When My Hands Were Full

I've got two pretty awesome little people that I've been blessed with raising. The arrival of each came with new challenges. Challenges everyone either forgot to mention, or felt it kinder to omit. Either way, I tend to err on the side of candidness. Tell me everything.

I had some trepidations over a second baby. Most of them revolved around a not-yet potty trained, unequivocally rambunctious toddler, mixed with a little bit of colic PTSD.

Unlike Sosie, however, it was not colic or postpartum gloom that bulldozed me. In relief, I watched that ship sail right on by, despite Sully's rocky start, and felt the fullness of God's purpose for my role as a mother.

But when Sully came home from the hospital for good, after battling RSV his first month, something felt off. It should have been expected. It was a natural familial progression. But the one thing I've learned since becoming a mother is that if you think you've got it all figured it, you're wrong.

God's got a keen way of pulling back the curtain to the untidy inner workings of our hearts.

I had the baby's room ready, the gear assembled and my shush-the-baby bounce perfected, but something in my heart still had to be addressed. My then 2-year-old Sosie stood before me pleading to be held, but for the first time in her life, my hands were full.

As a first-time mom of two, I wasn't equipped with the peace-about-it or the words to explain to her how badly our brand new baby needed me, when in fact, she too was my baby who needed me equally as much.

In the first month, I spent days in tearful fits as I watched my daughter play with my husband and my mother, who stayed after Sully's birth to help. Summer was approaching, and I envied their fun while the baby and I camped out on the couch for long naps and nursing sessions.

I longed to go outside for hours of building sandcastles, nature walks, running through sprinklers and sidewalk chalk masterpieces of toddler proportions. As her chubby little hands waved at me through the window, I fretted. Was she forgetting me? Does she think I stopped caring? Or, worse, could she stop needing me?

My mother reassured me of what God had already hardwired into me from the moment his son laid down his life for mine - that His purpose was much greater than my fear of failure and loss. I was to give of myself joyfully and without fear everyday to pray over them and grow them up in the clean air of the gospel.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

But I was lost in the details of building my tiny kingdom of little people, forgetting they were and are and will always be His to begin with.

Still, my heart ached for my tiny companion with whom I'd weathered a lot of hard life. Who still loved me and offered me grace despite my many truthful moments of struggle to figure out what it meant to be her mom.

It is no small thing, when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.

And then somewhere between necessity and the terrible 2's, it felt as though she had stopped needing me. Multiple declarations of do it myself a day affirmed this, and I sort of accepted my new role as attendant to a very independent, sometimes demanding nearly threenager. Yes, threenager is a real thing.

My mothering became siloed, and maybe a little one sided because, well, the baby didn't talk back.

Then, one morning, my husband commented on my trend in attitude following several very difficult mornings, where I'd greeted our daughter with aggravation as she bounded into our room at the break of dawn with "Shhhh's!" and "Brother's sleeping!" or "Settle down!" and "Just lay still!"

Her loud and messy, energetic, upside-down, autonomous, disobedient and often downright quirky but typical toddler behavior was amplified next to the silent vulnerability of her brother.

My aggravation was evident, and in the next few days, it became a unsightly reflection of my innermost mama-heart at which I could not stop staring.

Where had it come from, other than 10 months of interrupted sleep? I clearly needed a time out.

I had slowly let my fear of rejection and of failure to adequately love and care for two little people get in the way of enjoying my daughter's budding personality and celebration of the joy of God's pursuit for her heart.

Sure, the season of babies and toddlers was physically and emotionally messy and wearisome and nonsensical. But, I'll be the first to admit that I had become complacent. I had lost my whimsy; my sense of adventure and discovery; my quest for the unknown, the not-even-there, and the ridiculously impractical. I had lost all humor in my quirky but typical toddler. 

This post got me thinking and remembering when I was in high school and my mom gave me a key chain inscribed with 1 Timothy 4:12:

Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.

At the time, I was fast approaching adulthood. My actions and appearance and behavior were no longer cute and adoring like my daughter's, but scrutinized and judged.

I loved the key chain because the verse reminded me of God's all-consuming love for me despite my own loud and messy, energetic, upside-down, autonomous, disobedient and quirky behavior. It was God's pursuit of my heart and unconditional, sacrificial love for me that had saved my life - and now hers.

It's hard to take off pride, the fallacy that serves as the unsteady foundation for nearly all of our messy hearts. But in God's glorious plan, I am just the mom.

It took several thoughtful and prayerful weeks before I knew I had to stop worrying and lecturing and start laughing and loving every loud, uninhibited, mess-making, monster-fleeing, tantrum-throwing, nap-evading, coffee-spilling, "do-it-myself" moment before they became distant memories.

After all, God doesn't wash his hands and walk away after every one of my adult-sized tantrums and ridiculously impractical pity-parties. And there are a lot of those.

Raising my children up in the gospel brings with it hundreds of teachable moments for our whole family every day.

Surely not the only way, but the best and intended way for my daughter's understanding of God's love and grace is not through my ability to tell her, but my willingness to show her in every blinking, messy moment.

Sully's arrival brought me to my knees (again) and helped me stop putting my relationship with my daughter at the forefront of my life - and return to the foot of the cross. I love the way he always draws us back.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. John 6:44

Now that Sully is nearly 1, I still think about the days when it was just Sosie and me. I took a lot of our time together for granted. And it's hard to find one-on-one time with either of them. But there are moments, when one or the other is sleeping, that just the two of us snuggle up and sit in the quietude together. They are sweet, savory moments. 

They are still so little, but I hope that one day, in the midst of a loud and noisy world, it is God's loving, peaceful presence that they seek the way they do their mama's right now.