A Kick and a Soft Heart

I laid down on my freshly made bed after a shower with my hair in a towel and soft grey robe wrapped around me. Opening my robe, I looked down at my bare belly protruding with the life growing inside. "Kick me" I thought and poked my squishy side hoping for a reaction. "Come on..." I begged as I poked just above my belly button where some hard extremity of my growing child had come to rest.

The thumps, bumps, and jabs of this little one had come to be my favorite part of every day. They rarely ceased to pass by unnoticed without pause or an extended period of literal navel gazing hoping to catch some movement with the naked eye or shouting for Josh to come and put his hand on my belly to feel the movement and share in my joy.

As the silence of the house surrounded me chores and check lists all faded to the background and I remembered reading that around 25 weeks babies in the womb begin to recognize mama and papa's voice. Their ear drums are tuning into noises in the world outside the womb. So, with selfish motivation, I began to sing so I could catch another glimpse of my precious ones movements. I sang the first song that popped into my head. "Sing My Love" by Sarah McMillian. 

In 2008 when I started this blog I was going through what I now refer to as my season of personal spiritual awakening. God was stirring my heart with every day mundane things. The world around me felt alive and I ached to spend time in the Lord's presence. Worshipping. Resting. Reading. I wrote an entry which has become the highest trafficked page on my blog BY FAR and it was all about how the song "Sing My Love" impacted me. A simple phrase in that song "He always knew me..." ripped my heart from my chest and allowed me to see my life through God's eyes. 

I saw myself as a little girl with dandelion crown around my strawberry blonde hair paying in the back yard with my sister. I saw an awkward pre-teen singing wearing a red polo standing on the top row of sopranos in chamber choir. I saw a self-conscious teenager trying desperately to look thin and fit in at all costs. I saw a college girl lost and confused about new-found freedom wanting to be noticed by anyone polishing a "fun-girl" image every second of every day. And I saw God there at every. single. moment. loving me and smiling over my life. A proud Father, who was (and is) shaping me into the person I was born to be.

Selfishly singing this song on the bed last week, I got to the line "He always knew me..." and the baby kicked. A strong jab right in the middle of my abdomen that changed the atmosphere. Shifted my mind to the Lord and suddenly His presence was in the room so strongly I started weeping. Crying so hard I could barely finish singing the song which then morphed into another song, and then another, and then a strange lament-praise in my own words. Very "unpretty" in the technical sense. But lovely truth that flowed out of my mouth softening my heart drawing me back to the Father. 

Back to MY Father. Where I am unconditionally loved and accepted. Where grace soaks into the deepest parts of my bones and where I am known. Known not by my performance or talents. Known not by my salary or accomplishments. Known not by my attitude good or bad nor by my past clean or unclean. But known just because I of who I am. Because I am His. A daughter of the Creator. A daughter of light. A daughter of the King.

And my baby...my precious, beautiful, amazing child that hasn't even inhaled its first breath in this world yet, is already known by that same God. And there really isn't any amount of tiny baby jabs that add up to the amount of goodness that that truth holds.

My cup runs over.