New Chapter

And so begins a new chapter.

As simple as that, I am done.  Camera flashes, walk across the stage, hands by my side, they snap a photo.  Applause, you're done.  I have finished -- against all odds.

I have not done more than most.  It may seem like it, but I have watched at least two other women this weekend graduate.  Both have husbands and two little girls each.  What I have done, with only Judah to care for, is probably not so hard in comparison.  Which is why, I have learned, we do not play that game.

Yesterday was supposed to mark the end of a stressful season of life.  "Supposed to" is a horrible phrase, always letting me down.  On Thursday I got some disheartening news and a new level of stress was piled on.  Expecting a decrease and experiencing an increase will boggle the mind.

I have been learning so much.  Outside the classroom, life has been teeming with lessons and learning experiences.  I work in a field shaped by heartbreak and hardship.  If I thought I knew anything about human behavior before... I was sorely mistaken.

I am watching my son grow up.  I had never paid much attention to the growth of children before, as strange as that seems.  Taking for granted the daily changes and the growth spurts and the developmental milestones.  My life is characterized by children who operate with a delay, whose childhood has been stolen because of maternal drug use, physical abuse, and severe neglect.

So when I lay my three month old on his belly and he raises his head to look at me, when he rolls from his belly to his back, when he reaches up and grabs a toy (or touches my cheek), I am amazed at the miracle he is.

He is the miracle I cling to, when all else seems to fail.  The way he looks at me and smiles, regardless of whether I've left his sight for eight hours or three minutes.  Every day he gets stronger and becomes more animated, I fall in love even more.  And I think quietly, so not to make it come too quickly, about special days to come.  When he walks, talks, goes to school, and has a decent amount of hair on his head.

I will take one more day then, before I take the necessary steps to enter into this next chapter.  One more day of rest and peace and remembering before I start doing scary things again.

I hope this next season is characterized by love.  Learning how to love one another the way we need to be loved, receiving love that's offered.  Asking for and receiving grace and mercy.  Learning how to write again... and how to operate within my gifts and outside my comfort zone.

Tonight, the good words just aren't there.