Elusive Peace

 October-- Seven months/31 wks

This picture is so peaceful... and seems to me so far from reality. Well, far from the surface reality that infuses my everyday.  I grant that there is a deeper reality beneath the everyday trivialities that is full of the beauty and and the peace of dwelling in the light and life of Christ.  I just wish I could feel this peace and see this light.  I feel trapped on the surface in too much to do and too much to be. Most days I feel fragile, like propped up cards ready to topple in a breath.  I limp through the days of homeschooling, and laundry and extra-curricular activities and errands and doctor's appointments and to-do lists and I feel like I am constantly breaking up sibling fights, getting up again after I sit down, getting all of us out the door for things every single day, and trying to find time to eat and shower and listen to my poor body begging for rest.  Where is the peace in all this rushing?

It's hard, bearing a child.  I realize more every time I do what is being asked of us women when we say that "yes" to a child.  For me, as I get older, it's not such a blithely innocent yes as it used to be.  There is so much, physically and emotionally, that is required, and I know this with every fibre of my being right now.  I am going back to read this wise blog post again and I ache with the truth of the "strength that feels like weakness" and wish I could find the strength part a little bit more.

I have a prayer card on my nightstand right now that reads: 
For who is God but the LORD? 
 And who is a rock, except our God?
 -- the God who girded me with strength 
and made my way safe.
Ps 18:31
And somehow the strength must be there. I trust it is, even though I can't find it most days. He girded me, literally, with this great strength, the strength of growing and bearing life, a whole person inside my stretched and aching body, and I am so grateful amidst my weakness.  Even as the path of every day can seem beyond my strength to traverse, I can remember that He is my Rock, He gives me strength, He is with me.

I'm not having these "ready" kinds of baby thoughts quite yet, at 36 weeks.  Despite my aches and body's complaints, I am so grateful for more time with this little one inside, moving and growing and giving me this bittersweet gift of pregnancy for a little longer.  I am blessed to be carrying him or her, sweet and quiet under my heart.  Soon it will be time for birthing, and my body will know, and the baby will know.  But now, oddly, despite how uncomfortable I am, we are content to fit together like this a little bit longer.  I shall not pass this way again, and I will savor this weakness, this girding with strength, this place of great love.  

And I will try to find the peace the hustle-bustle of our family's crazy life too.  It eludes me so often, and yet I ask Him again and again and so I know He will help me.