Dear Emalyn,

My sweet Emi! I love you so. Every morning when you call my name because you are up and ready for the day, reminds me you are just one day older. I have so enjoyed seeing who you are becoming! Your personality, likes and dislikes, compassion and attitude, are all rolled into one little girl. Sometimes, I feel like I am not the mother I want to be. I have so many desires for you and I! Things to experience in life together. And even just the day to day lunches that we share at our dining room table. I'm storing these memories one by one. I wonder if you can see the stress that I feel sometimes when I am not getting house chores done. I wonder if you know how much I love to sit and play whatever it is you want to play, even if we've done the same thing ten times over. I wonder if you know how much you mean to me being my first child, my first daughter. My child who I will always experience everything with for the first time in my life as a parent. I wonder if you know how imperfect I feel to be your mother but strive so hard each day to show you what it means to receive grace, mercy, ask forgiveness and know Jesus.

I wonder if you know how much I cannot stop thinking about you! You bring a smile to my face and an excitement I never knew existed until I had you in my arms. Please stay there. As long as you can. In my arms. It's harder now these days to keep you there. Because you are full of adventure and new ideas! Which I love so very much about you! But you still run into my arms and whisper secrets in my ear "I love you mom!" I wonder if you know what a great big sister you are to Kendra and how I am so thankful Kendra has someone like you to look up to and call you her sister.

I wonder if you know what a blessing you are to me. What a joy you are! How you lift my spirits and help me to be a better mom. I wonder if you can see Jesus when you look at me. I wonder if some day you will call Him your Saviour. I wonder if someday you will be a mom and you will experience this amazing adventure! My sweet daughter, I could write on and on about all the thoughts and joys I experience with you. I know that every day spent with you is a gift. A gift I continue to unwrap all the time! I love you so very much! And even though the days can be long and sometimes hard, I always miss you after I close your door and say good night. But I know I get to keep you the rest of my life!

It's Messy

My kitchen. My hair. My clothes. My basket of laundry. My attempts to discipline my 2 year old daughter and feeling completely inadequate. My dinner expectations that never turn out the way I planned. It's. All. Messy!

Motherhood is messy! In the literal sense, like the fact that by 10am there is some type of unidentifiable goo on my shirt (food, snot, who knows!), but also in a I'm-trying-to-be-the-great-mom-I-want-to-be-can't-figure-it-out...kind of way. Look, life is messy! I get fed up when my plans or good intentions get "messed up". Or I planned to be patient and talk in a soft voice to my daughter but find myself getting super irritated and want to punch my pillow out of stuffing! And it feels messy, like I've lost control. Nothing is in order, the laundry is lingering in the hallway with a desperate longing to be cleaned (since it's been a week and a half), I'm wearing the same thing 2 days in a row (because I slept in what I wore the day before!), breakfast dishes are staring at me from the dining room table while I make dinner, and I feel like I've been disciplining for the same repeated offense all day long! I feel messy inside and out. 

Messy is good! It gets a bad rep. We attribute messy to assuming there was a right way for something NOT to be messy (except a child's bedroom, no exception there!). But I think messy means it's an opportunity to explore, to discover, to find new ways to do things. Messy means it's all out there and there's nothing to hide and nothing to do except LIVE! Freedom to lower expectations, create new ones, to worry less, be inventive, BE.IN.THE.MOMENT! 

I have a hard time when things aren't in order. When I don't have control. When I fear the unknowns, it robs my joy of today. Today in my relationship with God. Today with my husband. Today with my children. God promises to take care of us! (Matt. 6:26). He never promised the American dream. And it's a hard, messy thing to entrust my life and the life of my family to God. It's a scary thing. But when I think about it, Christ dieing on the cross was messy. Yes, physically, but so much more than that WE messed up Gods original plan in the beginning...in the garden. It wasn't supposed to be like this. But through our mess of things, HE changed it all. He loved us enough to get his hands dirty, to step into the mess and rescue us from it. Beauty from ashes. The cross is our mess, but the empty tomb is our mess turned into hope!

I'm finding joy through the mess of life. There's nothing I love more than seeing my kids dirty from head to toe...because it means they jumped in, with everything they have and experienced what life had to offer now, no fear. I can't do that alone, but I can do it with Christ. With His grace and strength. Get dirty. Get messy. Don't worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has it's own worries (Matt. 6:34)