Over the weekend, I had a dream that my kids were little again. That Rowyn was maybe 18 months, and he was crying from another room. I heard him so went to find him, and he looked up at me as he did in reality a million times, saw me, stretched up his arms, and just cried, “Mama!”

In my dream, I scooped him up on the move. I held him close. He stopped crying. But I was still moving, and I tripped. I felt myself going down in that slow-motion way of dreams. My only thought being to keep him from harm. So in typical dream physics, I twisted and bent and held him up and tried to force my mind to put me back on my feet. I couldn’t bear the thought of my baby hurting. I just wanted to make it better. Not be the cause of any more harm.

In reality, while I was dreaming this, we were having a blood sugar battle. The same amount of insulin that usually kept him on the low side of normal had done nothing that night, it seemed, and his numbers were way too high. So I was worrying, and it came out in my dreams. These dreams that were total wish-fulfillment–I just want to be able to make it all better!–and fears–because I can’t.

I woke up with the image of that adorable little boy still in my mind. That mama still in my heart. It didn’t take a degree is psychology to understand why I’d been dreaming about Rowyn as a toddler, when all it took to make the world right was a cuddle in mama’s arms.

Today my baby turns 13. He certainly doesn’t hold his arms up anymore and beg to be picked up, or cry out for mama in that way that says, If you just come, everything will be better. Today my baby turns 13, and I know that life will never be what it was on other birthdays, in other years. He can’t just grin and cut himself a piece of leftover cake for breakfast or eat a spoonful of extra icing for the fun of it. Every gram of carbs that go into his body must be counteracted with insulin. His life will never be what it was before…but it’s all the more precious for what we’ve gone through in these last four months.

As a mother, I’m keenly aware of all I can’t do for him. All I can’t control. All I can’t make better. But then I remember the lessons I would dwell on when he was a baby and a toddler, and I was so exhausted from those constant calls for mama. I remember falling asleep in our old wooden rocking chair, him cuddled in my lap, and realizing that this was how we should approach our Father in heaven. With that certainty that He can make everything right. And that even when He doesn’t change the situation, it’s okay because He has us in His arms.

Do we still have that perfect trust? The certainty of a toddler in his mother’s arms? That calm assurance that the storm doesn’t matter, as long as we can weather it with Him?

Do we cling to that child-like faith even as life wears us out and wears us down? Or do we stop lifting our arms? Stop calling out, “Abba!” the moment we sense something going wrong?

Children grow up. They become independent. They turn into young women and young men with dreams beyond the walls of their parents’ house. And I love watching that process. I love seeing who my babies are growing into. I don’t have to share all their dreams or even understand them. I don’t have to force my own dreams on them. I can just love them and commit them every day to God and trust that even when my arms aren’t holding them, His are. I can pray that they keep clinging to Him long after they stop clinging to me.

So today, we celebrate the birthday that wouldn’t have been, had we lived 100 years ago. We celebrate the first birthday with insulin as our best friend and worst enemy. We celebrate a milestone birthday with injections and carb counting and in a world still shut down with a pandemic. We celebrate with a smaller cake than usual and our only party being hanging out online with friends. But we celebrate with so much joy. Because Rowyn has the chance to keep growing, keep becoming the young man God intends him to be. And we celebrate with that certainty that though mama’s arms can’t fix it all, Abba’s can. We only have to abide there with Him. He may not change our circumstances–but He’ll change us to be victorious through them.

Hold us close, Abba God. And thank you.

“Our faith isn’t all the things we say we believe; it’s what we do next.”
~ Bob Goff, Live in Grace, Walk in Love

That. 😉 I feel like I could just leave you with that quote–shortest blog post ever, LOL. Because really, it says it so well, doesn’t it? It harkens to that “walk the walk” adage. It appeals to James’s “I’ll show you my faith by my works” line. It sums up pretty much all the commentary on living out what we believe, day by day and step by step.

I read this in Goff’s devotional several weeks ago, and it’s stuck with me. And as usual, it’s combined with other things I’ve been reading or otherwise coming across. The idea of loving our neighbors, truly loving them. The idea of loving our enemies. Of loving the sinner. It’s about what happens in our lives and in our hearts when the rubber meets the road.

In Dream Big (also by Bob Goff), one of the questions in the study section issues this challenge: Take your average Tuesday. List the things you do during that day.

How does it declare your faith?

Why is this profound? Because our lives aren’t lived in the big moments. Our faith isn’t proven only in a crisis or a victory. Our witness doesn’t rely on how we act at special events. It’s the everyday, the now, that really determines who we are and how we love God. So what’s in your Tuesday, or your Monday, or your Thursday afternoon? How does it shine His light into the darkness? What are you going to do in the next 30 minutes? The next hour? The next four? How does that intersect with your faith in the one true God and the Son who gave His life for you?

I think all too often we just mark time–we’re standing there, marching in place, waiting for the boring everyday stuff to be done so that we can get to what we really want to do. The weekend. The summer vacation. That big holiday. The mission trip. There’s nothing wrong with looking forward to any of those things, obviously…but they’re not what life is made of, are they? Life is more than the big moments. It’s ALL the moments in between. Our characters, our hearts, aren’t just definied by those big days, but rather by all the “meantime.”

The challenge that Goff issues, and which I’ve long tried to live out as well, is to live EACH day as if it’s the one you’ve been waiting for. Each normal, ordinary day is a chance to give glory to Him. It’s a chance to choose what we’re going to do next. It’s a chance not just to talk about our faith, but to walk in it. It’s a chance to chase our dreams. It’s a chance to mend a bridge. It’s a chance to try something new.

Make a call. Send an email. Write a letter. Bake cookies for those neighbors you’ve never met. Go out of your way to give lunch to the homeless man on the corner. Write that story you’ve been meaning to get started on. Or hey, just write down that epiphany from the other day in a journal. Do something nice for your most annoying coworker. Give away something to someone who knows how much it means to you, to prove to them that they mean more. Take the first step toward that off-the-wall, crazy dream that won’t leave you alone.

Do something. Do something today to be more like Christ. Do something today to give feet to the words we say so easily. Do something to make today special.

Don’t just say you believe in Jesus. Prove it. Prove it today.