Category: my heart

Without Holding Her

Little Hannah turns 3 months old tomorrow. Funny how the time flies and yet feels so slow in other moments. I continue to delight in her little fingers and toes… that “You’re my Mommy” smile… the running in place with excitement.

Miss Big’s been sleeping consistently through the night for 8-9.5hrs. It’s been six days now so I’m hoping this trend is here to stay. But with the trend of sleeping through the night, she still has yet to break her sleeping through the morning and the early afternoon phase. So with a few less moments of eyes at night, I actually find myself missing her more during the day. I’ve been encouraging her to sleep in her bouncer or a swing or her bed instead of in my arms since she was about a month old (I had to get my snuggling in before then. 😉

And while little Miss Sleepy is sure racking in the shut-eye, I’m hoping this “all day” sleeping is a closely fading phase… because I miss her. She slept down the hall in her bed two nights ago, cutting her bedtime about an hour earlier than usual, and leaving me awake without her nearby. Then she slept in her bouncer in the girls’ room while we did homeschooling the following morning. She looked so peaceful and I didn’t want to move her, risking waking her up. But I missed not glancing over at her every handful of minutes.  Hearing her breathing so close.

Maybe it’s because I see Abi’s independence, creating the bittersweet reality of no longer having a hip-riding snuggler. Maybe it’s because I hear Rachael’s “don’t tickle me” moments, when she’d rather just be quiet and “alone”. That bittersweet reality that holding your babies changes with time and growth. And while Rachael enjoys for me to hold her with my words instead of my arms sometimes, I still love how she just wants snuggled while watching a movie or reading a book.

It’s in those thoughts that I find myself wondering back over to the bassinet just to look at her…

just to watch her breathing…

her precious face…

 

And I’m grateful that she’s still a hard sleeper…

who doesn’t wake when I just can’t stand being so close…

without holding her.

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– Thankful, grateful and blessed.

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It Caught Me

There was something in her stale eyes, dirt-clod mouth and blank expression that caught me.

One of those messages on facebook hit me this morning as I scrolled through my friends’ thanksgiving gratitude posts. You know, those “hit share if you feel some emotion” posts with someone’s story and a picture. Seeing so many of those things posted on my wall, I usually just breeze past them – maybe I’m just a victim of over-sharing. But I couldn’t scroll past this one. It hit me as such a stark contrast.

An eerie expression of a buried baby, with only her face uncovered. My stomach churned. [And thus is why I am choosing not to attach the story to this post.] A discomfort made me read the attached story below the picture. I was almost drawn to that painful terror, praying for the evidence of some hope in the storyline.

The story unfolded about an Egyptian father (self-proclaimed Muslim) who buried his two daughters (8 years old and an infant) alive beside his recently murdered wife whom he caught reading the Bible. The children reported, when discovered 15 days later, that “A man wearing shiny white clothes, with bleeding wounds in his hands, came every day to feed us.” Even explaining that the man woke up the children’s mother to nurse the baby. The eight year old identified the shining white man as Jesus on national television, broadcast to a predominantly Muslim nation.

While this story could be a testimony of Christ’s miracle, the repetitive image of a discarded life was etched into my mind. The horror of it all. Those stale eyes, dirt-clod mouth and that blank expression…

Maybe it’s because I see how easily she erupts in a radiant smile. Maybe it’s because I delight in her two month old coos. And the light in her eyes. Those wiggling arms and legs as she spots Matt and I coming near. Her delight. Her utter joy. And the beauty in her eyes…

And then to see this little one’s face… the distrust and broken pain in her listless figure.

I don’t need to watch horror movies, there is living horror all around us. People can do such terrible things to each other. Sin can sure corrupt in unimaginable ways. And while the depth of the pain, hurt and despair can feel endless, my heart yearns for the rescuing arms of Christ. I don’t ask to be rescued from witnessing the monstrosity in this world… no, but the depths of my soul groans and yearns for a rescuing Savior who marches into that brothel and grabs up His bride.

The inner needs for God’s justice for those who have been cast aside as unwanted and expendable…

“Oh that You would rend the heavens and come down (today), that the mountains would tremble before You! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make Your name known to Your enemies and cause the nations to quake before You!” – Isaiah 64:1

 

*** I was informed by my dear aunt that this story in itself was reportedly untrue. While this certainly makes my heart feel better regarding the poor lives of two innocent children, the reality that things like this happen in the world of child abuse and sinful acts parents do to “the least of these” is very much true in this world. And while this picture may not have been attached to a true story, the picture of a child’s face being found buried in the ground is sadly more common than we may want to admit. Again, I am relieved that this story was not true, but cannot rest in the naivety that these kinds of stories do not exist. It’s just that these kinds of monstrosities tend to not be widely publicized, just as mass genocide is not easily found in history textbooks.

