I'm not a mom yet, not even close. I do wish someday Lord willing to have my own children, not very many, maybe about 4 or 5 of my own? Hmm and about a few hundred adopted in my care. For right now at the young age of 24 I am simply a nanny, a mother's helper. It is a humbling service to my heart since I so wish I could have my own but for now, this is where I am in my motherhood.
One year ago I attained a beautiful close friend. Kara, who now is one year old has become one of my most closest friends and teachers. She is so beautiful and stunning. When she was born, I asked Father what I would learn from her and the purpose her little life would have for my heart. Father would tell me over and over that she would show me His delight and Grace. For the past few years I have been learning in deeper depths the intricacies of Father's delight. The sacred and divine truths that have claimed my heart tell me that I am so uniquely seen, chosen and delighted in just as me. Father's heartbeat for me has echoed that much clearer in my heart; truths that tell me how much he knew and knows me and created me before even the world began.
I have battled and still do like all of us with the lies from this world that tell us we must do and do and do to be seen, to be noticed, to be approved of and delighted in. I have done so many things for God in my efforts to fill the aching voids in my heart that told me I wasn't enough and that I needed to do more so that I could be loved. My self gratifying deeds for Father done in the pit of my self rejection always always left me feeling even more unsatisfied, anxious and unrested.
Kara has taught me so much about the beauty of just being. Before she was even born I daydreamed about what she would look like, what her voice would sound like, what her personality would be like, what she would become and as I watched in on Christy's full 9 months of pregnancy so closely I could not even wait for her to be born. I feel like God has given me such a special blessing to be able to learn these parts of His heart so young and inexperienced in motherhood. I can in no way even come close to relating to all you mothers out there who have experienced this for yourselves as you have carried your baby inside of you for 9 months and have also thought and anticipated in fuller measure all these things, but as a young girl Watching this happen so intimately and closely with another mom, knowing that I would also be another great influence on her life, all of these feelings and thoughts transferred onto me as well.
I can't help but think about how much the Father knows us and loves us when I think back to that season of waiting for Kara to be born. Father created little us in his heart before the foundations of earth even began and He thought everything into being about the intricate, unique characteristics and physical traits that would make us, us. Everything He thought into being came from His very own creativity and imagination that would make us us. While making us He cheered, laughed, cried with joy and said "this is very good". Everything He made He was so satisfied in and He could just not even wait to see that little us come into being within time to live out everything He put into being within us when we were only inside His heart. His heart was where I was fashioned, created, seen and adored, every single part.
Yesterday as I was spending time with Kara, I just loved watching her play. She wasn't doing anything exciting at all. She wanders around, picks up things, sticks them in her mouth and then becomes bored with it in a span of 10 seconds then ventures on to the next object small enough to fit in her mouth. Not too exciting and it seems so so insignificant but to me I found it breathe taking, funny and captivating. I was having so much fun just watching her because I simply enjoyed her, not for anything that she was doing but because she was just her, in all her realness being vulnerable enough to just be.
How brave and vulnerable of a thing it is for me now to just be. What if people really see me? What if I don't look like what I want others or Father to really see me as or know me for?
The truth that I have learned from my one year old little friend is that just being is the most beautiful thing a human can do. Father has shown me more and more that when I am just being, knowing that just doing nothing but living real and being myself adored by my Father I am living a full life. That is the only calling I am called to live out. I am doing everything that is expected of me. There is no other expectation that Love has on me. Kara has no idea how much her family just loves her for her because she is Kara, the one who we waited for and have learnt. She is so funny in her own little ways and her personality is so bold and vibrant. She so innocently lives out of a heart of vulnerability that doesn't know enough to have to perform for others or do things out of wanting to be seen or heard or loved. She has no idea what expectation is. She cries when she's not feeling loved, she is stubborn when she wants something she can't have and she is never scared to get angry at what is unfair in her eyes. No hint of performance or shame in who she is. She just lives and lives simply, enjoying being adored and loved. I can't even imagine how Christy feels as I share in just a hint of what this must be like to watch. Real Fathers and Mothers must know this full well.
Father loves us for us because we are just us. Unique, no one has ever been you before and will ever be you again. He has taken us and has chosen us to be rare, unique and something special worth creating. His eyes of love see all the way through because everything about our existence exists because he made it to. He is fully satisfied in us NOW for who we are, not for who we could be if we looked a certain way or did this or that. We are sons and daughters.
Henri Nouwen says it beautifully when he says " we must know who we are as the Beloved. We must know how much we are actually so adored and loved. We must claim this truth letting it become not just something we are but something we become." We must let it sink down from our heads to our hearts as we become more sanctified into the Beloved. We must become the Beloved by how much we live from that place in order to take on His righteousness instead of our own, to live a life under grace instead of the law.
When I just be and let others see who I really am, relying on grace alone, I am declaring that Jesus is enough. What He did on the cross for me is enough, I have nothing else to add to it, I am nothing and what He has done is everything.
We must know we are the beloved of Christ, the one in whom His favor rests. We must know we are taken and blessed by our Father before we do anything else. This is beautiful being-ness, love lived out, callings fulfilled and rest at it's fullest, life under GRACE ALONE.
Love,
A beloved learning how to become what she beholds.
Love it Kay!! :)
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