“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord” (Psalm 127:1) 

Motherhood is such a mix of blessing and labor. Mundane and ineffable moments are all wrapped up together in this daily grind and daily magic. And how easy it is to lose sight of the magic midst the grind! I wanted to share these two unpolished poems of mine which help me to focus on the bigger picture, and the gift it all is. 

Witness
Dimpled legs as you stretch
on tiptoe to the bowl placed carefully out of reach 
of your curious cocked finger. 
Your chortle, a babble of indiscernible gifts, erupt around
your two-toothed smile, 
and then you turn to me, and raise your hug-soft arms 
And your need is the easiest wish I ever could fulfill as I 
scoop you up to my chest and 
for a moment
your sweet-warm head rests beneath my face and I breathe in
youness.
And then you are wriggling down, away from me, to a ball, a cup, a block:
any of the undiscovered joys of today.

And I watch your supple body squat and crawl and stand and grab and reach. 
There is such impossible perfection in your tiny form. 
And I can only wonder that it is given to me–
this stumbling, seeking, striving me–
to witness
your being. 

I Said a Prayer Today 
I said a prayer today 
as I stroked the sick head of my first baby 
lying listless on the couch, 
her eyes watching me with solemn trust 
as her younger brother chattered at me from the kitchen 
certain that I can see and know and fix,
because I am 
Mom.
All while their baby sister nuzzles warm head into my lap with small giggling grunts 
as if to burrow her whole being into mine. 
Lord, I pray, 
help me to catch these moments 
that are dropped 
as Gold
into my lap

If only I notice. 

“An atmosphere of innocence flows into little children, and through them into the parents so as to affect them… Little children have this innocence, because they do not think from anything interior; for they do not yet know what is good and evil, and true and false, so as to think in accordance with them. Therefore they do not have any prudence of their own, nor any design from a deliberate motive, thus are without any purpose for evil. They do not have a character acquired from love of self and the world. They do not credit anything to themselves. All that they receive they attribute to their parents. They are content with the little things they are given as gifts. They do not worry about their food and clothing, and are not anxious about the future. They do not pay regard to the world and covet many things on account of it. They love their parents, their nursemaids, and their little companions, and play with them in a state of innocence. They allow themselves to be guided; they listen and obey.
Such is the innocence of early childhood, which occasions the love called storge.” (Married Love 395)

Life isn’t fair. 

How many people relate to this? All of us? On a global scale it sure isn’t fair: massive inequality, poverty, war, distaters, disease. Some children go to bed hungry while others are fed, some families grow up safe and sheltered from war while others do not, some people face crippling disabilities or illnesses while others live life in strong, healthy bodies. 

In my world the playing field is a bit more level: we can all afford a warm place to sleep, plenty of food, clean water, education, and a certain standard of safety. But still things aren’t “fair”. Why does one couple struggle with fertility while another conceives child after child? Why do some people find their forever partner while others keep searching? Why does one family suffer a devastating car accident? Why must some battle to stick to a budget while others suffer no anxiety over the price of groceries? Why is she facing depression, and why is he recovering from trauma, when the next person over is doing neither? And on and on.

Life isn’t fair. And sometimes I have an easier time accepting this. Right now is not one of the easy times. Maybe because in the last year, between the pandemic, anxiety, and social unrest right around me, these unfairnesses feel closer. Maybe I’ve just seen more hard things happening to people I love lately. Maybe both. And maybe the Lord is calling my attention to how much it’s not about fairness, at least not fairness in this world. 

It was a very ordinary Sunday. A depressingly ordinary, grey, rainy day in Covid February. And yet I went to bed feeling uplifted and alight with a glow of gratitude for how blessed our life is. What made this possible? 

I borrowed from a friend the brilliant idea of writing down daily gratitudes, and for the 28th of February, that meant 28 gratitudes. 28 gratitudes noted and written down throughout the day. And it pretty much felt like a magic trick. The simple, the everyday, the small moments, when noted altogether, somehow took on a surpassing sweetness. I found myself looking for the good moments, and in the end had to delete some of my previous items because I had well over 28! 

Here is the list I came up with: 

1. The baby only waking to eat once in the night (after several bad teething nights too!)

2. Getting back in bed for a sweet snuggle with husband and baby after feeding her at 7. We used to do this all the time with our first, but don’t have as many opportunities anymore.

3. Husband (Micah) taking all the kids and letting me sleep in past 9!

My sister recently had her first baby and it was deeply powerful watching a younger sibling step into that new role of mother. The birth of a baby is inevitably miraculous–how could it not be? But when it’s also the birth of loved ones into parents, I found that to be so much more powerful and inspiring than I was expecting. 

Watching my sister and brother-in-law go from expecting parents to parents in reality, and seeing the love for this new tiny person blossom into something tangible and tender and primal and beautiful–it’s just profound. And it brings me back to the way the Lord is looking at us, loving us, celebrating and marveling at each new development and state. He loves each new baby indescribably more than their new adoring parents do. He already loved the parents that way. Their joy at this new phase of life is a tiny drop in the pool of the Lord’s pleasure at our joy, and at the birth of a new angel in potential. 

It’s hard for me to grasp how much the Lord loves me, loves all of us. But the thing that brings me the closest to understanding is witnessing and experiencing the love of parents for their children. I’m sure I’m not alone there. 

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5)