Undone

Slow and steady wins the race. Nine months up, nine months down. Diastasis recti. Basically this means that if you see me before I have eaten anything for the day, you will think, "Wow. Amelia is really looking good after only five months." If you see me after I have eaten one bite - and for the rest of the day - you will think, "Wow. Amelia looks like she is still pregnant." Don't be jealous. Please. Or, maybe you should.

"Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy,

to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,

holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship."

Romans 12:1

This post has been percolating for a while now - almost forty days, to be exact. For isn't is appropriate to consider these things when we are in the midst of the season of sacrifice? Remembering the physical sacrifice Christ made for us, so we would one day be free from these bodies once and for all?

"There [is] no more fitting way

to celebrate Easter

than in a body that has been undone on behalf of another."

R. Jankovic, Loving the Little Years

And so, isn't this body really a gift? A daily life of sacrifices made for others, so I can better know my Savior? So I can become more like Him as I push down my own desires for feeling well, looking well, sleeping well?

"He knows exactly how you're feeling

and invites you to turn this difficult moment of sacrifice

into a profound place of intimacy and understanding with him."

G. Thomas, Sacred Parenting

A moment, that is all. I already know how fast this time goes, because I am looking at the slender, lengthening legs of my two-year-old even as I squeeze the chunky ham hocks on my baby girl. It is only a moment, and it will be gone. And I, too, will have grown. I want it to be in His direction. Towards wisdom, prayer, self-control, patience.