This morning I woke up at six thirty to Baby's energetic kicking, and looked out the window to see the day already heating up to barbecue and lawn mowing weather. She must have been as filled with joy and excitement as I was! After an exhausting day yesterday building sets for VBS and fighting pregnancy sickness, it was a much-needed wake-up call to just how much I have to be thankful for.
I was just flipping through the first pages of my journal, which I started this time last year. I saw that I had written about how Danny and I had decided to put off moving and children until I could finish school. I don't even remember that being a conscious decision, but now here we are, right on track. My last day of school is the 14th, we move on the 15th, and baby should come about a month after that. I'm really, really glad I've had this chance to pursue education in a subject I love, but now I'm equally glad to be done and on to the next thing.
Today I am 33 weeks pregnant. Just another three weeks and the baby can safely come anytime. Looking back to the first few days of this journey, I remember thinking that nine months was basically a life time away. I didn't think much about the coming addition to our family, I just thought about how much my body was changing and how it felt like youth was slipping away week by week. Now it seems that motherhood has snuck up on me, and I'm nowhere near ready... but somewhere between the beginning and now, I've gotten used to the whole idea. Ready or not, I'm okay with being a mom now. Okay with being the person in the corner nursing, okay with not writing the next bestseller, okay with having a few stretch marks that weren't there before.
This is not to say that I think it will be easy or that I don't have apprehensions. To be honest, the thought of nursing a baby ever 2-3 hours through the night makes me want to break down in tears every time I think about it. So does the idea of running around after a mischievous one year old all day long, or having battles of wit with a stubborn three year old. Everyone tells me it's going to be wonderful, and I know it will be. But wonderful does not necessarily mean easy. It sounds so exhausting, and my selfish flesh rises up against having to give of myself so much. The exposing of this selfishness is one of the things I dread the most. I don't want to discover just how many layers of ugliness I have in me, or go through the pain of having them stripped away.
But on the other hand, my life has been incredibly good and more to the point incredibly easy for the last year or so. Perhaps it's time for me to be pushed a little, to be thrown into something I'm completely NOT ready for, and to find out the depths of my own depravity. It won't be all fun and games, but it will be good for me. It will be just the right tool to chip away at these giant clumps of rough substance that still cling to my character, and as the years go on it will only continue to chip and sand and finally polish. To be made more holy by a means so riddled with joy and love and happiness is no small blessing.
So ready or not, I say bring it on- trusting in God to give me the strength!
