Thursday, April 14, 2011

Half a year, ya hear?

     Gosh. I just deleted the whole post that I'd been working on here and there all day long. I had written about some of the difficulties we'd been through as new parents, but all day I just felt sick about even recounting those events. So I decided to scrap it and just jump to the good part. Bug turned 6 months today, and aside from Tomáš being in Piešťany for a work conference overnight, we had a pretty good birthday. It seems we've finally gotten into somewhat of a groove. I'm learning to read Lily's signals and, let's face it, I'm just blessed with an extremely good sleeper.
     But here's what I want to write about. When Lily was three-and-a-half months old, Rachael came from China for a visit. I had been telling her about something I'd read in Donald Miller's book, To Own a Dragon, where Miller's friend and mentor, John MacMurray is talking about his kids. He says this, ''I don't even think of the kids as my own kids...I mean they are our kids and all, but really they belong to God. Terri and I had sex, but that's it. I don't know how to make a human being. God makes a human being." And I had heard the first part of this sentiment lots of times before, but it was the second part that struck me. God makes a human being. So, one afternoon while trying in vain to put Lily down for a nap, she developed something like a cross between a hiccup and a burp. It kept happening regularly like a hiccup but was deep. She cried so hard she exhausted herself, but whenever she'd just about fall asleep, this hiccup would come back and she'd cry till she was purple in the face. Finally I got her to sleep by putting her in her carseat and rocking her, but she still did that little sigh thing that babies do after crying too hard...for hours. I knew it was normal for babies to do that for a while after falling asleep, but hours? And for an experienced parent this would probably be nothing, and compared to worse possibilities this would obviously be nothing too. But still, I was worried. When you are as sleep-deprived as I was, everything seems like the end of the world. We tried to watch an episode of Community, but my head was clearly elsewhere, so at one point Rach just looked at me and said, ''she's not yours anyway, right?'' And in that moment, I'm telling you, I was set free. Somehow, the truth of these words had not penetrated my understanding when I'd told them to her, but when she said them to me, God's freedom came flooding in. We are called to do our very best to take care of our kids. And I was doing that. But beyond that, death is out of our hands. And despite what it seems like, that is a very good thing. At least if you believe, like I do, that there is something, Someone infinitely better waiting for us on the other side, and He's the one calling the shots. And that ''all things work together for good to those who love God.'' Romans 8:28
     So even though fear still rears its ugly, well, entire body, now I am better equipped to fight it. And it is a fight. But it doesn't grip me the way it did in the beginning.          

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