Monday 22 January 2018

breath

My eyes open and I worry that I'm already behind.  She screamed so long and hard it feels like I just fell asleep.  The glowing numbers of the clock come into focus and I breathe out a thank you God that I'm a morning person.  I uncurl, stretch, and make my way to the bathroom.  As I get dressed I'm reciting the things that need to happen before 8:35.  I got this.  Probably. 

Too early, One comes up for a cuddle, anxious as always on a Monday morning.  With an eye out the window for the neighbour kids who need us for five more mornings, I fill cereal bowls and smile as I remember our family win of a skating outing yesterday.  These months have been hard.  Hella hard at times.  Inviting little ones and their accompanying brokenness into our home, into our family, into our hearts.  It is heavy.  It pervades and permeates and doesn't ask permission to hang its darkness over our days.  But, is it just me, or is He deepening my perception of His beauty in this mess?  I smile at the kooky picture of the seven of us, Five's helmet-ed head peaking out from behind me, as we skate on the river. 

My smile falls as I hear the tell-tale sound of One bouncing a ball against the wall in his room.  Sure enough, he woke Two.  I stop him before they all wake like dominos.  Neighbours arrive and the morning is off and I wonder what I will behold today. 

In pockets of peace I remember to breathe.  This Almighty-breath gives life, slows the fickle worried heart so it can truly see.  This circus that makes me crazy?  I love it.  I love them.  I struggle with how much more He might ask of me.  Inside my family or outside.  It's scary to dwell on and I wonder why.  Many days I feel I have nothing selfish left in me, but oh Lord I am so wrong.  I have given, twice.  Poured out in big-enough ways, I tell myself.  Months and months in I am finally seeing how He is working, weaving, winning at the important things in me, in my littles, in those who find themselves inside our spheres.  Dare I say, He is glorying in letting me behold glimpses of the fullness of His radiance.  Where I swear it wasn't before.  Where I wouldn't have thought it could ever be.  Beholding His beauty, pressing on to acknowledge His Emmanuel presence - not only inspite of the painful brokenness, but also right smack dab in those tear-stained, unlikely-to-be-glorious, caught-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place, down-on-my-knees-wondering-where-this-is-going messes.   He is not afraid of messy and His breath gives me life.