Mud Pits & Walls

Mud Pits & Walls

Nursing my baby like clockwork at four a.m., I rested my head back against the glider and groggily thought how wonderful it would be to have a child born at two years old, so she could sleep twelve hours and have all her teeth.

But then, in the clarifying glow of morning, I looked down at my blue-eyed, grinning little girl and knew I would never trade sleep for watching my third daughter become acquainted with her world.

That’s when revelation struck.

The day before I had complained to my husband that I am still a baby Christian. Rather than having this cataclysmic conversion experience, I’ve been surrounded by Christianity all my life, and therefore I took it for granted. I took the love that Jesus had for me for granted as well until that awareness took hold and drove me to love Him like never before, and yet it also brought an awareness of how much time I’ve wasted.

The second half of my revelation happened this morning while my daughter and I ran through the woods with her small hand tucked in mine.

Sunlight poured through the foliage as mud splashed against our shins. We ran through tires, crawled through tunnels, jumped over obstacles. I heaved her backside up as her muddy feet struggled to scale a wall.

The entire time, I could remember her plump infant body wiggling back and forth on the hardwood floor because that was the only way she could fulfill her desire to move. I could remember how she first walked, her dimpled hands on her belly, in an attempt to balance herself. I could remember how she cried after gymnastics because the music was too loud and there were too many people.

And now, here she was in a crowd: scaling walls, ducking under mazes, dancing over tires. I cherished her milestones because I’d been there, from the beginning, to witness her growth.

Abba, my Heavenly Father, would never choose to have me be born into maturity. He would never have me be born sprinting in the authority of His love because He loves walking alongside me as I encounter it. He loves holding my hand as I slough my way through mud pits or duck under mazes. And one day, He will be with me as I cross the finish line, and as He does, I know He’ll be remembering how far I’ve come, and He’ll cherish the end result all the more because He knows where I began.

Where are you on your spiritual journey? Remember that Jesus is with you in the mud pits as well as when you’re scaling walls.