Souls

I watched Soul Surfer with a friend yesterday. It made me bawl.

One particular scene cracked open a dam that I had been holding back for a little bit, allowing my brain to process only a few pieces at a time. Trying to figure out if what happened mattered to me a little bit, or a big bit. Sounds, bright lights, hushed urgency...knowing the outcome as soon as the scene started, but still playing my part. It's not something I haven't dealt with before more times than I can really count now. But still...we're souls, not machines.

But I try to function like a machine sometimes. Don't you? Keep-it-together-keep-it-together-keep-it-together. Move on to the next task, pack away the thoughts and emotions, someone else needs you now. You might not ever have to do what I've had to do on those days, but your variation on the theme is no less burdensome.

My Lord, my kind Savior, will chisel away the little bits one at a time, lending me His perspective, letting it leak out little cleansing drops at a time.

I tiptoed into Levi's room that night...like I always do, just to check on him before I go to bed. Rested my hands lightly on his back to feel his still, quiet, peaceful breathing. Exhaled for the millionth time my gratitude. Other moms were in their beds that night, pressing their own hands to their eyes and hearts because their child's breath is no longer. Or never was. Never before am I so aware of this. My hands - the very ones that so often have in vain attempted to course life back into a tiny body - were hovering over a living, breathing, sleeping soul. My flesh and blood.

He's over nine months old now. My Glory Baby would have been a year old a couple weeks ago. Two lives, one captured already in eternity, only knowing life before the Throne of Grace. The other heart mine to train up for eternity. Both are exactly where they need to be, and I'm so grateful.