I cannot even begin to deal with the fact that you are three whole entire years old!! You are such a little man now! I still remember the day I found out I was pregnant with you, it was the longest 3 minutes of my life waiting for the pregnancy test to reveal what my heart already knew. I remember that first ultrasound where you were a black and white, blurry little blob with the most beautiful, flickering heart beat. I remember car hunting for something perfect that would fit your sweet, little car seat and keep you safe and protected. I remember looking at houses trying to envision you learning to crawl and walk and play with Duplo blocks (you were always playing with Duplos in my envisioning.) I remember baby showers and baby jabs to the ribs. I remember freak out moments and exciting ones. I remember arriving at the hospital on Thanksgiving Day, with our bags packed, foregoing the turkey dinner and ready to Do. This. Thing... and slightly terrified. I remember the first time I finally saw your perfect face. I remember your first cry. I remember your first night at home. I remember asking your dad if we should take you back to the nurses at the hospital because they knew wayyy more than we did. I remember your first bath. I remember baby smiles and baby laughs and baby coos. I remember first crawls and first steps and first cake. I remember you as the first purest love I ever knew.
It breaks me just a little to know that all your baby firsts are becoming a little fainter in my memory bank as we grow further away from those firsts and inch toward first days of school and first lost tooth and first sports team. 3 seems like it's kinda a bridge from baby to big boy and my heart doesn't want to watch you venture onto that bridge just yet.
Because 2 was good. Scratch that. 2 was AMAZING. You got to go to the movie theater for the first time, you were in a book, you went on your first big family trip to Chelan, you pretty much potty trained yourself, and you started preschool! And watching you become a big brother was one of the most emo moments in all of history. That day you pranced into the hospital room, smiling from ear to ear proclaiming to all who would listen 'THIS IS MY BROTHER.' And I cried like a 5 year old girl. Just when I thought I might break your heart by sharing my time and love with Cole, you caught my heart instead and filled it up to overflowing. You made every fear evaporate as you kissed your brothers face and sang him songs and helped and loved and showed patience and grace. 2 was special. I kinda hate saying goodbye to 2. Because how could it possibly get better?
But, in true Jace fashion, you seem to outshine yourself. You make everything better. And so I know, 3 is good. We can camp here at 3 because as long as it's you, 3 will blow our minds and make us belly laugh and shift our paradigms and expand our light and our love for you and for everyone we know.
Because it's just who you are and it's just what you do.
You make our world bigger and you stretch our hearts wider and you make us a little braver and a lot stronger and you dare us to boldly set our limits somewhere past the moon and beyond the galaxies.
So, cheers to your first day of being 3 with a whole new year full of firsts ahead. It's destined to sparkle as bright as the stars.
Now.
Let's. Do. This. Thing.
I remember one hot, summer night when my husband asked me to come outside and star gaze with him. As we laid out on our deck I remember looking up at the canopy that hung over us--a perfect midnight blue sky with millions of sparkling stars. I remember feeling so small in that moment.
It's easy to feel small and insignificant in such a big, fast paced world filled with so many hard, trying moments. I've lived through times of feeling betrayed by friends or consumed by my own failure. I remember a time being so weak from despair I had no other option but to collapse into a soggy pile on my closet floor drowning in a lake of my own tears. I have seen friends die, families fall apart, spouses betray each other. I have seen far too many people living in this world feeling all alone and invisible while the rest of the world seems to thrive around them.
When engrossed in these moments, it is often hard to comprehend that God cares. Especially when I look around at people whose lives seem to be going great. Those times when I'm feeling crushed in a valley while I watch people flourish on their mountain tops--it's easy to wonder 'Does God even see me down here? How can He be with me here when He's clearly with them up there?'
I was reading about Sarah and Hagar in Genesis the other day. Here are two ladies in very different positions in life. Sarah was the wife of Abraham. She had control to do what she wished with her servant. She was married. She was promised a son. She was in a much higher place of authority and power than Hagar.
