, The Good Word, The Parenthood
It seems like a few moons ago, when we were sitting around waiting for our baby boy to arrive, thinking about timing and life and Valleys of Postponement and even the perfectly timed birth of Jesus. And I’m pretty sure I told you at some point while we were busy waiting, that I had a feeling there was good reason to trust a God whose timing is much better than mine.
As is often the case in the stories of our lives, I didn’t know at the time exactly how the Lord was working things out.
We were expectant, and even hopeful that our second child would arrive early. As his due date approached, we started to think it would be neat for him to be born four days early, on Valentine’s Day, and when that passed we started to think of reasons why other days leading up to the due date might be nice. And eventually we were busy thinking about which days after the due date might be nicest…but I was pretty much to the point that I thought any day would be nice.
After Baby Blake’s arrival, we shared the news with family and friends (of course), and HH’s folks made their way down for the two weeks we’d planned to spend together right after the little one arrived. As we sat down to dinner on one of their first evenings with us, they had some news to share, too. It turned out that on Valentine’s Day, my first day of choice for the baby’s birth, my father-in-law had a heart attack.
He had a quadruple bypass well over a decade ago, and the doctors think that some plaque broke away from the lining of one of the arteries and created a blockage.
But what happened next was nothing short of miraculous.
When pressure built up because of the newly blocked artery, one of the clogged arteries that had been bypassed in that surgery, back in the mid-90s, opened up and started working again.
The doctor wasn’t sure if Dad was religious, but he was sure someone upstairs had been looking out for him.
At the dinner table I quietly wept as my mind took in the possibility that Dad could’ve not been sitting there with us, making a toast to the birth of this new baby boy. I thought about how differently things could’ve been had Blake come early and had they been travelling down to see us and meet the baby when the heart attack happened. They wanted to wait until after Baby Brother came and they were safely here to share the news with us. Dad had time to recover in the hospital and at home before they made the trip down.
The more I think through the alternative scenarios in my mind, the more I see this little one’s arrival as absolutely Perfect Timing. And for so many moments of those two weeks we enjoyed right at the start of this little life, I silently thanked God for what almost wasn’t — what could’ve not been. How that picture up there almost didn’t get taken. How different this arrival could’ve been.
And while I knew we could trust God for His perfect timing, I just didn’t realise how perfect His timing could be.
In every circumstance, to God be the glory.
xCC
May 4, 2011 | The Good Word
Sometimes I think…and think, and think and think. Over issues great and small, I tie my brain in knots. I can work myself into an ethical dilemma over something as simple as whether or not to turn off the overhead light of the blind man who is asleep next to me on the plane.
(I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, but the flight attendant eventually came by and turned it off.)
I occasionally struggle with whether or not to let the Bear pick the flowers carefully tended to in the communal areas of our neighbourhood. And the issue of giving money to the children nearby who are skipping school to beg at traffic intersections really sends me for a loop.
Do you ever think yourself into a corner while deliberating your next step?
I am thankful when I come back to the Scriptures, and a verse like this one finds its way to me:
Make it your aim to do what is right, not what is evil, so that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty really will be with you as you claim He is. {Amos 5:14 Good News Bible}
Whether the deliberation is regarding peanut butter and jelly vs. ham and cheese or prison sentences for parole violations, the Lord instructs us to aim to do what is right. Most versions say:
Seek good and not evil, that you may live.
The next verse goes on to say, “Hate evil, love good.”
This means to me that it’s good to take the time to look for what is good. To love goodness and to endeavour to avoid things that aren’t.
Though we perhaps cannot weigh up every aspect of every decision we make (we know not what we do — and I’d like to say sometimes — like peanut butter and jelly, it’s not so necessary) I think the Lord is pleased to see us hunger and thirst for righteousness — even if we don’t get it right every time.
Thanks to Jesus there is grace when we miss the mark. Thanks to His Holy Spirit living inside us, we have help to navigate our next step. And if it’s our aim to love goodness and look for what is good, I think we might make our decision making processes a little more simple.
The next time you’re at an ethical impasse, try looking for the good, and trusting the Holy Spirit to help you find it.
xCC
I create resources to help people find deeper, more meaningful relationships with God through pursuing, pondering, and prayer. The "Shop" link above will take you to the home of many of the lovely resources I’ve created to help you keep walking one day deeper with Jesus.