I spend all day Monday taking photos of the youngest York girl, and as I edit them, I think she could have been a model. She, her sister, her mother, they are lined up on my hearth that night, three so alike and so different. How fast time goes. How quickly they went from babes in arms to women.
It is my own baby's 6th birthday and her older sister wrapped her present in vintage wrap from great-Grandma's estate, Roman's 6:23 emblazoned across it's crinkled yellow: "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ." As I race through three birthday parties and all the necessary preparation and clean-up, race toward the hours I can get to me "real" work, my soul is pierced. Jesus was not a flamboyant, racing God. He didn't even race to heal every person in the throngs that came to question, learn and seek healing when He came out of the wilderness. The children, their warmth, their constant figurative tugging at my heartstrings, their literal tugging at my clothing, my time, my brain - they bring me back to this center of Romans 6:23. Oh, how glad I am that this oft-bungled attempt at life is not my last.
This new rhythm to life, work and home, schooling college students in the ways of the human body, soul and mind, schooling my children in all the things of the world. It gets hectic, I find it hard to prioritize. And always, there are other things pressing in, people to care for, beloved ones who are going through their own dark valleys, and we walk with them, though we have nothing to bring them but the comfort of a hug and kiss, a smile and an hour spent listening.
Three parties in one week. How we celebrate Amelia, the almost-lost one. It is a beautiful week of celebration. But we can't live in party-mode forever. I get the dreaded and mandatory flu shot on Thursday, knowing the weekend will be a blur of illness. Again I wonder if I should have known that my children would react to vaccines, since both my husband and I get so ill after them. Again I am glad I don't have to have an answer to every question. That Someone else shoulders life's biggest "what ifs" for me.
When I get it wrong, there is always a second chance.
When I worry about the choice I made, I know there is eternity to spend with these children, to make up for whatever mistakes I make in time management here.
Ultimately, I lean on the fact that He shoulders the burdens that would crush me, and, even with that load on His shoulders, can hold me close and carry me through those moments when I am unable to move forward on my own two feet.
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| Belatedly writing on Lisa-Jo's prompt, Race |
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