Wine: Part 2

It's Monday morning, and I'm already tired. The laundry has piled upon me. The floors are sprinkled with sticky spots. The refrigerator is all but empty. There's a pile of receipts staring at me from the corner of my desk with Josh's voice...they're telling me I really have to get them categorized in Mint. And I keep hearing toys being pulled from shelves by tiny hands in the other room.

Also, I woke up kind of cranky pants.

I recognize that in the last post I sounded like - woopty doo, we're having another baby...

Let me clarify that - we are so blessed and grateful to be having another baby. After our long struggle to stay pregnant before Marilee, I understand that this is a gift, not a curse. I just wanted to tell you the truth about what our day to days look like. They are beginning to look better, but we had a rough go of it for a month or so.

I have learned a great deal about control through all of this - and how it's kinda nice to trust Someone enough to release it entirely to Him. When we knew we wanted to have another baby, we decided just to stop preventing. I know everyone thinks - if you're not preventing, you're trying - but I think that gives me too much control. Our God opens and closes the womb as He pleases, and this time around we just stopped controlling - either way. We participated in our normal amount of married fun-having, and four months later I was pregnant. No fuss. No obsessing. No removal of romance because you have to do it all the ever loving time. Just - God can do whatever He wants when He wants to do it.

I would have been content if He had chosen to never give us another, and I am content in this plan for our family, too, because I know I had nothing to do with it. He decided. He is kind. He is good. He loves us. That's enough for me.

I wonder what my life would look like if I lived every facet of it that way? I so hope to get there someday.

When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine"... His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Wine. It's about letting go. It's about acknowledging that I don't have enough. It's about looking at Jesus expectantly and saying, "I'm out of wine." It's about doing what He says.

It's also a thing that has history in my family. When I was in college, my sister in high school, and my brother in middle school, our family moved into a small rent house that we less than affectionately referred to as "the cave" because it's natural light was limited and the walls were painted chalky white. It was less than cozy - except that it was sort of cozy because of all the togetherness. We moved there because of financial necessity, which was not as big of a deal to me and siblings as it was my parents, particularly my mother who spent most of her days in those walls. It was just one of those trying seasons in life.

My Mama loves the story of Jesus turning water into wine. She's always told us that when we feel like we can't do enough, do it right, be what we need to be - to keep pouring in the water, keep showing up - and ask Jesus to turn it into wine. He will.

One particularly cave-y day, she wearily said to my little sister, "Molly, I'm outta wine. I don't have any more wine. What am I going to do?"

And without missing a beat, my sister said, "Get on your knees and pray."

So, this morning while I clean sticky spots off the floor while trying to keep two little ones at bay, I'm going to simultaneously be "on my knees" praying. I might not get it all done. I probably won't. And there's a pretty good chance it won't go smoothly. Marilee will keep pulling crackers out the cabinets while I try to clean. Adelle will keep informing me that she's bored. And I will inevitably speak with a less than kind tone at some point.

But I'm going to show up. And I'm going to trust Him to do the rest.