I don't have enough???

Each morning, I do the same thing. I peek into my daughters room and grin at her. Sometimes she immediately sees me, sometimes I get a few moments of watching her play in her bed. But eventually, always, her head turns my way and I get the grin that makes every morning just... awesome. She grins and the as quickly as she possibly can she stands up to the edge of her crib and starts bouncing up and down, often shrieking with her early morning happiness.

Then, before I get her out of bed, I dig in her drawers for her outfit for the day.

And sometimes, I just can't find anything.

Yet, this week, as I went through her drawers organizing things for New Kids arrival, I realized just how much she has. More than enough. A little too much maybe, but certainly more than enough.

It's easy to let our lives become jumbled.  Cluttered, and messy, and too busy. When it gets like that, all we can see is "Not enough". But when we stop, we just slow down and take stock of what we have - it suddenly seems like more than enough.

I'm overweight, so I've read a lot of information about food and health and such. And one of the main things I've seen about eating is that we need to focus on our food when we eat. When we eat in front of a tv, or while distracting ourselves with something else, we tend to eat more because we don't realize how much we're taking in. We don't realize we're full.

I think it would be a very simple thing for me to take from my daughter, while I distractedly cook, clean, internet, and more - while she lavishes inconvenient hugs or sticky hands on clean clothes, and brilliant smiles that I can't ever imagine as being less than awesome - yet I don't always look up to enjoy each one.

And I don't want to get to the end of the day, having taken - yet taken for granted with obliviousness instead of with appreciation and joy. It's easy to think you have little. When in reality... I've got more than enough. A little too much maybe, but certainly more than enough.

A dark room and an empty crib

I was standing in my daughters bedroom. Even though she's nearly 2 years old, just before I laid her in her crib I took a moment. I held her like a baby and rocked her back and forth singing to her. I was singing one of our favorite songs that I'd made up: "I love you, yes I do; won't you be my little baby. I love you, yes I do; won't you be my little baby."

As I sang, I looked over at the second crib in the room. The empty one. The day she arrives feels so close. It has to be soon. As I looked at that crib, I could almost imagine her face, her arms and legs twisting, her little chest softly moving up and down, her eyes peacefully closed. I could envision her whole existence.

And in those few minutes of rocking, singing, and imagining the future, something changed in my mind. It's hard to explain how my mind works, but very simple things become spiritual lessons for me. So as I imagined the future child - I wondered if perhaps God wanted me to envision future spiritual children in much the same way.

I would describe myself as "barren". I'm single, and as such, I will not be producing children of my own. Yet, God has given me children.

But these children did not come without some effort. At least the first one arrived by very intense prayer and warfare. I fought. I fought in prayer and tears and song. And into my arms was delivered a child. She was not given to me for temporary enjoyment, but for long term care. She is mine to raise, to grow, to teach about Him.

I don't have any Spiritual children. I could easily call myself Spiritually barren. But I haven't wept and prayed and fought lately for anyone except my own daughters. I haven't fought to birth anything or anyone... not spiritually at least.

So tonight I'm wondering about myself and my priorities. I want to make sure I'm as available to God for Spiritual Children, as I am for His earthly children. I don't get to serve Him in one area and ignore others.

Waiting

On Monday, my caseworker is supposed to contact me to go over the home study and ask a few last minute questions. I'm hopeful that this means that it will be submitted shortly and New Kid will soon be here.

Surely she will be here soon.

So tonight, with my Precious helper, I cleaned out her dresser and consolidated some of Precious's clothes into two drawers so that New Kid could have the other two.

There was a lot of talk from me to my helper about New Kid. I can only imagine my daughter... as a sister. I can hardly wait.

She's grown up so much in the last month. Saying more words, starting to respond a few times with "Yes" instead of just repeating whatever words you said. And saying things on her own, doing things on her own. Today, she did something that she liked and made herself laugh - so she rushed over to me laughing and pointed at it and said "look".

And then, during her nap all she did was cry - and I realized she was having trouble breathing. She was crying and very limp, didn't move much at all. I immediately gave her a breathing treatment and withing 30 minutes she was coming back to more like normal. I'd backed off the breathing treatments thinking she was doing better after catching some type of bug earlier in the week. Apparently I was wrong. I'll pick them back up again.

