I have four little humans that have been given to me and entrusted in my care.
I feel blessed. Blessed beyond measure, honestly. But also, in all honesty, absolutely terrified.
I don't want to mess them up.
I want to guard them fiercely from the darkness of this world. I want to parent with grace and gentleness and love. I want so many things for them and I don't know how I can possibly do it all.
And the truth is, I can't.
But there is someone who can.
And He comes to breathe grace and life into my tired mama soul in the smallness of the day-to-day moments when I choose to turn my eyes upward. When I choose to be still and stop worrying and planning and micromanaging. He comes to me when I say "yes" to reading stories with my Gracie instead of worrying about her picking up that larger than life pile of books in her room. He comes to me when I walk away from a sink full of dishes to go splash in the kiddie pool with my preschoolers in the warm sunshine.
He comes to me when I sit, exhausted and sore from childbirth, with a satisfied slumbering newborn on my chest and He whispers to me in my sleeping baby's soft breaths a sweet song of the beautiful gift this very moment is.
I don't want to waste this chapter away by longing to fast-forward out of this "baby phase" or this "terrible two's/three's phase."
On the hard days, it is so easy to just dream it all away and live in survival mode with your finger on life's "fast forward" button, pressing harder and harder willing it to skip to the next scene.
It's a natural coping mechanism all tired, frustrated Mama's at the end of their frayed ropes reach for.
But something miraculous happens if we ENTER IN to the meltdown moments. When we chose to stay present in the mess and embrace chaos with gentleness:
God shows up shifts our vision away from today and onto eternity;
and suddenly, a burden lifts and we are free to just "be"
in this season that He has purposely planted us.
There is something about taking time to just hold a child--to stare at them in all of their beautiful uniqueness and watch their chest rise and fall with the gift of life. How their eyes light up with joy when you smile at them and pause to just drink them in.
It invites a spirit of gratitude for the moment; and that is where Jesus lives:
the stillness in the midst of the mess.
Let's go there, Mama's.
Today is beautiful in the garden we are growing.
[watch & listen & let the words sink deep].
In His grip,
