Finding Home Outside of the Puddles
I was in the kitchen thinking of how amazing, how totally amazing it is that the fam has weathered so much change so well:
- living in 5 places in 4 weeks (or 6 depending how you count it)…with the dog,
- the arse through the glass thing,
- no nursing help for weeks,
- forgetting medical formula,
- the thorn in my flesh that this left arm is, tapping me on the shoulder every time I wrap a diaper round, buckle a strap, prep dinner…
- getting a ticket 2 days ago
- trying to sell the house back in North Carolina
- the thousands of decisions about renovating the new place
- paving pathways for the boy in tough places
- the delays that will have us out of our home for weeks yet
- and the STRESS that comes with keeping a marriage and fam running on shifting sands…
It’s nothing but God’s grace sustaining. It’s his miraculous hand holding, in the ticket being dismissed, a friend providing formula, sleep returning, a house to stay in, family to help…
…and there it is – I look down and see the white puddle.
Is that an audible hiss in the air, as I deflate?
The creamy milk lies in drops between the wheels and the shoes. My boy is walking round, exploring in his gait trainer (a walker thingy), and it’s formula on the kitchen floor, dripping down the leg, pooling in the sock, soaking my boy’s shirt.
And it’s enough to make me crumble. “Maybe things aren’t so amazing.”
It’s a reminder – even his little piece of independence is dependent.
Just a 1/2 turn of a tube and the food pumps ON him, rather than inside his tummy. …and I suppose it’s something else to clean, and somehow it’s much more – a reminder of the thing that is so much a part of us that we don’t see it – that my boy can’t eat, can’t walk, can’t speak, all because they didn’t test the super yellow babe …but STOP.
Before the balloon has let out it’s last breath, I plug the hole.
This is warfare too. A battle is being waged here, for my soul, for joy, for home.
In this move, in the mega, in the minutia that feels mega…I can be at home, I can wipe the mess, I can kiss my boy, and I can grab hold of the joy set before me.
I choose joy. I choose wonder.
I choose to celebrate the sunrise of that smile on my boys face, the giggling girls, the beds we have to sleep in, and the hands of help, the formula that we almost didn’t have.
Thanksgiving is the pathway to HOME, the pathway to the Father.
When my own children whine, I feel further from them. When they are blind to the ice-cream, and complain about the sprinkles, it’s hard to want to take them for another treat. I need them to learn to see the first gift before I can give more. …and I know that if I let them keep whining, I’m only teaching them to be miserable.
I choose to dwell in the thanks, to speak to my heavenly father about the thorns, but not to whine, not to forever be dwelling on the puddles. I choose to see the lush gardens all around me, one thanks at a time.
The war will always wage. The wonder and the puddles will always stand, side by side.
Let’s wipe up the mess and play, shall we?
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.Better is one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
a Rearranged Life 
Wow Miriam! I leave for a couple of hours… I don’t know why, but formula pumping all over Blue and the floor is so hard.
I am so grateful for the perspective that we have gained in the recent years.
Pain can be so blinding.
Thank you, God, for eyes to see the blessings.