buddies

Wow...seeing these pictures in order like that just does something to me. I can't believe I get to be the mom of these two little people. It has been so sweet to watch them grow into little buddies.

Quick story from tonight. (it's not a funny one...) Today has been a bit stressful. Like this morning when I literally had to lock myself in my bedroom just to have a minute to talk on the phone with the AT&T guy (to cancel the service that I got suckered into by a guy who came to our door). Or like when I told Isaac we were going to the YMCA and you would have thought I told him that I was going to cut off his arm or give all his toys away. And then sometimes as sweet as those little voices are, and they really are sweet, when you have been hearing them non-stop for almost 12 straight hours with very little quiet, you start to think you might lose your mind. So by the time the kids were in the bath I was teetering on the edge of sanity. Luckily Dan stepped in and saved me. A few minutes later I was called back into the bathroom to dry off a screaming and frantic Isaac. (he had been warned not to throw water out of the tub and after disobeying was now not going to have any books before bed.) As I took him into his room to dry him off, put lotion on him, and put his jammies on, something happened to me. Right before I put on his night-time pull up I just had this thought flash into my mind - what if Isaac was kidnapped and whoever had him wouldn't know that he still needed to wear a pull up at night. And in that moment, I was undone. My heart melted. I looked at my sweet boy and all I wanted to do was hold him. I finished getting him ready for bed, I turned out the light, and I grabbed him into my arms. Isaac doesn't usually like snuggling or being held, but tonight as he sobbed, he held onto me as I held onto him. I nuzzled my face into his neck as he cried. I sat there and held him until he fell asleep and then I held him longer. One day he will be a big man with a bristly neck. But tonight he was my baby. I was such a gift.

As I sat there holding him I was reflecting on something. Sometimes there are really hard things that we face in life. Things that we just don't know how to get right. Things that we fail at. And in those places there is pain and there is longing. I believe that even in those places God is good to us. That God actually many times brings hard things into our lives to refine us and to draw us to himself. Being a mom has been that thing in my life. I want so badly to do it right, but it seems on most days that I just can't figure it out. I feel like I am failing all the time. It is frustrating and painful. And yet in that very place is also my greatest gift. I have never seen a more beautiful and awe inspiring gift than the gift of my children. And it is in that place, the place of my greatest gift that I am also being refined in very painful ways. Interesting. God is very creative and full of mystery.