Our Solomon,
he's an old soul in a baby's body.
His perfect little face bunches up when he's mad you can see just what he might look like when he's old and gray.
His baby wisps are are falling out and the Lord has blessed him with a receding hair-line at the ripe old age of 5 weeks... it's the perfect "do" to match his wise-old demeanor.
I love this boy.
And although the days are busy, with schooling, and loving, and forgiving, and chores, and the training up in righteousness of the Mama and the kiddos, I still like to make the time to sneak away and rock my Solomon in the chair in the corner of the Cowboy's and my room, a couple times each day.
It was a few days ago when I read her blog, and a few days later when I found my Solomon and I in that chair in our room. I was singing to him... singing "Jesus Loves Me,"... singing the way that my mom and I used to sing it when I was a teenager, and we would stay up at night, and she would play her guitar, and I've never forgotten that tune, nor the sound of her voice.
And there's a line in the song that goes like so...
Jesus loves me when I'm good,
When I do the things I should.
Jesus loves me when I'm bad,
though it makes him very sad,
Halelujah.
I sang the words and I looked down at our "old soul" baby-boy and the tears came... and so did her words.
The tears came when I thought about the fact that the treasure I was holding in my arms was indeed the only treasure under this roof that I have not yet scared with a harsh tone. He's the only one that doesn't yet have a memory of his Mama's mistakes.
And in my temptation to sit in that chair, weighed down by the things that I clearly haven't done right, I remembered the words she posted so eloquently on a Tuesday in September when the Lord knew that they would speak so loudly to an exhausted Mama rocking her newborn baby so many miles away... to a Mama who might not have been thinking clearly had this woman not posted these words...
{Your sin can’t separate you (or your child) from Christ.
Your Father is bigger than your failures, your flesh and your faults.
And your strengths can’t save you (or your child) in Christ.
Your ego, your excellence and your efforts won’t ever be big enough to be a Savior.
Your sins aren’t enough to keep your child from God and your strengths aren’t enough to get your child to God.
Your sins aren’t enough to keep you from God and your strengths aren’t enough to get you to God.
Your sins aren’t enough to destroy your life and your strengths aren’t enough to determine your life.
Your sins aren’t enough to separate you – and your strengths aren’t enough to save you.
That’s the bottom line: Your sins aren’t enough and your strengths aren’t enough. You are not enough — for this parenting gig, this marriage relationship, this homeschooling year, this work project.
Because Life isn’t about controlling things – but about letting God control you. Parenting isn’t about controlling kids – but about letting God control you. Parenting isn’t as much about raising the kids — but about laying yourself right down.
You only parent as well as you know your Father.
You only live as well as Christ lives in you."
This is it. This is what my heart needs to know, what my heart wants to know, continuously as I walk through the daily privilege of raising up these kids.
MY SINS CANNOT DESTROY THEM...
AND MY STRENGTHS CANNOT SAVE THEM.}
What sweet, sweet truth for the Mama who's sitting in her rocking chair, gazing down on fresh, new, innocent life. Grace like rain, falling down on the Mama who needed to remember that the Lord's got this life.
He's got the little soul laying long and peaceful in my arms.
He's got his days planned out.
He is able, and willing, to get the seven of us under this roof, through all these life-days, through all the good and the bad, and the stinging and the sweet, the mountains and the valleys, through the seemingly successful days and the muddling days.
He's here in this place, and He's eternally trustworthy.
And so, I rock our 'old-soul', and I sing loud and I know grace... His never-ending, abounding grace.
And I thank Him for another little soul to raise up for His glory.
*We are taking it one day at a time around here... If I think to far ahead I get overwhelmed... But if I live only in the moments, I find this mothering gig possible with God's help. :)
