.jpg)
This is my life. 26 minutes of it.
Put this on repeat all day long and sometimes into the night and you can view the majority of my current existence.
It’s beautiful. It is exhausting. and it is divine.
“We have been so long taught to regard children as products of education and environment, that we fail to realize that from the first they are persons; and as Carlyle has well said, “The mystery of a person, indeed, is ever divine, to him that has a sense for the godlike.” – Charlotte Mason
This terrifies me. They are persons, and they will grow into the responsibilities of their own decisions. After being so long intertwined with their every moment I will find the house silent and empty, ringing with their echoes. This is our path as women, through bellies full with child, to days packed with taking care of little lives, always a letting go, a constant losing, hoping to gain. Hoping the end will shine brighter even than the treasured beginning. I fight to pull away from this fear of their personhood, to accept that after pouring every minute into who they are, they will decide who they become. After years of working to shape their future, they will hold mine in their hands.
I pull away from the fear, loosen the reins and fall full into the mystery of their magic. Created in the image of God, each one a divine enactment. I lose myself in an artistic process so far beyond me that I could never imagine the next second, let alone the long years ahead. I know they will ask me the same question a thousand times, need help untieing their shoes, squabble with their brother, stumble and bloody a lip. I know the laundry basket will be ever full, the fridge always emptying, but I am always surprised by how gloriously their hair shines in the sunlight, by words of truth born on tiny lips, fierce life springing from them in ever changing ways.
If I can stop the worry, the need for control, I find myself wrapped up in love and magic deep and true, beyond beyond beyond . . . and these images are my testament. They speak of more moments than they can ever show. A poor substitute for my face buried deep in blond silken hair, a stilted representation of little arms thrown around me whispering “I love you”, of the newest game and grand imaginations spilled out all through our home day upon day. So many do not know this holy huddle of a family and I marvel that I should know this love. With all it’s frustrations and long hours, that I should hold these gifts, be surrounded by this life and love. I marvel. and I feel I know a little of what Mary did, pondering, treasuring these things in my heart. Hoping only that we can still hold eachother close no matter what may come.
I fall smitten with their personhood, willing my senses not to grow dull, but to soak up all the glimpses of God that He breathes through them. His creation, His work, mine to hold for a time.
12-18-12 . 24-70mm . VSCO1 Fuji 400+
