stretching...

Falling in love with love...
It sounds sweet doesn't it?

Though the notion can be quite romantic...
I find most of the time...
The sheer choice of the day to days...
Is quite stretching.

As I looked in the mirror today...
I quickly noted...
My late- 30's belly is more than stretched.
Being pregnant 5 times and this last one...
Well...

The journey turned my anatomy into a science experiment.

Being pregnant with triplets is NO JOKE.
Those closest to me saw the crazy things it did to my structure.
One week... not looking pregnant at all...
The next... I looked ready to deliver.
Because my identical sons were extremely sick...
My body was battling severe fluid retention...
A fight that was all too quickly lost.
By my 23rd and 24th week I could barely walk.
Carrying love of this kind was breaking me open.

So... 
As I gazed this morning...
I remembered.

The art of Loving...

And carrying love...

It is uncomfortably stretching!

Since we have embarked on this project...
Love has been growing and stripping me...
In ways that are less than attractive...

Ways that make me want to hide....
Offering love through a masked version of whom I was created to be.

And though I rather like things to be in place and not be so wholly worn...

There is something sacred about flesh giving way to love...
So the very core of who we are...
Is reshaped...

Marked and made into something new...
Changed forever.

The smallest story-gifts...
They have been my biggest teaching tools.

Charli has been proven to carry enough heart and spirit...
For her and her two brothers.

With each new day...
Especially days when I would like to hit the "reset button..."

I am thankful for the grace and new mercies...
He has placed in my hand.

And that He keeps on stretching...
So I might keep on keeping on...
Being a student of love.


Falling in love with love...
It isn't glamorous...
But it is raw beauty.
And I celebrate the stretching that is forever changing my structure...
Swollen tummies... swelling hearts and all.