interrupted naptime: a new mom’s prayer

December 30, 2018December 30, 2018 / rkfield89 / Leave a comment

3-month-old baby sleeps softly in his crib, a pea in a pod swaddled all snug, surrounded by little spit up spots, milk stains…dirty socks, burpies, and onsies sprinkle the ground around the crib, disheveled reminders of his sweet life.

I sit now at my laptop, unshowered and wearing yesterday’s baggy shirt that’s easy for nursing while hubby naps upstairs. I took the night feeding, and he got up in the dark morning hours to give baby his spit-up medicine before his breakfast.

The cat who knocked my water over this morning sleeps underneath the Christmas tree, and I finally have a moment to exhale before an hour is up. My last blood thinner injection sits on the counter, and I can’t believe it’s my last one – a token of mine, boy’s, and hubby’s victory over a traumatic labor.

How can so much beauty and so much mess live side-by-side? The baby I’ve dreamed of for years now lays in his crib, yet for some reason I’m irked that the house isn’t orderly, that life isn’t orderly…I dwell on the laundry piles, on the spout of frustration I feel when a nap is shortened by that perfect little squeal…

Why do I insist on counting the hours of sleep I get, wishing baby would sleep through the night, instead of letting our days happen simply as they do?

Photo by Joseph Wood

I tear up, realizing boy won’t be swaddled forever. That tiny, warm, soft bundle of blanket and blue eyes and milk on the chin will most likely be out of the swaddle in a matter of weeks, and yet I find myself trying to fit him into vain wishes for a neatly segmented day.

Perhaps rather than holding my breath, closing one eye and waiting for my “free time” to expire with the coos and squeals I’ve grown to love more than I knew a heart could…perhaps instead, I could accept the season we’re in – baby, hubby, and me – and even embrace the constantly “interrupted” day.

Maybe the interruptions aren’t really today’s interruptions – maybe they’re today’s gifts.

Baby cries for me because he loves me and knows I’ll comfort him, nourish him, enjoy him.

Baby wakes up in the night because he’s hungry still, a healthy, growing baby. I’m the only one who will ever know the glow of the night-light and the warmth of his cheek on my chest underneath twinkling stars outside.

Laundry waits because Hubby got it started for me, a servant husband who puts his family first.

Lord, help us new moms to accept the season we’re in – the season You’ve given us. The world doesn’t often value these days of diapers and pajamas, but You do. Bless us with eyes to see the holy work we’re doing, and bless us with Your heart for our babies, Your heart for our husbands, and Your heart for ourselves. Give us Your grace, wisdom, and mercy to accept, embrace, and thrive in this new, unseen-but-seen-by-You season we’re in. May we value our babies and homes as the “meat,” as the grand gifts of our days, rather than interruptions in our schedules. Remind us that there is a season for everything under the sun, and that this season is a beautiful, royal one indeed, crowned by Your love for us.

In Jesus’s name, Amen.

when being “happy” isn’t as hard as we think

May 29, 2018 / rkfield89 / 3 Comments

Recently I’ve been reading a book called “Lord, I Just Want to Be Happy” by Leslie Vernick.

YES, it sounds totally weird and self-helpy. But it’s great – it could be better classified as Jesus Awareness and titled “Practical Ways to Actually Live Like the Gospel is Reality.”

It’s great. I recommend it.

Vernick talks about negative thought patterns, identifying the ones to which we particularly fall victim, and then goes to scripture and gives doable strategies for claiming the thoughts and actions Jesus came that we might claim in abundance.

Wa-bam. It’s awesome.

Anyway, last week, I babysat for a family.

When I got to their home and walked in the door, I was going over the list in my head of things I need to get done before my own baby comes.

Finish book revisions, send requested material, paint nursery, fill nursery, read a book or ten about how on earth to take care of a baby, organize that bane-of-my-existence junk drawer in the living room, learn how to apply fake eyelashes (I don’t know. I just want to!), figure out how to schedule writing time with a baby, tour the hospital, sign up for a birthing class, try not to freak out about labor on a daily basis…all the things.

