Time

This baby has already changed me in two big ways.  Well...this may not be the baby's fault.  But I'm going to go ahead and place blame there.  Because that's what good mothers do, right?

Numero uno:  I don't feel like baking.  It's the weirdest thing in the world.  I've loved baking for as long as I can remember.  Nothing fancy--like seriously, NOT FANCY at all--but yum.  Cookies and stuff are the bomb dot com.  But not anymore.  Thanks a lot, bebe.

Numero dos:  I don't feel like writing.  Also pretty weird.  I have really enjoyed writing for a long time, with varying degrees of success, but I have always LOVED sharing my super brilliant opinions--but recently, my brilliance seems to have disappeared.  I hope the world is faring well without my pearls of wisdom.  But truly. I haven't been thinking deeply much at all.  Pros and cons, pros and cons.

BUT.  TODAY.   BREAKTHROUGH.

I read this blog post from Kay Bruner, a sweet friend, outstanding writer, and (I'm assuming here) brilliant therapist.  She is so stinking humble.  And funny.  My favorite combination.  And she made me think, so I now owe her the world.

Today she wrote about how the pain and deep healing process she went through a decade ago is finally showing itself as "worth it."  God is using her experience and the wisdom He's given her to bless other people, which is proving to be ample reward for the trials she's suffered.

My favorite part was this:

Back in the day...if you had said to me, “Hey, some day somebody else is going to be blessed by all this, so it’s worth it”–well, I probably would have slapped your face.  If I’d had the energy.

I laughed, because...well...duh, that's just real.  How often do I (maybe you too) try to comfort someone with the terribly generous platitude, "Oh, it will be worth it some day!  Chin up, soldier," or something of the like?  You probably don't say soldier, but hey, I like to keep things spicy.

And then I realized--I am so very grateful that God invented time.  I truly madly deeply appreciate it.  Time is a big deal, and complicated, and confusing, especially since it's the contrast to eternity, which is something I absolutely CANNOT fathom--but good golly.  I am so glad that I can't remember how bad it hurt when I was a little girl and took a chunk out of my thumb in the bathtub with my mom's razor.  I am so glad I am not eternally living the moment of realizing my pup, who mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the day way out in the country, would never come home.  And my granddad, who died of ALS--definitely not sick anymore.  Praise Jesus.

And my grandmothers, who each sustained serious leg injuries this year--which should have been life-threatening to women their age--can both walk again.  Are you flipping kidding me.  TELL me miracles only happened in Jesus' day.  I'll agree.  BECAUSE IT'S STILL JESUS' DAY.

Now, that also means that my wedding day is over.  Gone.  The fleeting, terrified, glorious moment in which Jeff and I found out that we're pregnant--that "first time" thrill will never happen again.  I'll never get to meet my five youngest brothers and sisters for the first time again.  And every. dang. time. I start a bowl of ice cream...I finish it.  Every. time.  What if ice cream was infinite?!  I MEAN REALLY.

So, there's a balance, of course.  Pros and cons.  But I am so grateful that time moves on, so the pain can change to an ache, and the ache to a scar, and scars remind us of who we are and why we are--and whose we are.

Thank you for taking part in my five-month-writer's-block demolition.

xoxo Bec