The exceeding sadness
Of my greatest joys
Lingers with me daily

The calls of friends, unanswered
The books on shelves, unread
The dreams once thriving
Now dead

Oh my kids, I love you!
You have ripped away from me
The parts God called long ago
But I never had the strength
To lay down myself

The gods of money, time, and freedom
That I desperately clung on to
Pruned by the great Gardener
Through your precious hands

The altars are crumbling!
My life falls too
Is this life of diapers
And children’s books
Really it for me?

This sadness
In the end
I have concluded
Is the dying cries
Of flesh not dead 
So do not mourn
This sadness long

God’s tools look different
Then I ever thought they would

I guess I should be grateful
For these tiny tools
That God has used
To rip away 
My sacred altars

These tools He used 
They come with smiles
They come with cuddles
They come with diapers too
They are my children
An exceeding sadness 
Turned to everlasting joy 

The sanctification process of parenting is hard. Especially if you have not sufficiently died to self. 

You long for the things you once had: freedom, time, money, autonomy. And you hate the world you live in now: a prison wrought from love. 

I’ve often meditated on how this greatest joy was the cause of my deepest sadness. A life I could no longer live as I thought fit and used to be excited to conquer. 

God has used my children to do what I never could on my own. To lay down all my own selfish desires. To minister in the unseen and rarely thanked for. To take up obscurity so I find my only satisfaction in Him. 

I’m grateful, and still sometimes sad. But the sadness I’ve learned is good. A reminder that God is not done pruning. And an opportunity for deeper joy for the gift of my children I never knew I needed.