late night musing

getting yosi ready for bed tonite, i turned around and caught a glimpse in the mirror of her lying in my arms. she looked HUGE- compared to the first time i held her.

i can scarcely believe it's been more than 6 months now, since i first met her and held her... i can remember, like it was yesterday, the leaping feeling, the catching of my breath when i first saw the car pull up outside the glass hotel doors. and then she appeared, tiny in the arms of her foster mother, pert in her blue dress, with round cheeks and big black eyes. i was in awe: here she was, the real thing!

today, when i looked in her eyes and said "i love YOU!" she grinned at me, as if to say "i know". i hope so. there have been more than less days that i feel i have fallen WAY short of the mother i hoped to be, should be, want to be. but, she is not what i expected- she is more. all that experience babysitting, as affectionate as i felt toward any child, is nothing compared to the burden of responsibility and love that i have for Yoselin. i know, i know- DUH! really, i did anticipate it, but experiencing it is a thing in itself. nothing anticipated or imagined is ever as impacting as real life.

looking back and comparing the "pre-Y@home-me" and "me-now" is almost like an out-of-body experience sometimes. there are ways that i don't even recognize myself, tho i can't really explain why or how. i feel good about this, overall, but it is strange.

it is similar, but yet quite different, to falling in love with David. i know my sense of belonging with him eventually help to transform me in to a version of me i had imagined, but never realized fully. taking on new roles- a lover, a wife, a nurse, a mother: all of these are me, but i have transformed in to someone different with each layer. all of these transformations have been awkward, uncomfortable and painful in unique ways, but i know that God has used these changes to achieve His purposes in me. sometimes i am disappointed that i have not been changed more completely. i'm nowhere near fulfilling any of my roles in the way i believe they should be. in fact, it is easy to see myself as a huge disappointment to God. yet, i know, as i struggle to trust, that He still loves me. He is patient with my foolishness, somehow. and this is a great comfort to me. that, though His expectations are great, He has had sympathy on my frailties and made a way for me to be strengthened in Him, in spite of my sinfulness.

hm. wow. i didn't really expect to go into all that. but it is a balm to my heart to remember the Truth like this. i so easily forget. by His grace, i pray to remember.