unwrapped

I pulled out my camera to shoot the wall plaque gift I had re-noticed on Sunday night, the one that prompted my post-end yesterday, the reminder to my rueful heart to "be still" and know that He is I AM.

Standing beneath me, Piper began her little camera song, "Smiiie, Smiiie, Smiiie," waiting for me to turn it on her so that she could look into the replay screen and ask, "whoozat?" and answer for herself, "it's YOU!"

I found myself lying on the floor with the camera (unable to move my baby bulk up again without a crane) taking her picture, focusing for a few minutes at least on the little person who has changed our lives so much.

It is hard to believe she came from me, hard to believe that the tiny thing we held after five hours of labor has become this little pack of energy and vibrance and spit and vinegar and personality.

It is harder to believe there is another life with a God-plan inside me now, and I'm asking Him, "Why choose me for this? Why not someone else?"

The whys are left unanswered.

I watch Pip grow, wait impatiently for Button to come; I want to demand that God help me figure out a way to let Him into this growing vulnerability of mine, but the demand comes as a whimper by the time I get it out, because who am I to expect Him, to deserve Him in this, my "pain in childbearing?"

Piper has been more clingy lately. I don't know if she's picking up on my uncertainty about this whole mothering thing, or if it's just a new phase, a "Mommy?" phase. Even at night, if she is disturbed, she wakes long enough in our bed to assure herself I am there, touching my hair, throwing her arm over me - or tramping in from her room to cuddle in and be close. She's been calling me Mommy, with a sweet-toned question mark, looking for me, waiting for the hug she knows is still there even in the tired.

She's so much like I am, though she is so much more willing to lay herself out and ask for love I dare not allow myself to expect from her, from anyone, even from God.

I think I try too often to live without love. Piper just lives, seeing through my current standoffish approach to life, even sensing my heart within the changes it's going through, reaching for me in spite of me.

Emily encourages to unwrap God's gifts in the daily chaos of our lives; I think Piper is unwrapping me.

I wonder as I watch her sometimes - what does she know of Him that I don't? I think in her innocence, she may be more conscious of what love is. In her unselfconscious love, she is more like Him who is Love than I.

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Posted for Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky.
Another good read, check out "The Little Island", sent to me this morning by my new friend Maureen.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)