Backwards Contentment

If youth and old age could be combined into one non-contradictory person (think: Energizer Bunny with a brain, or Labrador puppy without a penchant for chewing and jumping), we would have it made. I've often wondered why it is we can't have both. Why do I have to make all the amateur mistakes now, when I've got the energy to go 70 miles per hour?

Yet somehow, with increasing smarts and wisdom (because, although I am most definitely not on the honor roll for Life Lessons Mastered 101, at least I have progressed from my 15 year-old self) comes increasing wistfulness. I first noticed this, not in myself--because who notices flaws in himself first?--but in the scores of sweet middle-aged women who ooh and aah over my baby. Every single one of them says some variation of, "Enjoy this time! It goes by so fast! It seems like mine were that age just yesterday, and now they're 27 and 31!"

To all the middle-aged mothers out there, I am trying, I promise! You tell me the days go by incredibly fast, so I am doing my very best to savor every nighttime feeding, every sleepy morning smile, and every splish-splash in the bath. But I find in myself the very real tendency to be "backwards content." I don't think this is just a mom problem, because it's not only a struggle for me with my nearly seven month old who is sitting up, waving, and eating avocado (how? how did we get here so fast?), but also in many other areas of life. High school seemed interminable until I was finished and could look back with satisfaction. Getting married would neeeeveeeerrrrrr happen until it did, and now I wonder how my single years went by so fast. My body was never quite perfect; then I had a baby and I became perfectly content with my body...the way it used to be. Somehow, being content is always easier in retrospect.

Maybe there is no cure for this. Maybe every woman everywhere will look in the mirror and criticize her appearance at the age of 20 and then long for that appearance at the age of 40. Maybe every woman everywhere will wish for a good night's sleep, or a nicer house, or a new stage of life, but when confronted with that very wished-for thing, will look back with contentment upon the interrupted nights of sleep (representing precious wee ones crying in the night), the small house (representing close proximity with loved ones), or the old stage of life (representing productivity and energy). 

And then I met a woman at Wegmans (no, you don't have them on the West Coast, and yes, they're awesome) who was adoring Liam; he, in turn, was giving her priceless smiles and giggles. She repeated the exact same mantra in the exact same way. Except she kept going. After the "just yesterday" bit, she said, "My son is 14 now, but 14 is such a fun age too. I'm so proud of him, you know? It's just cool to see your children growing and learning and becoming more independent. You'll love that stage too." I admired this woman for her ability to love the past and embrace the present--a delicate balance.

I don't think the situation is hopeless. I think it is a beautiful thing to look back upon life with contentment. Hindsight is 20/20 after all. But I think it is an even more beautiful thing to embrace the here and now with vigor and delight. Maybe that's what all these older, wiser women have been trying to tell me all along.

The Birth of Liam

Lessons on self, life, and God are a plodding process, but there are rare moments where God seems to turbocharge the lesson and condense it into a whirlwind that leaves me dizzy.

After 42 weeks of leisurely lessons--lessons in patience, body image, and discomfort--labor began, and with it, the whirlwind.

12 hours later, I was admitted to the hospital; 17 hours after labor began, Pitocin was started to move things along; 18 hours in, my midwife broke my water, and not long after that, hard labor began. I remember feeling as though this was something I couldn't do. "My strength is made perfect in weakness." I remember feeling intense gratitude for the support of my midwife, my mom, and Joel. "Two are better than one." I remember feeling as though I was in an interminable place of pain. "Why is my pain perpetual?" I remember feeling challenged emotionally, spiritually, and physically. "Our sufficiency is from God." I remember the moment when I wasn't progressing--only halfway dilated after 26 hours of labor!--and I wasn't at all sure that giving birth was something I could do. "You can do this," a nurse whom I had never seen before that day told me. She looked me straight in the eyes as she commanded me to relax.

4 hours later, Liam was born.

It didn't happen in that one second of his arrival at 1:18 AM on August 18, but in the 30 hours leading up to his arrival; and in the panicky moments after his birth when he was examined for meconium aspiration and, struggling to breathe, whisked away to the NICU after only a few moments on my chest; and in the 24 hours he stayed in the NICU (he is completely healthy now with no ill effects, praise the Lord!); and in the six months since then wherein Joel and I have learned what it means to have a son. Somewhere in the whirlwind of all that, I feel as though I have learned a lifetime of lessons.

