Family Time

Even now three weeks out from delivery, everything seems quiet. I don't do much of anything because of pain and so this inability is the conductor of my day.

The girls delight my days and nights by what they are doing. Grace lost her first front top tooth and now when she talks I don't even recognize her with the "th" where her "s" sounds should be. Her grin is so wonderful, I love to find a reason to make her smile. She loves to lose control and scream at the top of her pitch-potential, just like... a little girl. She learned in a couple hours flat how to tie her shoes, and loves to practice all day long.

Lizzy has finally graduated from her "repeat-after-me" prayers at bedtime, to now praying all by herself. Each night she prays a prayer that goes something like this, in her sweet high-pitched baby but booger-congested voice:

"Dear Heavenly Father, thank-you for today, thank-you for helping me go on the toilet, and I call mommy and I say, "Mommy, I have to go poo-poo!" and I get spankings, and when I go pee pee I get my chocolate candies back and my dress back and my clip-clops back. Thank-you for Jesus for dying on the cross, thank-you for mommy, thank-you for daddy, thank-you for sister, thank-you for baby brother, help Grammy to feel better, in Jesus name I pray, aaaamen."

Elijah loves to move when he eats, which always is five minutes after I do. He is a peaceful little one. He loves to sleep-in more than when he was younger. It used to be that when I rolled from one side to the other he'd become awake, but now he's so used to our routein that he doesn't mind my readjustments. Occasionally, after the morning has come and I've been walking around for awhile without any of his movement, I sit down and try to wake him up. (Babies at this gestation need to be moving every day... every hour, and if they don't then you ought to rush to the hospital.) So I rub my hands over his little cage. And if that doesn't work, I find a corner of his body that is protruding out and give it love pats. Last resort: to shake the whole thing and start telling him it's time to wake up.

I'm feeling a little sorry that I don't do anything anymore. Something as little as giving the girls a bath is enough to guarantee that by nightfall, the pressure pushing outward from my pelvic cavity busts all my joints enough to make even standing, precarious. Thinking of grocery shopping, especially with the girls, intimidates me. Thank goodness I have a compassionate husband, who wants to do my normal things like these after a long day at work.

God answers prayer. I'm paying close attention.

I get embarassed thinking about my previous posts. The things I said were real, and had been real for such a long time. Now they're getting better since I said them out loud. It must be because I confessed them... confess your sins one to another, so that you can pray. Somehow, both people I know well and those I don't know at all, have come out of the woodwork to pray for me and think of my condition. There was a lady last night in my bible study who made a care-package for me. Inside was a small text of the series "chicken soup," some home-made blank cards with pretty flower designs on the front, a few home-made valentine cookies, and a note:

To Michelle-

Hope that these days where activities are limited become a real blessing!
May your heart become quiet and serene as you wait for this baby.

Love,
Gladys

As I accepted this, before I had read the note, I told her that I have had a pleasant week where I could hear the LORD telling me to stop, and to seize the vast amount of time, just listening to and holding my girls. But that's not all I could have mentioned that has changed with me, only one part. If I had to express it, it would probably be something very similar to the desire she had for me in her note....

Coincidence?

God answers prayer. I'm paying close attention.

The last, and most difficult point of my struggle has finally been won over conceived now within the bounds of hope. I was so scared for so long to let God in. It's only when I remembered that God could change me in a way that wouldn't be disappointing... but rather so very kind and slow and gentle that I would love Him so much the more than ever before... could I relax and trust and hope again. I told God that I'll be looking for his ever-gentle aide, whatever that might be, to convince me and bring me to be the kind of person He commands.

Someone once said that everyone expects God to be the bogey-man, up in heaven, looking down with criticality. Yeah... I did. Yeah... that's not fair.

I am still not a good person. But it makes me want to pray, and I do so much more now, because I am worried about what my day will be like without it. I pray in the morning very simple things, like "LORD, keep me from temptation for today." The days that I pray, work out in a fulfilling way. God answers prayer. I'm paying close attention. It's the beginning of the reality of the relationship I had said a year back that I was dreading the approach of.

Nothing to dread. It comes clothed in my success.