No Stopping Now

​I sit in a plastic Adirondack chair and watch my two children play in the front yard. The dry Southern California grass crackles beneath their feet while they splash the water they've filled to nearly overflowing in a rubbermaid tub they found in the garage. They will both be in in-person school in the fall (after this year of school at home) and for the first time in 7 years, I won't hear the sound of little feet running around me every day. I realize that my days will soon be filled with a stillness that I don’t know if I remember.

A stillness that, if I'm being honest, sometimes frightens me.

Who will I be without their constant presence each and every day?

Yes, yes, I know the verses about stillness and quiet and peace. The necklaces reminding me to inhale and exhale. The social media invitations to stop and breathe. I used to post those captions, too.

Be still and know that I am God.

It's beautiful and true.

And, yet.

And, yet, I have come to know my loving Creator so well in the loudness, in the movement, in the chaos of young motherhood.

In my mind, I replay the seemingly fast-forwarded memories of diapers and sleepless nursing-filled nights and stroller walks and building lego towers and painting on the patio and making baking soda and vinegar volcanoes in the backyard. Even in my slow-motion recall of these tender moments, time has gone so very quickly.

And, I know full well in these new days of riding big kid bikes and jumping off sand dunes and climbing trees and running half a mile ahead on the forest trail that the chaotically beautiful movement of this singular life will continue and only get faster.

And so I bow my head into the winds of my life and spread my wings wide.

I have learned that the stillness I seek isn't in the stopping but rather in the gentle opening of my arms to the updraft of God moving ever so faithfully in the swirling winds of life around me.

The movement of life is not mine but His.

The wings I spread are not mine but His.

The breath that gives me life is not mine but His.

My stillness will not be found in my stopping to breathe but rather in accepting with gratitude and hope the freshness and goodness of this life that God breathes into me each and every day.

Gratitude and hope.
Gratitude and hope.
Gratitude and hope.

The breath of my heavenly Father giving life to a heart that beats for Him.

#creatingtolove #meetinggodinmotherhood