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Not So WordLESS Wednesday…

This Wednesday I wanted to share a picture, but this one requires a few more words. So it’s a “Not so Wordless Wednesday” over in these parts, but next week I’ll return to the more wordLESS side.

This is copied from an email. I had debated whether or not to share this, but I decided to share this because I think God will reap the glory.

“Matt was cleaning out the bathroom today when he emerged with it on the way to the trash. “Suppose we can throw out your old pregnancy test?” He chuckled. I had forgotten I had held onto it from when we first learned we would be welcoming our third child to the household. “I guess that one came to fruition, huh?” I laughed back as he tossed it in the trash and returned to his cleaning. I remember choosing not to throw it away so quickly. Something about having miscarried Alivia before made me want to cling to the hope of getting to see the next baby’s ultrasound. It almost solidified more in my mind that even if we lost this baby, she was real. Alivia felt like such a haze of misfortune and I just wanted to hold onto something real. I could not protect the baby, no more than I could protect Alivia.

I remember coming home with the first set of sonogram pictures. Our little peanut-baby. And wondering if we’d ever get to a second set of pictures this time. I trusted God. He gives and takes away and makes the best of every situation – even the hurts. I put the pregnancy test back in the bathroom cabinet. It still showed positive.

The second set of pictures came at 12 weeks and it was like a breath of fresh air. But there also lay the reality and the sting of past loss. I chose to hold onto the pregnancy test. It still showed positive.

I could have thrown it away when I first felt Hannah move. She was clearly proof in herself that thus far God had chosen for us to keep the child. But I left it put just for a little while longer. It still showed positive.

And when we came home from the hospital holding our precious Hannah in our arms, the test got pushed to the back of the cabinet some sleepy morning in search of the toothpaste. It got lost somewhere in the new challenge of raising three little ones, on a handful of hours of sleep. It still showed positive.

—

I fished the test out of the trash. [Don’t freak out, it was on the top. (hehe)] I just wanted to take a picture. So I grabbed the sonogram pictures from the fridge door and brought them over to the swing. I laid them on her sleeping little body, beside the “gangrene test”, Matthew and I had joked about. I took a picture.

Sure you can count me weird.

But I just wanted to remember how it felt…

to be standing in front of an answered prayer. ”

– Thanks be to God.

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Thanksgiving

God, thank You for a country where I don’t fear for my girls’ physical safety throughout the day and at night.

God, thank You for a community where I can leave laundry on the line and toys out in my yard and they’re still there in the morning.

God, thank You for the freedom to read books about struggles that are so far removed from me.

God, thank You for safety and Your hand of protection on my family.

God, thank You that when the burglar broke in through the nursery window, entering and exiting through the girls’ room last May no one was harmed. Thank You for allowing the girls to sleep through it all and be oblivious to the danger You saved them from. Thank You that they still sleep soundly and safely in their room to this day.

God, thank You for a government that even in it’s sinfulness, still stands on most terms of protecting life and governing those who threaten the quality of life.

God, thank You for sparing my direct family from direct involvement in the utter destruction and soul-ripping pains of human trafficking. We didn’t get to pick where we were born, so thank You for this undeserved blessing.

God, thank You for sparing us, thus far, from the utter horrors of child soldiers, sexual abuse, torture, in-country combat war, abandonment, violence, rape, slavery and so many of the other ways mankind can find to inflict terror upon each other. Lord, don’t let me take it for granted that You have spared us from this, thus far. Please don’t let me get lost in my little world of blessing that I’d become so sheltered from the pains around this world… and please help me to fight the real battles, leaving the civil arguments amidst warm houses filled with more than we could ever need. Lord, please help me to run HARD after You, promoting Your justice to save us, mankind, from ourselves.

God, thank You so much for ALL that You have given me and opened my eyes to.

Now, Lord, help me to use that wisdom to fight the good fight, win the race and keep the faith.

You are more than enough.

Where You lead me, I will follow.

I love You, Lord.

– Amen.

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Ninepence’s Less

I sat down to read the usual Adventure Missionary reading while the girls fell asleep. Hannah, who had waited patiently for her lunch, snuggled in for her feeding as I rocked, read and fed. Rachael and Abi laid silently in their beds, initially twiddling a finger here and there and later fast asleep.

I love reading the Christian Heroes: Then & Now series to the girls. I love that in one effort my little ones get to fall asleep to my voice, have a specific and daily set-aside time to hear the testimony of heroes of the faith, and that I get the privilege to soak in some “beyond picture books” reading.

