Life as I Now Know It
And so, life has settled into the natural ebb and flow of day-to-day living. Wake up in the morning. Get ready. Go to work. Come home. Cook dinner. Watch a little telly. Go to bed.
But there is now one very important difference. Something that has added such incredible joy to the every-day. Someone who has made the ordinary to seem extraordinary.
She is my baby girl, CJ.
I would not be honest with you if I told you motherhood is everything I expected it to be, mostly because I expected it to be terrifying. To know that I have been entrusted with the life of such a beautiful creature is possibly the scariest task to which I have been assigned. All throughout my pregnancy, I had nightmares and "daymares" of the numerous ways I could permanently disable all that she is intended to be.
But now she is here, and I find some new force inside me. There is a divine strength that brings with it a simultaneous since of undescribable confidence and unbearable humility. I know that, yes, her life has been entrusted into my care. And, yes, that is an awesome responsibility. But there is also some voice that says, "You were especially chosen for this task. You were created for this, and you have been equipped for the responsibility."
And so, instead of an ominous fear that was shaking me to core, I now since a steady Hand guiding me in the every-day. I feel that, for the first time, my path is laid out directly before me. This was my destiny - to be a steward of this priceless possession.
Now I don't wake up because my alarm clock tells me its time. I wake up because my little girl is lying in her bed cooing and "talking" and letting me know that it's time for us to play. When I leave work, I'm not thinking about what TV show is coming on tonight. I'm thinking about how my little girl will smile when I pick her up from Gramma's or Nana's.
But perhaps the biggest transformation has occurred in my perspective of time. The phrase "living in the moment" possesses new meaning.
My days are not measured by how they will lead to my future. Rather, they are measured by how quickly they pass.
I know that doesn't make sense. But it's the only way I know to put it.
Every single day, in almost every experience, a bittersweet phrase passes through my mind: "And it came to pass..."
As the comedian Mark Lowery once said: It came to pass. It didn't come to stay.
It's not permanent.
This phrase has sustained me during the explosive gag-inducing diaper changes, or during the days when CJ and I were both sick, and through the all-night cry-fests when baby and mommy both burst into sobbs. It reminds me that this trial won't last forever, and tomorrow will bring something different.
It came to pass.
But the phrase also stabs its way into my mind when my baby girl giggles at the sight of my face, or when she wraps her little hand around my finger for security, and the times she nuzzles her nose into the crook of my neck, allowing me to feel her warm breath as she falls asleep. These moments also remind me how fleeting this sweet period of my life really is.
It came to pass.
And perhaps that is part of the reason that life seems to finally "fit." Perhaps it is because I am at last living the way we are intended to live - experiencing every moment to its fullest.
Whatever the reason, I am finally where I am suppose to be. This is the life I have always hoped for; though I never knew it before.