Foreign Territory

It's a little difficult to be deep & emotive when covered with crusty snot.


I'm just saying.

Something about motherhood has forced all my introspective moments to mix into my practical ones. As a result I feel more steady, which is nice, but sometimes I miss the luxury of being able to turn off practical thoughts and simply emote. I especially miss this when I sit down and try to write. It used to be my feelings could run all over the page and the only structure was the words themselves.

Now, there is a constant, logistical ticker-tape running through my head.

"When does Z eat next?"
"What will we do for dinner?"
"Is it too late to drink a cup of coffee before his next feeding?"

This makes writing more of a challenge. I have to work harder to shut as many thoughts down as I can so the words come unhindered.

This morning I cried with Jesus because it was the first time we had spent some time together in awhile. It's so interesting how our own hearts can be such foreign territory. Having a child has led me into a new wilderness that I'm sure, as my friend said yesterday, will have valleys and quiet waters just as much as it will have hard mountains and deserts.

Maybe the first mountain is being satisfied with the things of this world, and I wrote this morning that He is better because He is and I haven't been acting like it.

That's how hardness occurs, I think, believing that something else is better than Him and then being disappointed when it comes up lacking. And then the hardness can dry out every area of our life and we wonder why loving becomes difficult.

Right now, in this season, He is better than alone time; better than sleep; better than being right when I argue with my husband; better than feeling angry when I realize I'm not; better than food; better than entertainment; and probably most of all, better than living for nothing more than my own happiness.

Oy, that last one is a whole subject in and of itself.

In short: This morning was one of those moments that I looked up out of myself to find Jesus still sitting next to me holding my hand.

Why is He so good?

Meanwhile, though the crusty snot is not incredibly fun, Z is as cute as ever. He's three and a half months old now and smack in the middle of the "everything that happens makes me scream like a pterodactyl" stage. He's also recently discovered his feet, as you can see below:

Can you even get over those ears on his hat? I couldn't either. 

*sigh* I love being his momma.