The crown of creation, that’s what we are. The sixth day’s last most beautiful, highly treasured prize of God. It’s always amazed me how He makes us. How He tucks away a baby unbeknownst to anyone in the womb of the chosen mommy and begins to knit. How the heart starts beating as the baby receives nourishment from the body of their mom. How before anyone else knows, He has determined boy or girl, brown eyes or blue, red hair or brown, short or tall…the days unfold and bring the gift many times screaming red into the world. A baby birthed often through broken waters and streams of blood, reminds of how we must be born again through the agony, the blood and water pouring from God’s crucified Son. A new birth, a baby comes screaming and we cry, smile, blubber joy. The hormones wash over us, the body doing its thing, readying milk, preparing a mom to do everything she can to make that baby thrive. It’s glorious, wondrous, and painstakingly hard. Sometimes the blues sets in, followed by sleep deprivation, and too many days joined up together that you just can’t remember anymore, coherent thought has long since left. And even if you skip all these things upon the birth, they’re coming later. With countless sleepless nights, babies sucking you dry of not just milk but of everything  you have…of everything you think you need to survive, especially sleep.

You learning to give up your life so that they can live. You learning to deny yourself so that they can have all they need. Jesus graciously pulling back the curtain to show you your need for Him, the deep dependency  you have on God even if you rarely acknowledge it. It’s always there and He exposes our need because He loves us, because we were always His treasure.

There’s this girl, my only girl. Hair full of perfect curls, eyes piercing blue, joy dances on her whole person….the Lord gave her to me, hid her away in my belly nearly three years ago, while I was unaware her heart began to beat. Her body began to grow and God was forming her in me. Now, that’s a miracle. She came out screaming in the mid of afternoon and has been just as vibrant since. She is a daddy’s girl, yeah, but she is a mommy’s girl too (smiles of joy)! Every emotion of a woman is fully flowing in her little person and I busy myself trying to train her while training myself to stay in control of those sweet emotions, lest they control you (smile). Full of song and full of dance that one is, a story teller already.

Friday night I measured out flour, scooped sugar, softened butter and watched it all blend into creamy deliciousness. Making the birthday cake I prayed for this girl, this gift…this baby that came screaming into the world not so long ago, but it feels like she’s been ours forever, the beauty of motherhood I guess.

I can’t remember the days without her hanging sweetly about me, pulling me into greater degrees of glory because God has ordained it so that being a wife and a mom is the means by which He sanctifies women ( see Titus 2 all). And I’ve never been quite as thankful for this grace.

This grace of being a mom, this grace of being transformed, this grace of carrying, birthing, being a part of the miracle of the eternal love of God.

I know the days can drag long and be so hard and tempers so short, and there are principles of truth guiding us in God’s Word, but there are no pat answers, no easy solutions, but there is a way…a way to grow in Jesus, a way to show the treasure in jars of clay in the midst of days that are the same endlessly. There is joy here in the tears of tantrums, because you get to train them how to let Jesus help us through, through everything. There is joy here in the midst of sleepless nights, because what other time do you get to rise at midnight, with Psalmist, and give God thanks? There is joy here in the midst of discipline, because one day by God’s grace perhaps you will kiss the forehead of a young man who loves Jesus and obeys Him, because a faithful mom and dad didn’t throw in the towel. There is joy here, because God is always giving gifts even when it feels like we might buckle under the pressure of all life is pushing our way. There is joy here, because we are the recipients of the eternal love of God. He is still knitting us together, the work of the Holy Spirit and what we will be we cannot yet imagine.