May 28, 2013

• {the baby}
  
  

  she’s the one that’s always with me, right by my side.
  i don’t remember the others like this.
  maybe it’s because they had each other.
  or because i was homeschooling and they were always around.
  maybe because mamaw lived close and the kids went there often.
  now. it’s her and i. most days. just the two of us hanging.
  running around. sometimes meeting a friend for coffee or flying solo to the beach.

  she’s the most attached to me and yet the most independent. scared of hardly anything –
  except lawn mowers and automatic toilets in public restrooms.
  she’s stubborn and knows what she wants. right down to whether her underwear feel too tight or too big!
  it’s been quite the ordeal. finding underwear that meet her approval.
  i’m wondering if God’s preparing her to marry a french guy, where clothing is optional in parts of that country.

  the same intensity she has about things like comfortable underwear though is  the same intensity by which she loves. all or nothing!
  throwing her arms around your neck near strangling you with her hugs.
  or my favorite of the moment – when we take a picture together, reaching up to touch my cheek with her hand and pull my face in closer.

  i’ll say, “i love my baby.”
  she replies. “i love my mommy.”

  
  

  i get asked fairly often. “is she the baby? are you done?”
  some days. when she’s refused to go to bed the night before and up the next morning before 7..
  when she’s squeezed shampoo all over her sisters bed or dumped the entire contents of fish food in the fish bowl -
  in those times my answer is yes! yes she’s the baby. and, oh man, i’m so done!

  but all the other times and most days my answer will be, “maybe. we don’t know.. we’d like another.”

  to which people either say i’m really brave or really crazy.

  the thing is as i close out my last year of thirties and approach forty i’m not sure what “another” actually looks like for us..

  all i know is i want my hands open. my heart even more. and my selfishness to not cause me to miss out on a part of the story God might have for our lives.

  sometimes i wonder if the real answer to the abortion crisis in north america isn’t more picket lines or phone calls to congressmen, but a greater love for kids. starting with our own. and the ones God would want to bring into our lives in whatever way that might be ~ through fostering. adoption. helping out a young mom with her hands full. welcoming school friends the kids bring home, or the neighborhood kids right around us. and since this kind of heart change doesn’t stand still, maybe even the “big kids” too – like that grumpy man down the road you know lives all alone!

  viewing kids {viewing people} as the blessing they are and not an inconvenience to be tolerated.
  that we just put in our time then brush our hands off, glad that’s behind us.

  coming to a place as christians – as the church – as the body of Christ of putting hands and feet to our words. applying real life practicality to the fancy sounding sermons on loving others where it’s so easy to nod our heads in agreement, even give a hearty amen, but walk away and do nothing!
  
  
  
  
  
  

  i think one of the greatest ministries an older lady, whose nest is now empty, could have would be to the moms around her still with kids at home – to take little ones for an afternoon so mom could run errands alone. with older ones, passing on skills like cooking, sewing, gardening.. lost arts that no one seems to be learning anymore. or simply the enormous wisdom you have to offer from your life experiences. wow! the investment and treasure of women like this. and i’m not writing that here to give anyone a guilt trip – but for myself to hopefully come back and read and do!

  {dear self: be that older lady to young moms someday!}

  there are certainly times i cannot wait for the empty nest days to come. when i’m exhausted and maxed out.
  when i look wistfully around at my girlfriends who have only teens now and no young ones to chase and i think of the peace and quiet i might be having. 
  but this area of kids. which really spills over into something so much bigger than whether or not i ever have anymore, has been quite the journey for me. one that’s far from over.

  i think it’s a journey that looks different for every family. for every women.
  for me, a huge {HUGE} part of it has been letting go of selfishness. a constant process.
  and not allowing the opinions of others or society to dictate what only God has the right to lead us in. 

  i often think of that story in the Bible where the children came and wanted to be near Jesus and the disciples were shooing them away.
  how many times in my own life has that been my attitude. that i was too busy with something more important to make time for what seemed “insignificant.”
  but the Lord shows us by His example that loving the least of these-
  the marginalized. the unwanted. the seemingly insignificant. this is the most important work!

  and always has been.
  
  it’s not limited to age or how many kids we have but at the end of the day, whether that means  swinging wide our front doors or heart doors, it’s simply a willingness to be available. open. welcoming those God brings into our lives, in whatever way He does that, and loving without partiality or prejudice because it’s how He loved. and if we’re His, it’s how we should love too!
   
  
  
  
  
  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
  
  “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.”

  emma and i have been working on psalm 23 and reese picked up some of the verses..
  here’s her version of it. and you might want to pause the music at the bottom before you listen.
  i especially like how she says, “righteousness.”

  amber.
  

  • 3:01 pm
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