Smiling

Ezra's first captured on camera smile :-)

The Source

On Sunday we took Ezra to church for the first time.

I sat in the pew trying to discreetly feed him, and we heard Richard speak on 'honouring your father and mother'. Poignant angle this year!

Then we sang 'I heard the voice of Jesus say'.
It's not a song we sing much at 11am, but as we sang I felt rather thankful at the insight I was getting.

Here is a song about someone who knows the source of rest, life. They accept the invitation to rest:

"Come unto me and rest;
lay down, oh weary one, lay down
thy head upon my breast."

And they come to Jesus to be quenched:

I came to Jesus, and I drank
of that life-giving stream;
my thirst was quenched, my soul revived

As we sang I was acutely aware of the little one latched onto the source of his thirst quenching, in arms that help him to rest. He knows so clearly, so simply, and he comes so willingly.

I was thankful for his example.

a cousin learning

in context...

rufus was asking me another lot in his series of questions about 'janey and the baby'
questions have included

janey will it hurt when the baby comes out?
when is the baby coming?
can i help you push the baby out?

2 days after the birth visiting his cousin in hospital with one look at my tummy
'janey, are u having another baby?'

observing feeding:
is he drinking mummy millk?
how does the milk get there? does it get stirred around in your breast?

this time, Bibi (his grandma) was there too. He asked me if I wanted to have more babies, and how many. Then he turned to Bibi...
he asked her how many babies she'd had. she said "three".

he looked confused. "but where are they?"

Life

Ezra met his great grandfather on Saturday. He was 4 days old. His Pop is 93.

I watched them gaze at each other, Ezra only able to focus 30cm, for short periods of time, with limited idea of what he was seeing.

My Pop gazed back, entranced, overwhelmed at this little bundle of fresh life so helpless in his arms.

I had a moment of sadness, an ache, a not quite sure how to phrase it...

I was seeing life just begun and life near it's end.

I wondered what my Pop was thinking, with his life experience in so many places, over so many decades of a changing world. Here he was seeing a beginning of (I pray) decades of learning and experiencing, yet he must have been acutely aware he would not see those same decades.

Here was a relationship just begun with limited time to blossom, such is the sting.

The sting of death, seen in physical life begun and life near it's end.
The sting of death, seen in hopes of parents for a knowledge of a creator and a heart that has struggled to see through much suffering to the possibility of a God who is good.

like his mother

prayerful jane at 4 months


prayerful ezra at 5 days