The day after a third trimester ultrasound to confirm that baby is, indeed, growing, you might find yourself weep-singing in the shower with Shane and Shane turned up and your soul turned up and your praises shooting up, up, up to heaven's throne.  I don't deserve the fragile life growing inside me, have done nothing to merit a healthy, thriving baby, and when I posture myself from that place, healthy seems so over-the-top gracious.

I've found myself in 1 John all month, some days I read the whole book in one sitting, others I trip stumble around the same verse.  All the days, though, the word remain plays again and again in my mind.  There is a quiet war between my pride and remain and it is dangerous because of how quiet it is.  How stable my pride seems, how risky remain feels.  But I am trying.  To remain when the toddler uses his defiant voice, when the girl is attached to my leg, my hand, my hip all day long.  To remain when I pick up his piles again, finish his dishes again, wipe the tray and the table and the floor and the nose and the booty, again.  When, after a day of repeating and giving second and third tries, he walks through the door and doesn't listen as closely as I would like, doesn't treat me as carefully as I think I deserve, maybe doesn't see me all the way, remaining in Him is so hard.

But the morning keeps coming.  His quiet knock on the door as he dashes to work keeps coming, the cup of coffee he hands me, the reach to the floor for my Bible, the bookmark and 1 John, they keep coming at me and when I posture myself from that place, remain seems so over-the-top gracious.  Because I have done nothing to deserve a God who invites me to abide, a King who would walk with me, would kill my sin for me and build a forever place for me and invite me to the table over and over again even when  I don't listen as closely as I should, don't treat Him as carefully as He deserves, don't see Him all the way.  Remain Tasha, remain.