Learning to Love ... ME

Life is full of both Awwwws and Awe.  If you don’t believe this, take a few minutes to just reflect back on things that have made you stop and take a deeper breath.  Have you ever just thought, “Wow!  That is awesome?”  How do you feel when you see all the colors in a sunrise?  Do all the colors that simply come from a big ball of fire rising amaze you?  How about when you see the constant breaking of waves on the beach?  They always come one after the other, without fail.  The way the trees most always know when to drop their leaves and when new ones are to replace them.  How water falls from the clouds and sustains our world.  <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

If none of those things put you in awe or have caused you to sigh with a big awwww, then by all means the birth of a new life certainly has?  I remember when I was told that I was pregnant with my first son.  I was in shock, my plan to be married a full five years before starting a family stared just one year earlier.  I didn’t feel like I was ready at 23 to be a mom.  In fact, when my doctor assured me that I would be a mom in seven months, I asked him if I’d know instinctively how to care for a baby.  He got a really good chuckle from me when I said…”IF this was a puppy, I’d have it made, but a baby!!!!”  My doctor assured me I’d be fine. 

The pregnancy progressed well I thought, and then in January before Jeremy was due in April, on a routine visit, I was told.  Go home, go to bed and keep your feet up, you are not to go back to work, but to keep yourself and your child from danger; you MUST have complete bed rest.  Complications!  I struggled with following doctors’ orders.   I was always too active to just lie around and grow a baby.  I had to do something.  I felt walls closing in around me.  I had to consider, or be convinced that there was something not right.  Blood pressure is something that I knew about, but could not see. And I didn’t feel any differently other than my tummy was growing and the rest of me along with it!  But with my mom and mother in law, sister in law and a few friends in the medical field all making sure I took care of myself I delivered a healthy baby boy on April 23, 1983. 

He was my first big awwww and awe!  Emotions over came me as I thoroughly examined this wee bundle of joy.  How did fingers form so perfectly?   How did those little toes have toenails?  My son, my little boy, the beginning of motherhood, the journey of constant awwws and awes, and yes, I knew how to care for a baby.  The instructions weren’t attached to him, but they came from instincts.  I did so well with this adventure, I managed to try it all again, the next time was planned and I was not in constant fear that I would not know how to care for him.  I enjoyed Kevin, his kicks, his hiccups… even the full nine months of morning sickness was forgotten when my son was placed in my arms.

God has given us so many things that cause me to say awwww, and to put me in awe.  I look around me daily and give thanks for all that I have been blessed with.  The small things to the huge things… When I hear of someone having a new child, I praise God, and it takes me back to discovering the wonders of a newborn.  When I sit at the ocean and watch the waves…I imagine my worries being sucked back from the sand as the water recedes to begin another wave.  When I watch the sun rise, the colors take my breath away….when I see the leaves fall; I call the neighbors and tell them… “Your leaves have fallen on my side of the fence, come and get them!”   Yes, we laugh and we know that things fall where they may.  It’s a good feeling to know that we can either laugh at things in life, we can make the best of situations, or we can pout and be resentful.  I use all those leaves as added mulch to for my evergreens.  They help hold the moisture in the soil, so that when we have periods without rain, these majestic trees still sip from the earth.   God’s wisdom is great, his miracles are many and he is always with me.  The awwwws and awe that he shows me only proves his presence.  He is real, he is alive and he will forever be with us.  He talks to me, and assures me that he is with me.  I am in awe….

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for your blessings.  Thank you for my eyes, so that I may see all the wonders of this earth, thank you for my ears so that I may hear the sounds that are music to my soul, thank you for being able to feel, to touch and smell, and to taste the wonders around me.  Lord I am in Awe of all the blessings.  We only have to sit and be to know you are here.  Dear Father, thank you for my family, friends, neighbors and those Lord who I have yet to meet.  I know there are more wonders ahead for me, and I know without a doubt there will be more times that awwww is all that I am able to say when I look around.  Feelings of warmth and love surround me and I know without a doubt that it is you.  Lord, bless those near and dear to me, be with the sick of mind or body.  I pray Lord that you will reach out and heal those who need to feel your presence.  Lord, thank You, for my life, all that I am, all that I was and all that I will be.  Use me Lord for your will.  In Christ’s name I pray… amen.

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