Sitting here at my computer: the living room floor is strewn with toys, pillows from the couch, my Bible bag, a tote with baby’s too small clothes, and a nice layer of dog fur, and dust from another house project hubby started yesterday. I can picture the dining room, it too covered in (an even thicker) layer of dust, papers, miscellaneous dishes I don’t have storage for, and baby stuff I need to find a place for on the table. The kitchen needs cleaned and dishwasher emptied. I need to vacuum the bedroom and make the bed. I have dreams and goals of helping my hubby financially, while staying at home and raising the sweetest little boy on the face of the earth. All those ideas need plans around them and work, following up with prospective partners, and well thought/planned out presentations. My mind is swimming with why breastfeeding has become so painful (again), and why I can’t seem to fight off anything (again). And why it’s considered so ‘radical’ to use natural ways to heal and fight disease. All of the above made for a pretty sad, frustrated mood.
In the middle of all this, Danny Gokey’s ”Tell Your Heart To Beat Again” was playing in the background. Without really meaning to, I started singing with it and added thoughts of how I let my past hold me back flood my mind.
You’re shattered
Like you’ve never been before
The life you knew
In a thousand pieces on the floor
And words fall short in times like these
When this world drives you to your knees
You think you’re never gonna get back
To the you that used to be
Glancing up, my mind and face covered in a million different emotions, the sweet, beautiful eyes of my 6 1/2 month old catch mine and I see he is studying me while I sing. His little lips upturn in a smile. The heartbreak and hurt and worry and anxiety fade away for this moment into overwhelming love, and joy and peace and thanksgiving that God could bring into my life such a pure, lovely little soul. And it makes me want to do better, and be better.
I still have chores waiting for me. I still wish I kept up with everything better and that physically I felt better. I still hurt thinking of my past and what people from it willingly gave up. But, more so, I still have the best husband, and I still have this precious little boy who depends on me and reaches for me and shares glorious baby smiles and giggles with. I have just what I need when I need it, just as God promised in Romans 8:28.
I don’t know where you’re at in life. Maybe, like me, you have toys and poop and spit up and new teeth cries calling your name. Maybe you miss all those things. Maybe your heart is breaking because you want those things and they haven’t come yet. Maybe you’re trying to figure out where you belong. Wherever you are, I want you to take that big, hard, hurtful picture in your head and scale it down to size. Find that one little pretty corner you’ve been neglecting. A smile from a customer or friend, a soft touch from someone trying to show support, maybe they don’t even know you need it, a drop of water on your favorite flower, the glisten in untouched snow, the comfort of the couch you’re sitting in, the studious look from a baby, toddler, child, teenager who, even tho they don’t know it, needs you. Take comfort. It’s there, sometimes we just have to open our eyes and find it.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