I read this today and it really resounded in my heart:

Gladys realized that she could not leave the little girl to possibly die in the hands of such a heartless person. She stopped and turned and stared at the woman. “I don’t have that much cash, but I will give you what I have in my pocket.”

The woman smiled slyly. “And how much would that be?” she asked.

Gladys fished around in her jacket pocket and pulled out a few copper cash coins, equal to ninepence in English money. She held the coins out on her open palm for the woman to see.

“Done,” the woman declared, grasping for the money. “Take her away.”

Gladys took the hand of the little girl, who she decided must be about four or five years old. Together they continued on down the street. By the time Gladys reached the inn, the enormity of what she had just done began to dawn on her. She had just bought, or adopted, as she preferred to think of it, a little girl. Just like that, she had become a mother. 

Ninepence, as the girl quickly became known, gulped down every scrap of food she was given. Within weeks she had turned into a healthy, happy little girl. She loved living at the inn, and Gladys never had a moment of regret that she’d followed her heart and not the mandarin’s command. 

One day, after Ninepence had been living at the inn about six months, Gladys was standing on the upstairs balcony. Suddenly, she saw Ninepence come running through the gate into the courtyard.

“Ai-weh-deh [name given to Gladys by the Chinese and translated: “virtuous one”],” Ninepence yelled, “are you hungry tonight?”

Gladys thought the question rather odd, but she answered it. “Yes, I am, and Yang is making us a delicious millet stew.”

Ninepence looked up at her. “I’m going to eat a little less at dinner. If I eat a little less, would you eat a little less, too?” she asked. 

“Why would we do that?” inquired Gladys. 

“I found a boy out here, and he is hungry,” Ninepence said, pointing to the gate. “If I eat less, and you eat less, and we put those two lesses together, we would have enough to feed him, too.”

Gladys smiled to herself. Ninepence was always on the lookout for children in need. “Yes, I will eat less with you, and the boy can eat with us. Bring him in,” she said.

 And so it was, that an eight-year-old orphan boy also became part of the family. 

 – excerpt from “Gladys Aylward: The Adventure of a Lifetime” by Janet & Geoff Benge

It just got me to thinking and praying…

Lord, that I would eat less.

Lord, that more would eat less. Then we could put our lesses together to feed others and bring them into the family. 

… Amen.

– To God be the glory.

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That Beautiful Adventure in Her Eyes

I remember babysitting a lot while in high school. My church had a lot of young families, providing a lot of babysitting opportunities. I remember the fun times, endless candyland games, and various obstacle courses designed in the hours of entertainment. I also remember the first time I met families, that opportunity to smooth over the introductions and read a child quickly to figure out what kind of challenges presented themselves once the parents waved goodbye.

I had nearly completed the fall transfer of clothing. The girls were growing again (funny how that always happens) and the last of the cooler weather clothes needed to make their way into the closets from the boxes. We have been blessed with hand-me-downs from a few generous families and thrift-store loving little ladies from our church. My girls are thrilled with anything new to them.

Maybe it was the way I did her hair yesterday, in her two Laura Ingalls Wilder braids. Or maybe it was the last of the “toddler” style clothing exiting her wardrobe. Or maybe it was her laying on the floor this morning repeating a book for memory, “reading” to her sister. Or maybe it’s in the way she always seems to find an imaginary wayward chick to nurture back to health. Or maybe it was seeing my baby Rachael in Hannah’s eyes.

But suddenly I realized that she is a little girl. The toddler has long gone, never to return. She is one of those little girls I used to love to babysit. That little girl I spent a summer nannying, studying and investing in. She’s like one of those babysitting kids I couldn’t wait to get to watch, only I get to keep her for a little while longer.

She’s on the edge of schooling. Growing. Changing. Independently blooming. And her little browns remind me of the ones I see in old photographs of a small, auburn haired adventurer who used to care for imaginary forest creatures whom had lost their way and needed a mother.

I always thought she looked a little like me. When Abi came along it sealed the deal. Abi is her Daddy. Rachael is a little variation of me. But it’s so odd and amazing and tear-provoking all in one to watch her grow into my most distant childhood memories.

She is brilliant and curious and wild and gentle all in one. She is independent and just wanting to be held all at the same time.

And while three little ones encourages my day to be filled with wiping noses, picking up stray toys, dishes (if I can get to them), and laundry and more laundry, there is something about that smile of her’s. That smirk of delight mixed with a little wild excitement. That smile of contentment and joy in discovering something new. That light in her eyes… she’s just so alive. And I want nothing more than to drink it all in, living in the imaginary world of rescued chicks, fairy cottages, and ballerina concerts.

I adore her. She is such an utter delight.

My Rachael. 

– thankful and blessed.

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