humble takeover

Recently, I walked into my bedroom to find that our very last piece of Polaroid film had been used – and wasted. It sat in our camera for two years, although I’m not exactly sure why I saved it. The perfect moment, perhaps? Yet there it was last week, shot and developed, lying on my dresser. A chubby hand or two had reached up and turned on the camera, not even bothering to point at anything in particular. The result was a blurry picture of my bedroom window, one entire corner over-exposed to a pink burst of light.

A few days later, I surveyed my bedroom from the perspective of my pregnancy perch – propped up on pillows and surrounded by library books. There was the pile of laundry that I’d formed on the floor, in order to hold me accountable to it later. There was the bassinet we’ve always borrowed from our friends, waiting for yet another tiny human to fill it. There was the football, thrown by big boys and hidden beneath a curtain by little girls.

We ask kids to knock before they enter. I make our bed every day. Chris can’t quite figure out why I wanted the walls white and bare, but I’m crazy about the way it turned out. Our master bedroom is peaceful & sacred, just like I’d hoped. Yet at the end of the day, the touches left by this big ol’ brood of ours gives me just the reminder I need to remember who I am and what I’ve been called to do. These moments keep me humble. Honored, even.

The laundry might get done… but the football can wait for the big boys’ retrieval, and that ruined polaroid isn’t going anywhere.