Five Minute Friday: Growing

GROWING

GO

So, I have this kid. A son. He's 6 months old, and he's just growing so fast! Every day he does something else that amazes me. He's so observant; he just looks and looks at everything, like he needs to fill up his tank.

He is getting closer and closer to crawling. Today he spent about 3 seconds on sitting up, propped on one had like a tripod. Then he fell over...but he's getting there! He'll get there so soon! (I'm a little afraid...then I'll have to baby-proof.)

Why can I be so content to let Baby take a big skill one day at a time, one tiny step at a time--and be so impatient with myself, with other adults around me? My dear husband is also a saint who is GROWING. It's ok if he makes mistakes, if he's incomplete--he's GROWING. It's ok if I fail again! I am GROWING. We who are growing have a loving heavenly Father who is delighted over each step, each tiny development we make...who cleans up after us when we fail. He forgives each and every sin we commit on our way to being glorified and perfect.

If I love Baby so much, why can't I relax and trust God to love me perfectly? Can't I just allow my growth to come as it comes, the same way I relax, enjoy Baby's growth and ability today and allow tomorrow's skills come tomorrow?

STOP.

Posted as part of Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday.

Five Minute Friday: Older

Older
GO

Do you remember that scene from Perelandra (by C. S. Lewis) about aging? Ransom and The Green Lady (and maybe the Devil-guy was there too, I can't remember his name...Weston?) are talking about information and growing older. The Lady learns something about God and, after digesting it a moment, realizes the fact made her grow older and asks for a reprieve in talking. She needs time to catch up after growing.

Growing older is like that. It's not a simple line graph, but more like the tide chart. It comes with experience, with facts internalized and incorporated into what was previously known.

Tide Chart

Line Graph

I wish growing was like a simple line graph. Wouldn't that be nice? Just a simple slope, always further up and further in. But it's not. Sometimes it's a simple, easy slope; sometimes it's a plateau with no seeming progress; sometimes it's a steep slope that we can barely scale; sometimes it's a cliff that nobody can climb ("The Cliffs of Insanity!").

Growing is also like the seasons. Don't we go through times of incredible fruitfulness? Days of slow, peaceful ripening? Times of cold, seemingly dead, lack of productivity, when it's so cold your fingers and toes just seem to freeze off your body? And then--sometimes it's beautiful, dappled mornings of delicate, blossom-on-the-breeze, green-grass-on-my-bare-feet, rebirth?

STOP. (Sorry about that...my timer didn't ring very loudly...)

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Photo Credits: Math Goodies, I Love Shelling.

A Gift that is More than Just a Broken Hip

Been itchin' to write for a while...but I have a 6-month old son, so I need to write in-between-times. This is one of those times: he's down for a nap.

I've been surprised to find myself in a relationship with him. The first few weeks were hard: adjusting to having another person around; having that person be the most demanding, least responsive person I'd ever known; hormones and recovery from pregnancy and a c-section; the crying--the demand for solutions with NO hints given to the question of "What do you want!?"--the inability to repair what was wrong and learning that all I really wanted was for the crying to stop, not necessarily for my baby to be soothed.

But now...it's a whole new day. (I must channel Celine here: a new day has come. You know you know the song. Sing it with me: "A new day haaaaaas...come!" Baby communicates with me. He interacts with me. He plays with me. He loves me.

He invented this game we play sometimes while nursing: he puts his hand in my mouth and I pretend to bite it. It's so fun! We do it again and again, and have added variations. Sometimes, when we're at the grocery and he's riding in the just-for-infants recliner-seat, I bite his feet and he giggles. I make monster sounds and he pulls his feet away, but I always catch his toes and he laughs, or smiles, or screeches. Music, it's music to my heart!

I can tell when he's sleepy. He rubs his eyes, ears, head. The way he lays his head in his carseat when we're driving. He might yawn. He gets easily frustrated when he's playing. He 'zones out.'

If he doesn't like something, I can tell. The first time we were in a public restroom (he was getting his diaper changed) and someone flushed a toilet, he screamed and burst into tears. Baby startles when his daddy blows his knows (blows his own nose, not Baby's nose). Now I can prepare him for loud noises.

Amazing.

Relating to Baby is so....elemental. Intense. Simple. He's happy, or sad, or loving, or frustrated. It's not happy mixed with nostalgia and a little sadness, stirred up with sorrow. (I've had enough of that in other arenas lately.) This is simple. "It's bedtime, Baby." And he nurses and we look into each other's eyes, his eyelids drooping more and more, and it's just love, and contentment. I lay him down, pat and rub his back so he'll relax again, and he snuggles down, content.

Wow. Thank you, God. Thank you for this blessing. At first, Baby in my life was a blessing like Jacob's broken hip: "God, I won't let you go till you bless me!" And God renames him and breaks his hip, so that he always limped from then on. But now I see more of what God is doing for me through Baby: He's making me a better servant. He's making me more sympathetic to The Least of These, more sympathetic to those in sorrow, more empathetic to other new moms.

Wow. Thank you, Lord Jesus. May it be so.