Love

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a new house, then the baby in the baby carriage.

Michael and I have been blessed to have built a home about a year after we were married. It was such a thrill to design a floor plan, pick out countertops, and decide colors for everything from exterior siding to bathroom tile grout. Like any substantial new purchase, we were (and still try to be) very careful to avoid wear and tear. Just like when you park your new car in a space far, far away from any other vehicle to avoid any dents, we cringe when anything drops on our hardwood floors, a new scratch is made in the stainless steel sink, or smudges and dings adorn our walls from carring things up and down the stairs. I thought Michael was going to cry when we had our first carpet stain (and if anybody has any tips for getting a quarter-sized blob of makeup out of fluffy carpet, we'd love to hear from you).

As our due date approaches, we are mindful of the need to let some of these things go. This little boy will crawl someday. Drop things, smear things, throw things. He will inevitably scratch the floors with toy trucks. The patio doors will be filthy from the flooor up. And oh, there will be stains, countless stains, to compete with the makeup blob on our bedroom carpet. I anticipate that at times we will freak out and furiously scrub, wipe, and glue back together. There will be groans, maybe even tears. But my hope is that we will love the aesthetics of our home less and less in order to love our son, and maybe even his antics, more and more.

On Mother's Day, a DJ on KTIS read this poem, which is an adaptation of one of my favorite Bible verses, 1 Corinthians 13. On my to-do list is to print this up and frame it, and hang it somewhere where I will see it daily and be reminded to keep perspective, and love, at the forefront of every reaction.

Love in the Home:

A Mother's Version of 1 Corinthians 13

Author Unknown

If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in its place, but have not love, I am a housekeeper- not a homemaker.
If I have time for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements, but have not love, my children learn cleanliness-not Godliness.
Love leaves the dust in search of a child's laugh.
Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints on a newly-cleaned window.
Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys.
Love is present through trials.
Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive.
Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the hild, then stands aside to let the youth walk into adulthood.
Love is the key that opens salvation's message to a child's heart.
Before I became a mother I took glory in the house of perfection.
Now I glory in God's perfection of my child.
As a mother, there is much I must teach my child, but the greatest of all is love.

For those of you who read my Mother's Day blog entry, the mother of the 11-year-old child that I referred to lost her son yesterday. She told me that the time she had with her son on his last day was the best Mother's Day gift she could have ever asked for.

May I always, always keep a perspective of love.