When Motherhood Chooses You

I remember sitting around the benched tables of my high school cafeteria. Life stretching long out in front of me and a list of dreams a mile long rattling from my tongue. In all my dreams motherhood was optional. A potential stop along the highway of life. A far off destination somewhere down the road...way down the road.

 It is a windy, rainy afternoon. One that keep me cupping a cup of hot tea and pausing in front of the space heater. It is time to awaken the wee one from her nap. She throws back her head and opens her "to be determined" colored eyes. She furrows her brow and it is like staring into a mirror. I've reached my destination and I can't believe I ever wanted to go anywhere else. I thought that my life would be different. I don't mean power suits and leather brief cases. I just mean that I always wanted my independence. I've got a wandering streak a mile long and my internal GPS has always been set to roam. I've clung tightly to the freedom to go and do as I please. Today we will stay indoors all day away from the winter chill, gray skies and sniffling noses of strangers. I will change countless diapers, wipe puddles of drool, cradle sweet baby sighs and I will not remember how this road got me here. I will only know that in this moment this is where I am. Cosmic grace I think I'll call it. To not know how one got to a place, but to know that it is divine and holy nonetheless.

 You can only run so far from a heart calling. This baby girl woven in love and threaded through my heart is more than a part of my DNA. She is a part of my sanctification. God's choice of her as my daughter is a reflection of His choice of me as His own. Left to my own devices I would choose red rock canyons and airplane flights across oceans. To be stretched body and soul by a wee one is to travel an uncharted course without a map.  I so need a map.

I always wanted to make my own choices. I didn't listen to anyone's suggestions of where to go to college. I hopped a flight to the West just to wander in the woods for six months. I spent a year sleeping under the stars more than sleeping under a roof. I decided that I'd rather watch births than give birth. I danced all around motherhood until finally on the West coast of Africa motherhood chose me.

We talk about women's choice. We have the right to choose what is right for our bodies, our lives, but the truth is that when motherhood chooses you, accept it or reject it, you've been chosen. Inextricably, irreversibly, undeniably you've been chosen and your choice is to embrace it fully or reject it wholly. There is no in between in motherhood. We risk more than our own life if we reject it. Feigned bravery is a life left to worldly adventure. Truth be told it isn't bravery at all. It is avoidance of all that is lasting in this world. Bravery is to choose what is lasting. Like planting a tree in the tender ground of life I am growing into being a mother. Brave work to trust that roots will grow deep and branches will spread long. I am doing holy work that keeps me tethered, body and soul, to this one life. Motherhood, with it's thousand graces has chosen me and I have but one choice in response; grab hold.

Counting the graces of this one life motherhood and all! Counting along with you would be pure joy.

#2191-#2211
baby sighs, midnight cries, early morning kisses, road trips, double naps, going to church for the 1st time, one good night/one bad night, mimis and gigis, curious nieces, precocious nephews, time to pee (ha ha!), pancakes, routines, library books, Valentine's Day, cake, whispering in bed, hot showers (have I listed this a dozen times?), stretch marks, knitted blankets

5 Minute Friday: Delight

Joining up with The Gypsy Mama for another 5 Minute Friday. Each Friday we link up to write (these days I am making typing with one hand an art- the unexpected joys of having a newborn!) and we don't sweat if it is right or not! It is a boost of creative goodness!

Topic: Delight
GO!

A weekend trip wrecked our routine. Shipwrecked it on the shores of midnight crying and fitful sleep that keeps mama wide-eyed and on the brink of exhaustion. I rock and pray, rock and pray. The praying more for myself than you at times. The clock ticks the minutes and I struggle to engage in the moment. This too shall pass and oh how I will miss you so small nestled in my arms.

Here is the moment, not the minute, that I enter fully. I watch your eyes dance from shadow to shadow in the glow of the nightlight. Eyes seeing in part what your mama has taken for granted to see in full; life. You remind me to slow. You remind me that it isn't in the rush to get laundry folded and counters wiped that we see most clearly. Life can zoom by while we are looking at dirty floors and dusty shelves. You haven't yet learned the dangerously addictive habit of distraction.

I hope you always watch shadows dancing at night.
STOP!

Sometimes You Just Have to Ask

I wrestle internally as we wrestle externally with car seats and shopping carts and an empty fridge in need of filling. I never made it to the grocery store. Tiny babies can thwart big plans. So off we go on a misty, gray Saturday to fill what is empty.

We trip our way through the first store. Babe asleep and silent. I hold my breath and wonder how long it will last. I wait and wonder for the peace to break. A pang of hunger, a wet diaper, a piercing cry to end our shopping trip. Something has to give- the heaviness I carry makes believe it always does. I wait for these things in silence and the truth underneath my anxiety is sometimes so silly. I wait in silence for all my anxiety to spill into reality and the one thing I want is a stack of buttermilk pancakes and a thick handled mug of coffee. I want to sit and stare across a table at my love and not be worried about staring eyes and a screaming baby.

We pull out of the stores parking lot and I dare to speak my desire. He turns his brown eyes, the ones I could look into every day from here until eternity, and he says, "Is that what you want? Pancakes? I can do that." I begin to protest. We won't get the shopping done. We really shouldn't- money is tight, ya know? He looks me full in the eyes and I know that when my stomach knots and I bury my heart he is just waiting for me to ask. Always waiting for me to speak my heart straight into his own. He pulls the car across lanes of Saturday shopping traffic and into a greasy spoon.

We pile out of the car and into a booth built for two, but now seating three- just the way our lives have stretched to welcome this new little one. The waitress pours my coffee and I cup it close and breathe the steam. We order and wait and it is in the waiting that the tears spill. The hopes and fears that I've shouldered for a month. Am I doing this right? Those moments when I grope in the dark to be a mother when I hardly remember my own mother- am I making do with what little I have?

I'm reminded over my stack of buttermilk pancakes oozing warm butter that I just have to ask.

Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:24)

I want fullest joy. I want joy that spills over onto everyone around me and sometimes that comes from just being honest about what my raw heart needs.

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? (Matthew 7:9)

Father God knows my deepest needs, but oh how he loves it when his daughter asks. I haven't always asked, but I have always received abundantly more than I could dream. I wipe the syrup from the corner of my mouth and breathe deep. Sometimes you just have to ask. 

 Counting grace again and again- won't you join the counting?