At the end of the night I told her to pick up her toys and she cried and screamed her whole way through it. You'd have thought I was beating her from her very loud distress. But nothing could have been further from my mind. Instead, by some strange act of the heart, as she screamed and cried and picked up her toys I loved her all the more. I loved her in her tears. I don't know how Godly that is but it always makes me wonder about Gods love for me when I love so much during a foolish moment like that one.

I'm praying that I am a good mother. That I'll be a good mother with two children. That I'll raise them in the fear and honor of God. That I raise them forever as Gods children - always aware that I am watching his children, and not my own.

Every day I'm well aware of the fact that it's so easy to fail. To let kids just "grow up" instead of raising them. Daily I feel like I'm trying to remember to fertilize, water, pull weeds, swat bugs. Constant diligence.

It's so easy to fail.

Only God could make me successful at this.

I didn't know what a shield looked like till now.

Some days I can feel the wave. It's like a tidal wave looming over me. In reality it should crash, burying me under the water, smothering me, overwhelming me, slamming me down into submission.

But that's all it ever does.

It looms.

Precious has been sick, I'm missing time at work.
Work is.... wow... busy, complicated, difficult.
New Kid is due to arrive within a few weeks.

The wave; it's right there over my head. It's a wave of doubt. Doubts that say I'll lose my job because I'm missing time at work. Doubts that say I can't handle this crazy workload at work. Doubts that say how on earth am I going to raise 2 little girls and be the kind of mother they need? Doubts that look at my finances and wonder mathmatically how two little girls are possible.

That said . . .

The wave never crashes.

I sit, calm, content, sober and excited all at the same time.

I know that if God has called me into these things - He's going to handle them. All of my doubts are about me. But there isn't a one about my God. I can't do what He's called me to. But I believe that He can somehow do them through me. Because He's God. And I believe in Him. I can not, but God can.

And sitting here tonight, that's when I realized ... really realized... what a "shield of faith" looks like. I'm no spiritual giant by any means. All these terms you hear about in the Bible or Christian world, I know them. I can quote them and even describe them. But much like God - it's different to actually KNOW them. And most of them I don't actually "know".

So as I realized that my doubts were the fiery darts of the enemy, and that my simple faith that God is able is what was preventing me from feeling overwhelmed, desperate, scared...It was like a light bulb went off. This is my shield. Where I might have been tormented before (and boy have I felt tormented before!!!), this time.. nothing. I see it there, almost as a tangible thing. But it hasn't touched me. Every single day, I plow on. I go to work (if the baby's sickness isn't keeping me home that day), I've done things at work that I thought were way beyond my skills. And New Kid, I'm as ready as a new parent could be for her arrival. I just keep moving. God is able. I'm not. I know it.

I'm in completely over my head. And I've never been able to breathe easier.

The Triwizard Tournament

You remember reading the Harry Potter series? I think it was book 4 maybe, that told all about the TriWizard tournament. It was the 2nd challenge that was so frustrating for me to read. Page after page of Harry ignoring the clue, not trying to figure it out because it wasn't easy. Page after page of me feeling much like Hermione and inwardly screaming "FIGURE OUT THE CLUE ALREADY!!!"

Yet, even with that frustration, I knew everything was going to be ok. I knew somehow he'd make it through the challenge. Why? It's the way the books work. Impossible odds, incredible challenges, and somehow the main character makes it through. It didn't matter that this was book 4 of what I knew would be 7 books. He was going to be ok, somehow.

Knowing that didn't stifle my inward "Could you just think about the stupid egg for a second Harry?" though.

But that's how I feel today. I am, hopefully 3 weeks away from New Kid arriving at my home. I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to pay for everything. Daycare costs will increase by more than double, formula, diapers... there's so much. How on earth am I going to do this? I'm squeezing by sometimes just as it is. How is this going to happen?

But at the same time, I know how my life has played out in the past. I know Who is in charge. I know God always walks this road with me as long as I'm doing His will. I feel His will in this. So despite the clawing fear in my throat, I know it's going to be ok. I think it's going to be hard, and I won't know how it will play out, but somehow, someway, the end of the story is always the same. God made a way. And He'll get more glory from the fact that it was impossible, and I'll grow in faith because I'll be the one sitting here knowing just how impossible it is.

My God is able. He's not just watching out for me, but for New Kid and Precious. I can trust the Author isn't going to change His writing style. He is able. I am not. So I will do it only through Him.
 God be with us.