Kicks In the Ribs & Heart

Very soon I'll be holding a beautiful little girl in my arms.

Mind=blown.

A real life person! A real life baby!!

woah.

It's crazy and amazing to think that there will be a whole new person on the planet and I'm the doorway; she'll enter this world through me and her life starts inside of me! I can't get my mind around it, and at this point I just can't wait to meet this darling little ball of sunshine.

Baby fever is real people, she's all I think about all day long whether its folding and refolding her baby clothes, organizing the nursery, lovingly looking at her cloth diapers or smelling her newborn disposable diapers  (true story and I like the smell, of the clean ones anyway). I just can't seem to stop doing something, anything that has to do with her.

But then sometimes the idea of being a mother is really scary,
the amount of sacrifice...the inability to be selfish with my life and my desires and my time, the dependance of someone else's life on mine. I feel the worlds thinking flood into my mind, and I begin to wonder is this a valuable use of my life? Is giving up these things to raise children worth it? Am I going to pour myself into something that matters?

I was reading a chapter from a book called Mom Enough: The Fearless Mother's Heart and Hope by the women of Desiring God, and was so overly moved by their message,
in one of the chapters the author wrote,

"It is easy to think you have a heart for orphans on the other side of the world, but to resent the demands of the children in your living room.  You cannot have a heart for the gospel and fussiness about your life at the same time...A true love of the gospel overflows and overpowers. It will be in everything you do, however drab, however simple, however repetitive. God loves little offerings. Given in faith, that plate of PB&Js will feed thousands. Your laundry pile, selflessly tackled daily, will be used in the hands of God to clothe many. Offered with thankfulness, your work at home is only the beggining. Do not think that your work does not matter. In God's hands, your offerings will be broken, and broken, and broken again, until all have eaten and are satisfied.

And even then, there will be leftovers."

When I was a little girl all I wanted to be was a mommy, I had my beautiful baby born baby doll, who pooped and peed out the food you fed her I might add, and I would walk her around the town in my little stroller and change her little diapers. I loved her dearly.
And yet, somewhere along the way I got swept up in the cultural mindset that being a mother wasn't worth much and didn't amount to anything, that it was a drain on your time and life...

but then I lay in bed at night,
and I feel this little girl inside me...so dependent on me, so trustful of my ability to provide what she needs, so safe in her haven in my tummy...
I feel her toss and turn and stretch out her tiny arms and legs,
I feel her hiccup, and shove her feet into my ribs and I'm lost for words and yet found somewhere in this calling on my life.
In the call to lay down my life and die a thousand deaths for my children I feel my heart blossom into life, like she wiggled those teeny toes up my ribs and right into my heart and I want nothing else in all the world than to give her all my love,
than to make every sacrifice necessary for her.

The world has it wrong,
and it's because it doesn't understand the nature of love...to give everything even to the point of death and come alive in the sacrifice of it all.


I guess in the end, that's why He died isn't it?
Because He so loved the world, because He so loved you and me and this little girl in my belly...
he loved 
and so he died, and brought the rest of us life through his dieing.




For all the moms out there,
know that your sacrifices really are seen and really do matter. Even if no one says thanks you, even if its the thousandth dish you've washed today, or the millionth sandwich you've made...there's something much bigger you're doing here. You're pouring life into lives and being examples of His love, what a worthy way to spend your talents and efforts and time. And thank you, thank you for it all.

For all the women who are going to be mamas soon,
 Know that it will be a sacrifice but it will be worth it, and you are stepping into more than a role, or a season, you are stepping into a calling and a hope, into a love like you've never known. Even though your back might hurt, or you may be reading this in your brief respites between toilet bowl hugs, even though your feet are so swollen you can't remember what an ankle is or if you've ever seen one down there (not that you can see much past your belly anyway)...just know its worth it, theres a little person in there who makes all the uncomfortable moments and pains worth it, and your sacrifice even now is giving them life.



love you all. <3
-one in love mama :)