Weakness as gift

My mom is visiting her mom after having spent 5 weeks with us as we welcomed baby DW into our lives. So this week is the first time we've been left truly alone with our kiddos. One thing I've enjoyed is all the cuddle time with both my children. L, who has always been very independent, has wanted and enjoyed hugs and kisses more in this time of transition. And DW just patently prefers being held to pretty much anything else at this point. And I'm happy to accommodate.

But I was thinking back to my early 20s when I did a fair amount of living overseas for months at a time. This was pre-skype, pre-convenient email. And I suffered from intense bouts of loneliness. It did not help that I traveled to countries with little sunlight and lots of foul weather. During one of those trips, I read the book Five Love Languages. This book proposes that different people have different love languages and if you try to "speak" a language that another doesn't understand, they won't see your actions as love. The "languages" were quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, physical touch and receiving gifts. Quality time and physical touch resonated with me as languages I understood.

But there I was, on some distant continent, far from people I cared about and I wanted to throw a bat through a window. It seemed extremely unfair to have physical touch be a love language when I was extremely single. At the time, I had never dated anyone and would not have known how even if the opportunity presented itself to me. And then there was the whole deal about how God designed sex for marriage and man, if dating felt far off for me, marriage really felt far off. Basically, I felt cursed to have an empty love tank. Ultimately, living a healthy life in my body would be a struggle the rest of my singleness. It was something I managed by God's grace--I took up more athletic endeavors in my mid-20s--with alternating bouts of peace and torment.

Now, I'm writing this as my newborn sleeps in my lap. Those days seem very far off. As the mother of young ones, I'm constantly touching and being touched. Books sometimes warn parents that moms can be worn out from constant touching and want alone time away from her husband. Maybe it will come to that someday, but that day certainly hasn't come yet for me. I love the sweetness of our current phase. My daughter will sit in my lap and rest her head on me while describing the most mundane realities of life. "Daddy blue eyes,""Baby DW sleeping,""Red bowl,""Blue shirt,""Stacky blocks all-fall-down." My son loves being held and petted. I could do without the wailing parts, but really the rest is great.

What once seemed like a curse has now become a gift. I have hugs for my kids all day and when my husband gets home I've got plenty more snuggles left for him too.