Sandman

She asks me to “sing one more song.”  This little girl of mine.

I wonder if it is because my stories have grown stale. I am not blessed with the wild imagination of my husband.  I remember how he could spin stories for hours with the boys. He also made up the sweetest lullabies.  I started to remember, one by one, I sang them to her.  I realize this part; these lullabies were missed with my youngest.  She came home at 25 months.  She could walk to her bed and she had learned to dress and tuck herself in before our hearts ever met her.

In adoption you roll back the clock.  We were allowed to parent her at 25 months but to us and to her we started at zero.  We started with bottles and diapers, but somehow and I am not sure how, I didn’t sing.  Perhaps I was too worried about language.  My little girl had no idea what I was saying.  I signed what I could and hugged her through the rest.  She was so overstimulated most of the time, silence seemed our friend.  I would read Bible stories as we lay next to each other and tell her when mom and daddy could not be there,  Jesus was.

She would wake in the middle of the night for months at a time with the most shrieking cry.  We could read it in her eyes that she woke not knowing where she was or how she had arrived.  We would hold her tight and warm her with hot milk.  We went back in time in almost every way to how we had loved our newborns, but I forgot the singing.

Now, song after song came.  The ones Brian had made up, the ones my mom had sung to me.    I introduced her to the sandman and the “fishies in the itty-bitty pool”.

She told me how much she loved me and I marveled at the grace of this moment.  I am not a singer.  If I made a list, probably longish in nature, of things I do not do well, singing would be on there.

She didn’t care about the quality. It was an analogy of sorts, the kind that only God can construct and the beautiful kind that I often miss.

In the bustle of these days I have felt less.  Less capable, less proficient, less sure.  The work day bringing challenges I have never known, and my eldest is spending his days with plans to continue school far away.  I look in the mirror to find the self-assured person I was just months ago but she is missing now. 

Yet, God sees and He knows and He fills the holes.

He tells us to sing with all our hearts, work with all our souls, parent with all our sweat and He will fill the gaps.

Our weakness, HIS wonder. 

Our poverty, HIS wealth.

Our insecurity, HIS assurance.

Our lack, HIS abundance.

So, I sing of sandmans and Saviors.  Remembering I was never meant to be all.  My role is to turn back the clock to when I was a child to a time when I trusted Him absolutely and with every piece of my heart.

Do I lack?  Absolutely, but He never, ever does.