Need I say more? Heaven help me when she turns thirteen if she's giving me looks like this at two.A few things I've noticed now that I have a two year old again: the irresistible adorable-ness peaks at this age. She's in this tiny window right between baby and little girl, dainty, determined, soft and fitful. Her fury also peaks at this age and she can turn every head in the grocery store with her back arching rants til I'm blushing with embarrassment. At two they're trying to figure a few things out like, "does she really mean it when she says not to stand up in the grocery cart? hmm, is she serious about not chewing through the packaging of the cracker box?" "Maybe she's kidding about not going in the big pool with out a flotation device, maybe I should try jumping in anyway." Another observation is that she saves all of her angst for me, and is as sweet, compliant and cuddly as ever with all my friends. Two can make me absolutely furious at one moment and melt me the next because everything she says is in her impossibly cute language, that only the mama understands every word of. At two, I'm getting to see more of this fiery, independent spirit in my girl and am loving seeing more of this little person God has given me. I found a picture and realized that she looks so much like me but has such a different temperament. Even in the exhausting moments, I'm in no hurry for her to grow out of two. Despite some sanity lost, she brings me so much joy every day. It all happens fast enough.
The other day I was chatting over tea and hummus with some friends and they reminded me of this passage:
"Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forever."
Psalm 131:2-3
It's amazing how my spirit lifts and I feel built up when I'm around my girlfriends. There's something that feels so safe about being understood. I've been thinking on these verses all week. The picture is so very powerful to me since it is a bond I know so well. A little child that isn't disturbed by hunger, but satisfied and content, at peace to be in the arms of the one who loves her the most. The other day I had a really difficult day with Naya. But that evening when she was done struggling and asserting her will she just rested in my arms as I sang to her. She was still, content and there was grace between us. She sat up and put her hands on both my cheeks and just starred at me. I marveled at her intensely dark eyes. I could feel my heart growing in places I didn't know I had with love for her. It had nothing to do with how awful or sweet she was that day. It was just that she is mine.
I am awed that my Father loves me this way. This has long been one of my favorite verses:
"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."
Zephaniah 3:17
It's been put to music and I can barely sing it as my voice grows faint at the sheer magnitude of this truth to which I cling for life.
At one point in my life I spent a lot of time trying to earn God's love, so ridden with guilt that I simply could not wrap my head or my heart around the idea that he could ever love me. Don't we sometimes feel so ragged, bruised and weak... so fully unloveable? It's easy to think, if we could just get it together and clean ourselves up, then we could go to Jesus. What freedom comes in knowing he loves us in our brokenness. So when I think on verses like the above, it blows me away. How I want to be a child that has been fed so completely on His word and His life that I am content to be held in that place against His heartbeat, quiet and listening. Waiting for that soft breeze of the holy spirit to touch and envelope me. Not to keep exerting my own will and struggling against him but just to rest in the grace that is between us. To keep going back to Him to be cleansed and wrapped in his love.
