A friend wrote me a note right before my due date for #4, our third daughter… In it, she described my involvement with my children as individualized and invested. I thought of what God has done, because if that’s a true description – an accurate one – it’s a testimony to the manifestation of God in my life, the renewal of my mind that has made me more like who I am in the spiritual realm.

In other words, God is making all things new – including me 🙋🏽‍♀️

I read with our #3…and make sure she has her hugs, which she runs on as much or more than Cinnamon Toast Crunch or chicken tenders. I cook with our #2, and he’s, maybe, called to do that. And if not “called,” then wired or, made to cook 👨🏽‍🍳

I was sitting on the steps, dealing with Braxton Hicks and the hardness of wood under my bottom, anxiously waiting for my oldest to return for her things; a play date event had graduated to a sleepover after a vote and show of support from the Host Mother.

I started to do nothing, but anxiety pushed my heavily burdened body upstairs. My mind was racing ahead of those difficult steps. I knew what I needed, and God sent my husband up to put the finishing touches on all my plans – making him the bridge between what I wanted done as I sat, an exhausted whale of woman on our bedroom floor, with ✌🏾 bags: a resilient mesh tote for toiletries and #1’s Everything Bag. That’s the one with the spray paint and graphic writing design and the unrealistic rope handles.

We got her packed and went down. I trudged down to the stairs and stared toward the front door – with the eyes of my heart, waiting. 

My oldest had used the bag earlier – taking it with her to a local splash park. I’d unloaded and reloaded it. Her silver cross bracelet was in there, and as I waited anxiously to explain how I’d packed the bag, so I could hug her and assure myself she was “set,” I also held that bracelet. 

Hubby said I could relax, and he’d hand off. But I needed to see if she wanted me to help her fasten that bracelet on her tiny wrist. And I needed to hug her.

We are still a family that waits together. So, we all sat down in the filtered prisms of light that the front of the house offers in the dinner/right after dinner hours…

That moment of myself, that iteration of myself is what I was thinking of just before I saw that note 📝 from my friend – the one about my individual and invested involvement with my children. Before that note, all I’d felt from myself and that memory of me was my anxiety.

I write this on one of those days when it feels like: The devil uses the people in my inner circle to discourage me, while God is using the people who don’t necessarily see me every day to encourage me. Even so… Thank God for allowing friends to give us a window into how He sees and loves us.

*NOTE: Most of these posts have been published according to the real timeline of my life. But this one sat as a draft till well after the delivery of our #4🧐🤓