Thanksgiving, Day Nine - Sixteen

Well, look who overestimated her ability to write during the holidays! No matter, I'm all about grace here, especially (and maybe when it's most important?) when it comes to myself.

Z

A little worried about this "solid food" business. 

When my husband and I first got married, we were considering not having kids at all. I covered this thought with a lot of noble reasons, but I confess, on my part, not wanting children had less to do with calling and more to do with fear. 

I feared losing myself. 

I feared so much of myself being taken, and taken, and taken that one day I would look up and not recognize the person in the mirror. 

This is the fear that tainted my view of motherhood. All I saw was that it takes. Steals. It steals sleep and hobbies and money and "me time" and careers. 

The truth is, you know, that motherhood does not steal. 

Stealing is the enemy's business. 

And wouldn't it be just like a thief, to convince one to grip tightly the stuff of little value, so that he can take what is most truly precious without a fight? 

And leave us with trinkets, with temporal things. 

Things that turn to dust. 

When we discovered we were pregnant with Z, all of a sudden there was the tiniest of souls inside of me. A drop of something eternal. 

You expect to love your children, but what I didn't expect was how intensely it comes. 

With my family, the love has always been there. 

With my husband, it came gradually. 

With Z, it knocked the wind out of me. 

The first time it was in the hospital, in the wee hours of the morning when the nurse had taken Z back to the nursery after I fed him. I lay there with my arms feeling this empty-ache, and though my head knew he would back in two very brief hours and that I should try and go back to sleep, my heart was awake. The tears came and I just couldn't get over the grace shown to me, that he was here.  

Holding his dad's hand in the hospital. 

And in one moment my world flipped upside down and rather than being worried about how much Z would take from me, I began to wonder if I would ever be able to give him enough. 

Since then, the Lord has used this little man to redeem my view of motherhood. To give up myself for the sake of another...

Well, that's the gospel. 

No career, or hobby, or any amount of sleep or "me time," can replace how my days are now overflowing with grace. 

Sometimes hard grace, but grace still. 

I am so thankful for that.