Sunshine

I wrote this yesterday (Wednesday), but didn't get a chance to post it.  I still wanted to share it though, so I hope you enjoy!

Today, because it's a beautiful day and because it's hump day and because I just really wanted to,

I took the chair off the porch and put it in the middle of the front yard and sat down.  And as the sun dappled down and gently warmed me and the crickets, birds and wind chimes worked together to serenade me, I did nothing.

I pushed the laundry and the dishes and the weeds and the diapers and the and the and the...all away.

I pushed it all out of my mind and away from me denying their existence for a short while and

I kicked back and sighed and breathed it all in...

Our yard, our house, our children all sleeping inside, taking naps after a fun day at the playground with friends.

A call to the NICU earlier had reassured me that Hazel Grace is still holding her own, sweet baby Hazel Grace, warm in her isolette wrapped in a blanket, cocooned tightly against all the troubles that the world has to offer

and I realized fully that

I am blessed.

And I stayed this way, soaking it all in, the sun, the birds, the wind chimes, the crickets, our house, our family, my husband working hard to make all of this possible...me sitting here in this chair doing nothing...

For 3 whole minutes

Then Jesse started to call for me and Jo woke up and walked out to join me and Baby B woke up and started to cry and Gabriel got up and came out to ride his bike and Elizabeth walked up the driveway, home from her class in DC,

and as they all came one by one to join me,

I saw my blessings being multiplied in front of my eyes

and the volume turned up on the refrain that has been playing in my mind all morning:

You are good, your are good, and your love endures forever
(a line from Jesus Friend of Sinners by Casting Crowns)

And I felt it deeply.

He is good.  We are blessed.

And grace flows even as patience ebbs and worries mount

and I grasp at the rays of sun that are warming me to put them in my pocket and to hide them in my heart to pull out for when the day turns to clouds

because I know that this will not last, this peace that surrounds me because dinner bath bed time will come and so will the no's and the tears and the I don't want to's

and Hazel's monitors will beep and alarm again

and all of these things will happen because I am alive and they are alive.

I cannot have the good without the bad, the sun without the clouds, because I am here on this earth and I, by God's grace, am breathing and walking and whole

so let me say it one more time,

let me hide these Words in my heart

because they are a constant ray of sun and hope even when the storm begins to rage:

Psalm 136:1
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good
And His steadfast love endures forever