Taken yesterday by Yours Truly. Ok, it was six years ago. It just feels like yesterday.
Oh, sure, they talked about childbirth. The pain of it. I read a lot about that, and I was prepared. Well, as prepared as you can ever be.
But not one of those books prepared me for the pain of loving.
To love a child is to hurt. Desperately. They seem to grow and change by the minute, and this growth is both a good thing and a terrible loss. Every day you are saying goodbye: to the baby you held, the toddler who made you laugh, the brave one who left for her first sleepover. And on it goes. They’re relentless, these goodbyes.
I have never looked at old photographs without an almost physical pain. Of course, there’s pleasure too. But you expect that. It’s the pain that feels so strange. It’s the pain that seems to demand some sort of answer. God, does love have to make us cry?
There’s a song by the group Mumford and Sons called “After the Storm.” My favorite line is this: “There will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears and love will not break your heart.”
Do you believe that? Do you believe that one day love, like everything else, will be perfect and whole? That one day there will be no more goodbyes?
Peter told us that “[Jesus] must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything” (Acts 3:21). And I can’t help but wonder: when he says “everything,” does he mean everything? Will God restore everything that we seem to lose in this life?
Will there come a day when love will not break our hearts?
so beautiful, made me tear up as I was just talking to Josiah about how he’s almost 3 and he’s so excited to “be big”. He says, “I be big mom” – precious words I will cherish as he grows
love this. sometimes I feel guilty for how painful those little moments of realization are, those ‘when did you get so big?’ moments. i feel like i shouldn’t mourn the past so much (aren’t we supposed to grow up? press on? move forward? let our kids do the same?)
but you put it so well here -they are relentless, these goodbyes!
it’s part of life to mourn but always there is joy and hope for the restoration to come…