never forget

{via pinterest}

i've been pondering this thing of sacrificial womanhood, this thing of mothering that can often come without warning and change your life in an instant. 

a year ago this month i discovered that my life was about to change for the better and for the strange and for the mysterious that i still do not fully understand. and i look at this child, this beautiful warrioress with rosebud lips and sea-blue windows to her tiny soul, and i am humbled. 

i have learned that brokenness is essential to this journey, to this place of being mother to someone so small and so earth-shaking. this journey has been turned into a war by some who would rather turn the innocence of children into a battleground, and that makes it so very hard. 

this world is a battleground enough. i war every day for the soul of my child, fighting off lions like a mother bear who has been wounded by a thousand spears with words like ugly and fat and not good enough.

and i am learning every day to die to myself so that He might live through me for the betterment of the little one who is so small that she cannot even yet form the words "ma-ma." brokenness is something hard to swallow, a pill that looks so jagged and fearsome that even the mighty shrink away. but i must do this, for me and for her, and for all that comes after for us both. 

{momma and Marian, four months old}

i prayed for this child, and i pray for her still, as her shrieks and coos fill my every waking moment and even those moments when i would rather be asleep instead. and then she smiles at me and puts a tiny chubby hand against my lips with a giggle, and i melt inside. 

i am undone :: 

so in the night hours, when the house is silent save for throaty husband snores and the clicking tick of the refrigerator, i whisper to the little girl curled in the crook of my arm. 

:: never forget, little one :: 

someone loves you. i promise i do. and He does, too. no matter what you do in this life, i will love you. and He will too. 

it's not a crime to be beautiful. feeling pretty isn't a sin. size 16. size 2. whichever you are, you are. the scales don't define you. you are a lioness, a King's daughter, and that is what matters. 

breath is precious. life is short. so live your breaths. 

and never forget.

never ever forget.