On Birth and Dreams

I dream of babies often.  Newborn baby girls.  I've read this represents a life dream but I think it might also just represent me being made new.

Last night, I dreamt I had a newborn girl, held her in my arms, close.  I had no stroller or sling to place her in so even when she fell asleep she was near me. Whether the baby represented a dream or a new self or both, I guess I am holding them near.

I need to be made new.  Daily.  Desperately. I need reminders that this is even possible. I need to hear God speak because I am so blind.  It is so hard to see what's right in front of me; the goodness, the miracles.

Life is hard for all of us and I think it's supposed to be.  So we stumble around in the dark, groping, afraid and then we give up, worn, weary, when we're certain we can't do it a minute longer.

I wake up in the dark, so often, grouchy from the start for no good reason.  Today, my right arm aching like weights are attached and all I want to do is go back to bed and I want someone to blame for the fact that I'm awake--the dog; the kid who's always up too early. Both strong-willed and difficult and loud when I don't have the energy or desire to deal with any of it.

These are the days I don't see myself as a new creation but I do see myself as a child--too young and ill-equipped to handle the gravity of this crazy adult life.  This life of mothering and teaching; bills, costs, patience, nurturing. This life that is not easy, the way you imagine it will be when you are a child.

On these days, I just need to know I've heard Him in simple ways like the noticing.  Be reminded that I wasn't blind this morning.  I watched the sky ripen from dark to plum to light and I  noticed.  I noticed that today the sky was purple, royal, in the in-between, not the pink of a fresh-born baby but violet like a king.  And that I felt Him in a breeze that was refreshing and not chilling.

These days, He is preparing the way and I am clearing a path and becoming new.  These days, Christmas is right around the corner but Christ is already always present. And He speaks.