Coaxing Blossoms

You'd think, bringing these babes into the world as I have, that I'd see it the very day that they are born.  That bit of myself in scrunched up, mewling, rosy bundle of humanity laying splayed out on my chest.

But it didn't happen that way for me.

Even with that daughter who's face is a near exact replica of my own at her age.  I still didn't see me there.  Every day I look into that face, those expressions so similar to mine and think "I have no idea what you are thinking!"  These children of mine all their very own people, personalities varied and so, so very different from my own.

After all these years it snuck up, unexpected.  These days I see that glimmer of me, and I laugh when I think of the funny ways of God, sticking my soul-child deep inside this (almost) 3 year old boy.  It's a special bit of grace during those long days when I can look down on his brilliant grin and think "I know exactly how you feel."  I can advocate on his behalf with his siblings because I know this, I understand this, I see exactly how he works.  It's a joy.  It's easy.  Yet it doesn't let me off the hook.

For me, the challenges of a large family is not found in the incessant laundry, the loud and rambunctious play, the dirt that just seems to never go away no matter how often I clean.  The challenge is to draw out the best in each one of these people, people that I don't always see clearly myself.  My challenge is to learn their personalities, so foreign, and learn to speak their language.  To create an environment where each child feels heard, understood, cherished - even in their varying ways of experiencing that.  There is nothing easy about that.

I get it wrong so often, go to bed frustrated and angry.  There don't seem to be enough hours in a day and I'm plumb out of ideas when I remember - ah yes, there it is.  The recipe for children of all temperaments to be secure, despite the personalities of their parents.

Fill with love, right to the top.


Add a heaping dose of grace, wild, undeserved grace.


Pour over child, saturate right down to their very souls.


And watch them bloom.

It really is just that simple.