Regina 
These days you can find me surrounded by children. My hands still happily tethered to the man who gave us all the last name of Gibson. There’s this beautiful spin to our days even when those days are chalked full of difficulty topped off with tears and yet there’s no cap on the delight that fills up this home. The beautiful & lovely always mingling with desperate prayers & dripping eyes, sorrow, the constant companion of other-worldly joy. There is life and death, health and sickness, unity and brokenness…. See how sorrow and joy hold fast their hands? This is the ebb and flow of life. We all know it well, do we not? And how it makes us long for the return of our coming King.
Then there’s this tiny girl who is always gently tugging life from me, swaddled in my arms, big eyes locked on mine securing our hearts together for always. Slowly it dawns in my soul that this motherhood thing costs me my life, but whoever wants to keep his life loses it anyway. I gladly give it up to these precious kiddos.
I sit and nurse and try to wrap my mind around this new normal. This type A planner girl attempting to homeschool, cook meals, grocery shop, and take over laundry again from that kind husband who has shouldered the burden of everything I could not do while filled up with child. This repentant perfectionist realizing it is ok if school starts late, after all I am the teacher (warm smile). I watch the happy dance of my children through their days, awed at their joyful sincere praise, thankful that I get to be the foremost witness to their blossoming lives. Trying to train myself to pull them near, to love them well, to teach them God’s Word and God’s ways thoroughly. It is discipline, and it is joy!
I’m not sure how everything fits into this life of mine, but, slowly, I am ok with learning God’s will in God’s time. I’m not privy to the entirety of God’s plan, but I am the happy receipient of God’s Word. And we can all walk in that light. The steady illumination of our path comes from the disciplined pursuit of His Word. I remain in it, because I desire to remain in Jesus. There isn’t another way to come to His will except by the God-breathed words. This is how I make it through life in all its facets. This is how I come to understand our God. I’m left to marvel at the perfection of love He just keeps on giving. Oh, hasn’t He loved us well?
I’ve gotten to catch up a little here at smiles of grace 🙂 — and I’m loving it. Thank you for being faithful to share God’s glorious grace in your life and encouraging us to pursue Jesus to the fullest. Love you!