In between Good Friday and Easter, is Holy Saturday. A day, of silence.
🤫
This year, celebrating and reflecting upon my first born’s birth has brought a whole new world of meaning and insight for me as I meditate on the meaning of Easter, and especially Holy Saturday.
+
As I’ve been working through the trauma of those early days, of having a baby much too early and the complications that we navigated in his first few years, I’m reminded of the many ways I thought God was silent. I begged him to fix things, change things, and make things better (easier). And time and time again I was faced with what I deemed as his silence.
+
But of course, God wasn’t silent. He just wasn’t giving me the answer I wanted.
+
Looking back on these photos of Theo’s first birthday and of his first week at home from the NICU, I’m overwhelmed by what I couldn’t see back then. I couldn’t see my gift, because my gift wasn’t what I was expecting.
+
We faced an exhausting NICU experience, a cystic fibrosis scare, seclusion because of his weakened immune functioning, feeding problems, crying that went on for so long It made me physically ill, and incredible loneliness, isolation, and sadness.
+
But God wasn’t silent. He was telling me exactly who he was and who he made me to be through it all. He showed me that disappointed hope is not hopelessness, it’s the ashes from which wisdom and strength is born. He showed me the things inside of me that had to die to make way for something new to live. He showed me the truth he placed inside of me that was true whether I knew it or not, faced it or not, believed it or not.
+
He showed me himself. And through that, he showed me myself, too.
+
Yesterday we celebrated Theo’s 8th birthday. He is healthy, strong, and wonderful. He can climb higher than I care to watch and is well on his way to some pretty cool BMX tricks (see the video in my stories). He is becoming more the person God made him to be every day, and everyday, his life speaks to me of the goodness and the mercy of things turning out differently than we thought.
+
The final photos are of Theo newly home from the NICU. Four pounds and two months old - he was still smaller than a football.
I think fun is my love language.
🎉
There are a lot of things I don’t do well (or at all) as a mom, and I’m ok with that. I express my love best by creating adventures - some big, some small, but all filled with just enough plans to have some shape yet plenty of room for spontaneity. For it’s the ability to roll with surprises that have created some of my favorite memories. And I hope - some of their’s, too.
🚌
We ventured to Cleveland today, a city that we all love and love to explore. Spring has finally sprung and the weather was glorious and everything just felt right in the way that things rarely do, if you know what I mean. At one point, the boys spotted a hot dog vendor at the corner of East 88th, and begged for a Lucky Dog, as they were called. 😂 Mike loaded the babies into the van while I walked Theo and Oliver across the busy street to buy two hot dogs (with the works!) with my last five dollars. They sat on the sidewalk and people watched and ate their food with the lake breezing blowing and the city alive and buzzing and watching them experience life in such a simple yet completely unfettered way made me so. dang. happy. I love adventures with them. I love saying yes to the unexpected. I love remembering that life is a participatory experience - a grand gesture of love - that we get to say yes to with as much gusto as we allow.
🌭
I’ll take one with EVERYTHING.
🙌🏼
Today’s adventures took us to:
🥞yummy brunch @borderlinecafe
💵 fun at the Federal Reserve Money Museum
🌸 ah-mazing spring vibes at the Rockefeller Greenhouse
☕️ delicious coffee and treats @lunabakerycafe
#cle #thisiscle #clevelandgram #northeastohiofamilyfun #spring #springfling #springbreak #family #adventuretime #adventure #roadtrip #daytrip#coffee #foodie #explore #clevelandfederalreserve #momlife #rockafellergreenhouse #myfourkids
#citylife #ohiogram #ohioexplored