All the things!

After babysitting and reading books with the little nugget for a very enjoyable hour and a half (that’s all he wanted to do! Really!), he went down for his nap and I took out Vernick’s book to read.

Here’s what I read:

“Why has our doing overwhelmed our being?” ( Vernick p. 45)

Oh.

I don’t know.

“We live in a world that defines a person’s value and worth by his or her productivity and efficiency. How much we get done and how well we can do it are benchmarks of a good day…[but] God defines personhood and success very differently than our culture does.

“From Christ’s perspective, success isn’t measured by how much we do, how much we earn, or how much we have, but by how well we love and by what kind of a person we’re becoming in the midst of life’s activities.” (Vernick, p. 46).

I read these words and instantly thought about my own to-do list which, up until this moment, I hadn’t realized was being played on repeat in my head. I honestly didn’t even realize my mental to-do list existed – I was so used to waking up to it and going to sleep with it and working for it throughout the day.

So then I wondered, Does God really need me to do all these things right now?

I mean, my list is full of good things, but does He care more about me enjoying Him and just being rather than doing?

Suddenly I felt like I’d gotten rescued from a hamster wheel.

And it’s not that I won’t do all the things on my to-do list eventually, because I will. They’re important. (Well, most of them are. But I maintain the need to learn false eyelash application is important, too. Because makeup.)

It’s just that suddenly, there’s no imaginary person named Pressure standing over my shoulder and checking the things off my list, giving me a gold star for each one.

Vernick challenges us to allow ourselves to be silent before God for a time – not reading, not watching TV, not even studying the Bible, just being with God and listening.

So I tried it while the nugget was sleeping.

And suddenly, I saw the whole room differently.

Wait.

Let me rephrase that.

I saw the room.

The room I’m sure the mom wishes she could have cleaned perfectly all of a sudden showed signs of life. Of being. Of little ones growing and being, too.

Here’s a little bit of what I had the eyes to see when I got off my own hamster wheel:

I would encourage you to take just 5 or 10 minutes to be silent before Jesus. It’s amazing what you’ll see, what you’ll hear, and how refreshed you’ll feel coming away from just being in His presence…just being with Him.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to Target.

To buy some fake eyelashes.

Blessings to you,

Robyn

the tearful, messy, magnificent now

February 2, 2017February 3, 2017 / rkfield89 / 2 Comments

Full disclosure?

I’m sitting down to write this because it’s hard to focus on the research I’m doing for my new book.

It’s hard to focus because I feel like I’m perpetually waiting on something.

And, sorta, I am.

I shouldn’t feel that way (because it’s totally unproductive), but I’m honest to a fault. So I’ll be honest: right now I check my email more times a day than should be socially acceptable.

A great literary agent has my full manuscript. I started the initial process with her in October, and in the publishing world, October to February is basically a blink of an eye. Really. It’s hardly any time at all.

And she’s been awesome this whole time.

Yet, still…I find myself wandering through the desert of doubtful waiting just like the Israelites did. You know, the people who doubted God after like a day or two of not knowing what’s ahead? The people who were given a dry path clear across a huge sea and a few days later decided the same God who’d parted the waters must have forgotten them?

Yeah. I’m like them.

I’ll own it.

Stephanie Leight

And it was in this moment of owning it, of telling God that He’s taking too long and I wouldn’t do it this way…in this raw pouring out to God that I felt the gentle tug at my heart to look around.

So I did.

I saw two cats sleeping, a drippy sink, a warm lamp, well-lived-on couches, chocolate for days, a knee bandaged with physical therapy tape, silence and a ticking clock, and still the dream of sharing my words beat deep inside.

But I closed my eyes and simply stilled in the faith that my God is here.

Right now. Right now is a gift.

Right now – when I don’t have everything I want – is a gift.

The sink is dripping and I love its familiar rhythm. I won’t always have this cozy starter home, I found myself realizing.