Cleansing

Oh, sweet, salty tears. My heart moves a little faster and my gut literally feels like it empties a little more with each one that hits my neck. These aren't the shallow, steady kind that are usually easy to come by but those thick, weighted ones that are pretty sparse but carry so much.

Since having children I don't recall crying too often with the exception of those wacky months of pregnancy and the beginning of a nursing season where I would cry if the mailman came late or something. I'm not sure if it's lack of time to allow myself to feel enough to even cry or if it's truly just lack of feeling. I think it's the former though. As this last year has now been the longest stint in between pregnancies in the last 4 years (yet the busiest for sure) and it feels like it has been a rather dry year with very few opportunities to just indulge and let the healing flow.

Then this morning the Lord spoke personally to my heart. There's this icky thing. It isn't huge. But it isn't small either. It's huge to me though and I believe that my Creator, the one who made me just this way, knows that this small yet large thing is there. Occupying space. He sees it and I believe He wants to come alive through the cracks and creases in my brokenness.

So while watching my oldest son slurp the milk from his cereal bowl, and while in the background a rather corny Children's song about God's limitless love on a devotional cd played, I cried. And I felt the tears down to my knees and all over.

There's something about water. Whether salty held in tears, or the depths of the Gulf of Mexico (my personal favorite). It cleanses. And I always feel a little lighter, whether immersed in it, or covered by tiny drops streaming down my cheek.

And that's the definition of hope to me. The tears bring it. The water washes me and I know that things matter and that life isn't stagnant and that growth happens. Hope emerges. New beginnings can happen and my story is always in motion. It doesn't have to always weigh on me. The space in my mind can be taken over by truth, purity, and loveliness. This isn't groundbreaking but as a mom of three little guys it is eerily scary how life can only seem about the day to day. Survival from 7A to 7P splashed with moments of intense richness but a whole lot of doing the tasks, keeping everyone going and moving, just like the day before and the day before.

I welcome these seldom moments like this morning when Someone who knows me deeply, sees me intimately, and wants things to work for my good only for His glory nudges me out of the monotony of a waffle toasting morning to remind me of that very thing. His real, living love that is on the move for me which means all of me, even this small yet loaded thing that ironically feels a little less burdensome already.

I'm reminded that salt changes things and God's mercies are new every single morning we get to call "today."