He Bears Me Up.

I looked at this blog the other day, and I realized my last post was right before I was induced with our fourth child. I'm sure all of you are on pins and needles wondering if I had the baby. But since I'm pretty sure that "all of you" is my mom, it's probably okay.

You know when you avoid something for a long time, and then when you want to come back to it, it's completely overwhelming and you feel like it's impossible to get caught up and so you just throw up your hands and feel guilty about it? That. This blog.

So anyway.

We had our baby. A little girl. Her name is Clara. She looked like this:

Then she doubled in size. Now she looks like this:

She's really cute and very sweet. She smiles a lot.

We are now a family of six. We get some interesting comments when we go out, of which my favorite is "Are they all yours?" What does that even mean? Are you asking if I run a daycare? If I brought some neighbor kids along for kicks?

Sometimes I forget that they are all so little. I guess seeing them collectively is overwhelming for people.

Heck, it's overwhelming for me. In some ways, I understand why people say it's not a big deal to have another once you have three. Life goes on. O bla di. We do our normal routine with baby in tow. I'm not so stressed out over the newborn phase. She sleeps when she's tired. She eats when she's hungry. She finds a way to fit into the chaos. In a way, it's old hat. Not that it's easy or less special, because it's not and I really enjoy her. But I don't have the time or energy to stress about the minutiae.

But in other ways, it's completely overwhelming. Everything is harder with a baby in your arms. Making dinner. Keeping a clean house (ha!). Helping a little one onto the potty. Changing a diaper. Disciplining a child. Going to the doctor 30 times since her birth (not an exaggeration).

It all kind of caught up with me yesterday. In late October, Genevieve got her first set of tubes. Yesterday, Timmy got his second set, and his adenoids removed. They both did great, and I think it was the right thing to do. But I realized that I've been going non-stop for a long time, and I am running on fumes. A difficult labor. A fourth child. Scores of doctor's appointments. Homeschooling. Two surgeries. I'm exhausted. It's enough to make me want to cry, "I want my Mommy!" (And Daniel knows, I have).

But in this, I know that God has been with me.  I've been reading the Psalms, and I've repeatedly read that he hears my cries. He answers me. He delivers me.

It seems strange to talk about deliverance when speaking of motherhood; it's not suffering. It's just really, really hard. And emptying. I take so much joy in them, but they need me all day, every day. If I don't remember that I need God's strength for this, all day, every day, I'm going to burn out. I need him to deliver me. Each day, I need new mercies.

So, I find myself all the more thankful that God is with me, holding me up, delivering me. I trust that he knows that this is good for me, and he knows what he is accomplishing in me through this season of weariness. And I echo the Psalmist when he writes, "Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up. God is our salvation" (Psalm 69:19). Praise God. He bears me up.