Unfamiliar Places & Faces

SOMEWHERE'S NEW

Being here is unfamiliar.

I've never been 'here' before.

Daughter engaged.  Becoming a mother-in-law.  Having a relationship with another family that we become related to thru marriage.  Wondering how it will look when these 2 diverse families' offspring meld and become a whole new identity as their own little family, starting as a couple, and likely welcoming littles in the course of time.

I hardly know this son.  It's kind of awkward.  Being committed to being 'family' but not knowing one another.  Trying to figure one another out.  What makes him tick?  What is he really thinking?  What does he really mean by what he just said?

Likely, he wonders about me, too!

BABY LOVE

As the unborn grows and develops in secret, our love for him/her grows.  We become more attached, more concerned, more moved and effected by their life and the events that take place with them.  We wonder what they will look like, what they will become, what their personality will be like.  But one thing is decided already, without even meeting them face to face yet.

Love.  We have decided to Love.

The best way we know how to Love.

MAKING ROOM

Well, we're having a new son.  And although he towers over me in stature, there is a place in my heart for Micah already.  I have given heart space that's for him, to grow more and more Love for him.   His personality is already developed, his mind is made up, and he's got an opinion.

I can make room for all of that.  I choose to make room.

Like a new mom..... fumbling around a little bit, apprehensive of how to get that newborn arm down that sleeve without breaking the baby, needing to learn how to relax and enjoy the moment....that baby-moon.....I need to relax and enjoy this moon of getting to know Micah.  And there is certainly some fumbling, some uncertainties of what is expected, and where the lines are not to be crossed.  How to share my heart, my concerns, my opinions, without shoving that arm down a sleeve it just doesn't want to go.  Doesn't even need to go?

This moon is a time for us to get to understand one another, to know patterns of behavior in each other, and learn to communicate.

TRUE LOVE

Time will make it all happen, naturally, when we decide to Love.  Without strings attached.  Without expectations.  Without exerting control.  Without manipulation.  For none of those things denotes Love anyways (although they seem part & parcel in relationships today that claim to have love).

My hearts cry is that Real Love is made manifest in me.


Love that suffers long and is kind;
Love that does not envy;
Love that does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
Does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
A Love that never fails.

(see I Corinthians 13)

I Love unfamiliar places and faces.  Just sometimes it's uncomfortable for the first while.

But then they become your friend.