Sweetness in Life, Not Death

When I was either 18 or 19 I decided I was old enough to drive down to Tennessee and be with my big brothers for Thanksgiving. It was the first BIG trip that I had ever taken by myself. I gathered my things and spent a whole week with some of the best people I know and love.

While I was there I had the chance to go to my older brothers college group at his church. I will never forget this experience. And here lately there has been something that keeps running through my head.

It was something that (are you ready for this?) my sister in law's sister in law said (My brothers wife has a younger brother, that younger brother is married, his wife said something that I won't forget). (Side note, said sister in law is awesome, said sister in law sisters in law is awesome, we've had some good times).

She was talking about Samson and something he did before he, you know, tore down pillars and met a crazy chicken who cut of his hair. One day he was walking down the road and he ate some honey he found in the skull of a dead animal. (Judges 14:9) Israelite s were forbidden from eating anything out a dead animal. As she told us about this story, she had tears in her eyes as she described how this world has tried to give us sweetness from dead things. How we will never truly know how sweet anything is from that death, and she wanted to run after sweetness that is found in life, in Christ.

For some reason, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. But in a different way. Because I've got this beautiful baby girl now, and she's so...alive. Very alive. Even at three in the morning. Sometimes very late at night. And while this time is tiring and hard and new, it's beautiful and wonderful, and yes sweet.

I am finding the sweetness of life when my husband comes home dog tired and he still plays with our baby girl. When she smiles at him and giggles at him.

I am finding sweetness in an extra hour and half of sleep when Ellie's Grandma Jaques steals in her in the morning without me even knowing.

I am finding sweetness in her smiles while she nurses at my breast, that intimate moment where she knows that she is loved and that I love her. It so sweet.

I am finding out how sweet it is to share stories with my boss at work, who loves her daughter as much as I love mine. We swap stories and talk about our lives, and I thankful for her mentor-ship.

THIS is where we are meant to find sweetness. In Life. Abundant life.

It's the Christmas season and it's so very easy to forget where life is and what it's really about. My daughter is life and I am finding sweetness not in the dead things any more. I don't find sweetness in empty relationships or money or working out or stuff. I am finding sweetness in life, in my daughters smile, and my husbands wisdom. In people who have overcome so much and who are still praising God, who still smile through heart break.

It's so easy for me to forget that there is sweetness. And it's easy to forget that it's found in Life, true Life (meaning Christ and his gifts to us) and not death. Never death.