September 2015

Never were tears and smiles so often blended together. I cried in pain as I gave birth. I cried when my brand new baby, whom I had yet to see, was across the room and surrounded by neonatologists with grave-looking faces. I cried when I held my baby for the first time and had only a precious minute to meet him and then say goodbye to him. I cried when I woke up without him, and I cried when he was discharged from the NICU. I cried when Liam smiled at me. I cried in weariness from a night and day of little sleep. I cried to say goodbye to my mom after four weeks together. Held in my husband's arms, I cried over my body I didn't seem to recognize anymore and which seemed to look flabby and unattractive in any outfit I tried on (my opinion--but, thankfully, not his!).

October 2015

I beamed when I found out that we had a son, and I beamed as I breastfed Liam for the first time in the NICU. I beamed as I watched Joel hold him close for the first time. I beamed as we posed for our first family picture together. I beamed when the nurses gushed over him (and the waitress, and every four year-old girl, and the cashier at Goodwill...). I beamed through those aforementioned tears when Liam first smiled at me. I beamed as friends and family met him for the first time. I beamed as I heard Joel talk about our son. I beamed at how adorable he was the first time I dressed him (and the 139th time).

February 2016

I have learned what love is in a way I never knew before. Perhaps I understand just a little bit better the love my parents have for me. Maybe, just maybe, I grasp God's love for Jesus in a way I didn't before. And God's gift of His only Son for the sake of the salvation of the world becomes an even greater sacrifice than I previously fathomed it to be.

P.S. This was written three weeks after Liam was born. It's hard to believe that he turned six months old yesterday!

Looking Back and Looking Forward

Six years ago, on this exact day, we posted our very first post to "One Bright Corner." Since then, it's been an unforgettable experience. Through blogging, we've made friends with ladies we still keep in touch with to this day (we love you Keilah and Charae!), and we've gotten to know in-real-life friends all the better (we love you Elanee and Ruthie!). We got to ride the wild ride of being named Blogger's Blog of Note and have had the privilege of having many thoughtful people contribute to "One Bright Corner" in the form of guest posts.

We started our very first post only a year out of high school with so many events unexperienced, so many lessons unlearned, so many plans for the future, and so much love for writing. We've now completed 500 posts and find ourselves six years older with many experiences, lessons, and plans fulfilled. Yet life keeps rolling, the learning keeps happening, and our love for writing never wanes! We're so grateful for you, our dear readers, for supporting us, reading what we put up here (the good, the bad, and the ugly!), commenting, following, and sharing. Your encouragement is such a treasure.

Nine inches of snow and a week of temperatures in the single digits and teens have left Maryland a very frigid place (at least in comparison to the verdant, spring-like Washington State!). But good things do come of such weather: meet Hugo, the gentleman snowman. Isn't he cool? (Pun intended.)

Baby and I are now 17 weeks into the pregnancy and doing very well! Here, at his 14-week ultrasound, you can see him waving to his Mama and Papa, which of course prompted tears of joy, love, and awe. Is this truly our baby, already so perfectly formed yet so tiny, whom we'll get to hold in 23 weeks? Can he really begin to hear us now, with his fully developed ears, as the doctors tell us he can? What should we name him? Is that his tiny foot I feel, or merely lunch digesting? How can I love a little being so much, when I have yet to meet him or even know his name?

Becoming a parent is an incredible experience!

Small Beginnings

Life these days is measured not so much in dates or days, but weeks. Every week brings prosaic tasks and ordinary living, and in those tasks and living I find new awe, for each week also brings new milestones for the baby and I and brings Joel and I closer to the day when we can meet our baby and hold him* and love on him. This week, he has grown to the size of a peach, which is adorable. I am told that my morning sickness should begin to dissipate (would someone please alert my stomach?). We're creeping through a baby name book (there is no short list of favored names yet; all we have is a very long list of mostly girls' names since we have yet to reach the boys' name section); I'm adding to my maternity clothing stash (thanks in large part to Mama!); and I've read enough on baby feeding, umbilical cord clamping, and labor and delivery to know that I have a huge amount to learn in the next six months. It's a happy task!

Joel and I have also been taking advantage of the quietness of DC in the winter to visit museums (Smithsonian Postal Museum was excellent!) and monuments (we're partial to the Lincoln Memorial, since it was the location of our engagement almost two years ago). Truly, "the world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder {G.K. Chesterton}."

