Give me what I need, not what I want...

Someone once told me that parenting was trial and error. I laughed and thought they were a bit crazy.

I now fully agree with them.

My four-month-old keeps throwing curve balls at me and I'm left to guess what she really wants and needs. Now, I do realize that wants and needs are VERY different. Yet, I somehow thought that at this young of an age typically they are synonymous (eat, pee/poop, sleep--the life of a baby). I'm clearly wrong because my child has an opinion about everything!

Here is what Sybil has to say right now:
1. I want to eat...NO, I want to play! Wait, I want to eat again.
2. I need to sleep...just kidding, I'll lay in my crib for an hour and talk to myself and cry.
3. Mom, I need your breast milk...but wait, could you please put it in a bottle and heat it up? And if you don't, I will bite your nipples off and then smile at you. Thanks.
4. Oh wait, that bottle of breast milk that you just pumped for me, I changed my mind. I'll have formula instead. Never mind that I hated it a month ago.
5. I really would prefer sucking on your nipple while simultaneously sucking on my hand. Can you work with me on that?
6. I'm the cutest ever, and I know it so don't mind that I just threw up all over you and completely missed myself. You have time for laundry, right?

That's just a sample of my life right now. And although somewhat frustrating, it is hilArious. I am trying all the time to not laugh at her and encourage her. She's ridiculous.

But in all honesty, I'm just learning how much sin is in her young heart and how much sin is still in mine. I have to ask Jesus for grace each moment to love her and give her what she needs and not what she wants. After all, that's what I want God to give me too--what I need; not what I want.

Have mercy on me, Lord. This child is a handful already.

Oh, and she has teeth and she can roll over. The little baby days are over.

in-fat-u-ate

I want to be infatuated.
I want to be obsessed. In every sense of the word.

In-fat-u-ate: to inspire or possess with a foolish or unreasoning passion, as of love (dictionary.com)

I want this for my soul--my inner-most being. Lord, give me an infatuation with Christ Jesus. And give it to me quick.

I think of the Gospels and all the testimonies of people Christ helped. The woman caught in adultery, the man at the pool who had been lame for 38 years, the poor man possessed by demons and chained to the ground, the woman hemorrhaging for years, spending all her money on cures and failing to find hope in anything, and on and on it goes... These people, I'm sure, after being healed or even just being in the presence of Christ, were infatuated. I mean, can you imagine meeting a Man/the God who suddenly met your every need and made you whole in an instant? Obviously, immediate infatuation would occur.

I am one of these people--healed from the inside out--yet, still I ask why does my infatuation with Him not follow? I was lost and searching. A sinner, chained and dead. And He came, in grace and truth and offered a freedom I didn't even know I needed. How can this Just and Righteous God come to a lowly sinner and offer Grace? I do not know, but I don't have to know in order to receive it. In fact, I'll spend the rest of my life trying to understand. And with each small glimpse of understanding, I'll fall more in love and become more infatuated with the One who came to save me.

So today, with the grace I've been given from my husband (who willingly stayed with Sybil so I could get out), I pray for infatuation. And I ask you'd pray for it too.