Hagar was all alone. Pregnant. A servant. Out in the wilderness with no promise of a future. No plan to prosper. Just despair on her horizon.
And yet. The same God that fashioned the stars in the night sky saw and heard them both. He was able to be with Sarah in her place of authority and Hagar in her time of struggle.
When Hagar felt like not a soul on the planet cared, the God of the universe sought her out. He called her out of a dead end in the wilderness. He promised her generations. He became her soft place to land and her steady rock to hold because He was there when no one else was. He was all she needed. She called Him 'El Roi'--'you are the God who sees me.'
And He sees you. Right where you are. Whether on the peak of your mountain, or in the hollow of your valley, or somewhere in the middle. He cannot be contained to just one space or time. He is bigger than the sky that hovers over the mountains and the foothills. He is a God who sees and hears our deepest, painful groans in the middle of a lonely night and He laughs and smiles with us on those days we are swept up in the breeze of joy. He is grieving with the family who is watching a loved one pass away while rejoicing with the family welcoming a new baby into the world.
He is great enough to hold all of it in His gentle hands. He wants you to know you are not alone. He will seek you out in the wilderness so that you will feel the weightlessness of being seen and heard. And he will dance with you in all the beautiful, breathtaking moments because He desires to just be with you.
So the next time you look up at the night sky and feel the smallness of who you are--
Rest in the knowledge that the same God that hung those stars has climbed down into your life.
He is big enough to reach the corners of the earth and the crevices of your heart.
He saw a lonely, pregnant, servant girl out in the wilderness.
And today, right where you are,
He sees you.
"What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world." --GK Chesterton
When I was younger, life seemed to have a mysteriously, enchanting element to it. Even the most mundane of activities were seen as adventures because being so young made every activity feel fairly new. The simplest things like washing the car and mixing the cookie dough batter and then licking the mixing spoons were enough to make the whole day seem quite accomplished. I remember thinking riding in the back of mom's station wagon to Burlington Coat factory was such a long, fun drive (and now reality has set in and it was about a whopping 15 minute drive and riding backwards makes me want to barf and Burlington Coat Factory is where people go if they want their car stolen from the parking lot). Nevertheless, these were the kinds of things that deserved my excitement, these were the things that made life so pleasantly perfect.
I don't remember when those feelings of excitement and adventure in the ordinary started to wane, but eventually they did. The world stopped being so fun and innocent all the time when I started to notice it could also be boring or daunting.
And then I had a little boy and all of a sudden, the magic started to emerge again. I now see the flicker of adventure and excitement in his eyes over things like tackling dad or using the scissors to cut up a magazine or blowing dandelions in the backyard. A boring day to me is a brand new day to him with something relatively exciting and new, considering he's only been alive for about 3 years. I forget the simplest things are sheer delight to him. There is a weightlessness and freedom he possesses from not having to worry about anything right now--but to just explore and enjoy. To be whimsy and silly and present.
Last week, Jace spent the day with my mom and as he and me were cuddling at bedtime, the sweet scent of her perfume lingered in his hair and it overwhelmed me. In that moment, I was simultaneously a mom to Jace and a little girl again. I remembered a little girl who found all her comfort and security in the lap of her mom. I felt that enchanting innocence in those sweet, silent moments--the magic of being both a kid who found comfort and a mom who gives it.
It's so easy to get wrapped up in the stories on the news or in our jobs or finances or relationships or all the millions of things that take root in our minds and grow into a wilderness of worry. It's easy to see cloudy, murky days, or just boring, mundane ones. If we're not careful, we can miss those moments that steal the breath from our lungs--the ones that are like fresh, warm blankets draping over us, inviting us to take comfort and delight in the small things.
Tonight,
I'm grateful for the perspective from my boy who is marveling at the wonder of it all.
It's because of him I've realized I get a second chance --
to live in awe of this magical world.