Snow has been a regular occurrence of late, and three beautiful inches currently cover the ground outside. I've been highly tempted to go build a snowman!

This city continues to entrance me with its 250 year old buildings and adorable tea shops. Exploring is always an adventure, and while I've gotten pretty good at walking anywhere within a 3 mile radius, please don't ask me to navigate the multitude of one-way streets by car!

I'm looking forward to teaching music again--I've missed teaching and my dear students so much! So it is with great delight that I'm taking on three siblings from a sweet family at church.

Small beginnings, these. And yet God is so faithful to grow them. He grew a childish admiration into a marriage more wonderful than I could have imagined--and which long-married couples tell me will only grow better. He is growing me to rely upon Him in a place so far from where I called "home" for the first 24 years of my life and so removed from everything comfortable and familiar. Yet He is also growing my friends, activities, and familiarity here, so that I no longer find new and overwhelming experiences every week. And, of course, He's growing this precious child of ours. From two small cells, full of life and humanity even then, to three inches long now and more complex than man can understand.

These small beginnings are beauties to me--miracles which "are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see {C.S. Lewis}." What small beginnings and miracles have you experienced in your life lately?

*We’re not planning to find out his gender until the birth, but I refer to the baby as a “he” for no other reason than ease of communication (grammatically speaking, the masculine pronoun is always used when the gender is unknown).

The Very Long Wall

On the day before Thanksgiving, Joel and I discovered, to our delight, that I am pregnant! We are overjoyed at the prospect of welcoming a little one into our lives sometime around August 4. Each and every week, I eagerly look up the development of our baby, proudly announcing his* progression from poppy seed- size to lentil-size to kidney bean-size to grape-size and now to fig-size.

My baby causes me to reflect on an experience I had, eight years ago, on my first visit to Washington D.C. It was Father’s Day, and I stood in front of a great black wall that stretched in front of me in an overwhelming expanse, reflecting my solemn face right back to me. Two walls, really—both 246 feet, 9 inches long, with each wall starting just above my ankle and ending several feet above my head. I cried as I read the names of the men who had died or went missing in the Vietnam War—58,272 lives cut short. Covering the bottom of the memorial, and overflowing into the walkway, were hundreds of notes, cards, roses, and mementos—heartbreaking tributes to daddies by children who had barely known their heroic fathers. I’ve never forgotten that day.

I reflect again on our baby, growing inside of me, our own personal miracle of life! Everything I read about him speaks of him as the unique person that he is—developing and growing, fully alive, fully human, and already completely adored. But if I was to google "11 weeks pregnant abortion" instead of “11 weeks pregnant development,” I’d suddenly find a host of the same exact sources no longer using the personal pronouns “he” and “she” but “it.” These sources no longer describe the miracle of a thriving human inside of me who, at but a few months into his existence, already has every part of his basic physiology in place. No, now they pontificate about a blob of tissue as though he doesn’t already have a spirit and a soul.

And somehow this thought, which has always hit me hard, overwhelms me now that God has put this precious baby inside of me, now that January 22 marks the 42^nd year since the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade, and this Sunday is Sanctity of Life Sunday. Now, at this moment, I can hardly bear to fathom the enormity of the situation.

In my imagination, I am standing in front of another great black wall that stretches in front of me in an overwhelming expanse, reflecting my tear-stained face back to me. This wall looks exactly like the other one—it is sobering and simple, made up of two walls that each start small and join at the apex, above my head. But this wall is also different. It bears upon it, not the names of thousands of brave servicemen who died for their country, but the names of millions of babies who were murdered before they ever drew a breath. This wall is also 1,000 times bigger. Each part is 246,750 feet long, and I cannot see the end, for together, the two walls are be 93.4 miles long in order to contain each and every name of the 56,662,169 babies murdered in the US since January 22, 1973. I have never walked this far in my life. It will take me at least two whole days—probably three—to walk the entire length of this wall. There are very few cards, roses, or mementos to break up the vast stretch of ghastly black. I put my hand on my stomach and think of my own baby there, and I mourn for the loss of these babies. I begin my walk. Whether it takes me three days or three weeks or three decades, I will grieve the death of these innocent people, and I will never, ever stop fighting for an unborn baby’s right to live.

*We’re not planning to find out his gender until the birth, but I refer to the baby as a “he” for no other reason than ease of communication (grammatically speaking, the masculine pronoun is always used when the gender is unknown).