the mothering arts

The timing of things…

Quiet here.

Well, sort of quiet.

I am quiet.

The house is not- the children run, wang boom, yeeder deeder, gotcha giggle through the house.
The dishes clank, the water runs. Deep base voice instructs a child to stop. Little snatches of music float- mostly the country songs that I don't care for much, but okay now because I am too far away to listen. Sometimes strains of news reports. Flip of library book page. Clunk. Cry. Comfort. (David, of course, head too big for body, falling over his feet into coffee table, snuffling into Daddy's shoulder.)

But quiet here.

Bedcovers pulled close, pillows piled. Glass of water. Stacks of magazines to enjoy, languishing on the night stand. Tilted lamp shade, knocked last night during goodnight kisses and prayers.

Such a strange divide between quiet and loud, silence and life. Intimate sounds I know well, and I am not a part of them.

After a healthy, peaceful pregnancy, the last week and a half have left me undone. Broken. Sidelined. I can do nothing but rest and bear with the pain until this sweet little one decides to arrive. Time has stopped and yet crawled on, and I am undone with the waiting.

Fear, pain, worry, camp about me in the shadows, almost so real as to be touched. Husband knows. Prays, whispers, kisses forehead. Plays me songs of love and hope.

I painfully made way to church Sunday, and the message has been dwelling with me since.


As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

       so the LORD surrounds his people
       both now and forevermore.
       (Psalm 125: 2)

To whom do I trust my security? Message spoken from this Psalm resonated, moved, caught me in my tracks.

Oh, I've said over and over, of course, "the Lord!" "The Lord has sustained through rough year." here on the blog, to friends, to myself.

But knife pain of conviction pruned close Sunday- mouthed words mean nothing to a heart-level looking God. I've trusted myself for security. What I know of things, how the world works. Trusted the seen, the touchable, the real, the predictable. This pregnancy, I've trusted the doctors. My body. Knowing the rhythms of baby growing, the natural progression of things, because it is number five- so little to surprise me. This a natural response as a human me, I know. Perhaps there is not much wrong with it. But when suddenly all this has come to a stand still (realities which I know and understand) and I am left in the wispy edges of reality, unknown and untimed, why am I so quick to fear, to calculate, to wonder, to grow in anger and frustration at a situation I cannot control? To whom do I trust my security?

Here I am. In the quiet. Undone. But His Word promises me that He surrounds, and in that will I rest.

2 Comments

  • Donna Rae Barrow

    I am there with you, dear one… recovering from an unexpected and major surgery… wanting to be well, to be the same, to be at the end of this road. But the Lord says, “Walk with me…”. He tells me not where nor how long, but when I fall into His arms, tired and frayed from my own striving, the relief and the joy are too sweet to comprehend. I am there with you, dear one… in prayer and in praise for your awaited arrival.

  • Andrea

    Dearest Joy–
    Wanted to let you know I read this and relate *so so much*.
    May we rejoice in the things *unseen*. I will pray that for us.
    Sending love……andrea

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