bare white

bare white

4.09.2018

What They Don't Tell You When You Have a Baby and A Holy Interruption

No one told me, when he was still sticky from the white vernix covering his soft skin just moments after he came (they don't call it baby soft for nothing) and she placed him in my arms that I would weep.  Every time, times 7, I wept. It never grows old. Never.
I couldn't stop smelling his head and taking his hat off to stare at every single feature. I whispered, "I love you!" over and over again. I became brave that day. But I didn't know it then, and I still don't fully know it now, what it means to be brave as a woman.


No one told me I would be gloriously wrecked, feeling a love so deep I would lay my life down for them right then, right there. They never told me I would feel feelings of protection like a beast and when someone tries to mess with my babies (no matter their age) I would become that beast. They never told me my insides will literally be ripped out and ripped apart and I might just do it over and over again. No one told me that. But if they did, I am not sure I would have listened.


No one told me on the first day of kindergarten I would weep when I left her. It was only half day, but how could she be ready at 5 (she was my first)?  How would she survive without me to cut up her lunch?  Or truthfully, how would I survive? She came home, after day one, loving every second, asking how long until she could go back. I may have died a little that day, she was growing up. I was growing up. And it hurt. At 14, she recently told me she was so embarrassed on the first day of her school-life when Mrs. Sleep had to console me telling me it happens to most parents. I think she lied though because I was the only one that grabbed a box of tissues as I walked out the door and was crying hard enough to be heard. They never told me that I would grow a lot and die a little on that day, and over that year and for the rest of my life. But if they did, I am not sure if I would have believed them.

No one told me I would be interrupted at least 1000 times before lunch and quite possibly contemplate sneaking out the back door during dinner prep to avoid the catastrophe of words and emotions and actions that inevitably happens during that ungodly hour. But if they did, I didn't hear them.  (Maybe shout that one louder to the next woman in line to become a mom by birth or by adoption or by just being a woman with hungry kids around at dinner time.)


No one told me I would spend a college tuition or two or three on diapers and food and formula and dentist appointments, and McDonalds drive through. And I would loose my hair and my temper and I would buy a lock for my pantry door and have a secret stash of chocolate and my kids would interfere with my holiness every stickin' day of their lives and even as I write this, in a hidden place, I have been found and asked another 500 questions. But if they did tell me, I would have thought, no not me or my kids.

No one told my I would want to give up and yet never stop; I would have anger and yet so much love at the same time. Every day I love them to the point of my heart bursting, but not every day do I like them. What a paradox to try to understand and an emotional woman!


Here's the rub, My kids do get in the way of my holiness every day. But they ARE the tool God is using to make me holy. They are what is making me brave. They are the loves of my life and my passion. They are the reason I laugh and cry and feel and love so deeply. They are the reasons I face my fears to try, by the power of God alone, to be Valorous. They are making me a better version of me and they are worth every ripping pain, every penny spent, every precious-lost hair, every temper flared, every chocolate piece eaten and pound gained. And you know what, I really believe God intended it to be this way. They are are my beautyFULL, Holy Interruption that I desperately needed and didn't even know.








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