So sometimes, you feel like you’re just not cut out for the job…
Days when the blessings abound but your heart’s too small to praise? Times when it’s easier to gravitate towards what you don’t have rather than see what you do have?
We need a baptism of seeing.
Don’t tell me how I know, –
So when the kids had it worse this time – tinea, scabies and eczema along with tropical rash, I forgot my praise and I stressed, overlooked the major and focussed on the minor.
I rused for control.
Ruminated over what should have beens.
It’s my mother tongue to complain. Whether it be the fact that the toddler wasn’t eating, or the kids weren’t sleeping early enough, I forgot, I barked orders and I butted heads.
I reduced holy moments to be a mere passing of time.
We need a saviour to help us look beyond ourselves.
To overcome the heart’s tendency to worry.
To press the pause button just right where we are and redirect ourselves to praise, praise, praise.
It’s sad but it’s true. The vapour of grace dissipates when I live on the brink of faith bankruptcy.
When I gripe and sweat the small stuff of life, I allow the minuscule to consume me.
I can’t afford to lose joy, because when joy leaks, my strength saps.
So my baby of mine is 2 and she’s finally fallen asleep.
Long after everyone else had gone to the park to play.
I held her tight, pulled her close and landed my wet kisses on her lips.
Felt like the world’s just stopped for this holy affection.
Nobody’s ever told me that time could stop in a moment of love…All those angst, all my fussing, all my fretting…they too align in the pure moment of mother witnessing child in blissful sleep.
I feel like an anchor has just been thrown for my saving.
Just in time when I needed that rescuing from myself.
I could see her eyelids. How they flutter to cover those beautiful eyes that sparkled just a moment ago.
I run my fingers through the burgeoning thickness of her hair, feel my way around the blossoms of her cheeks, traced the outers of her ears, touched the suppleness of her lips… pulled her body close to the beating of my own heart and I stayed very still.
What is God trying to tell me?
Her breathing, slow and steady, inviting me into a rhythm I am slowly learning – this rhythm of grace – the invitation to trust and rest.
The way she twirled around today, it had lit me all up inside with joy unspeakable.
And joy? Sam Sanders said “is not necessarily the absence of suffering, but is the presence of God”. I heaved full His presence within me.
Exchanged my need for control with a contentedness to trust.
Trust in someone far bigger than myself.
Trust in a Saviour ready for my rescue.
I memorise the thousands of times I have my finger dancing on the nape of her neck, count all these little blessings that made life truly good…and repent for my inability to see, and therefore praise.
They say that those who know their God have great thoughts towards God.
My job is to feast my mind on the largeness of who God is, and sing my way out into His greatness today.