You can arrive to a family party with your children neatly dressed and pressed and the bread not burnt and the baby asleep and you can sit on the hill watching the two older ones explore and gallop and roll down the lawn and you can sigh over the dreaminess right before you gasp when your son runs to you, giggling over the red berries he has found, your daughter not far behind with the juice running down her fingers, her dress, and as swiftly as that, the loveliest moments lie up against the dangerous ones: little adventurers climbing hills while clasping deadly nightshade.

Later, while you're all gathered to pray, your son will wrap his arms around your leg lifting your dress to show off that part of your thigh you are still working on and motherhood is a constant tug of war between so many things: pride and humility, discipline and comfort, laying down boundaries and also handing out freedoms.  

The same God who created family to be a sanctifying, glory-to-Him-shouting cluster of eternal souls is the same kind God who also ordains the moment you're leaving a restaurant patio, the owner rushing after you simply to let you know she is beautiful and all the tables have been exclaiming over how tiny, how pretty she is.  The same kind God who has refined and sanctified your father to the point that when you're on your weekly bicycle ride and you haltingly ask him if we are all too much (your children, your lawn that is never trimmed, the laundry that he shows up to fold and put into drawers) he replies with a small laugh and Oh, Tasha.  

The two eldest are on their way back from a backyard campout with their nana and pappy and the baby is squealing on the floor and the coffee is hot and already 22 miles have been ridden, hundreds of verses read, the counters cleaned.  But I know, in an hour or two, there will be toddler wailing and baby messes and my own sin simmering in my heart and that kind God will cradle us once again after gently correcting the crooked moments, I know that the moments all add up and that when we fall and rise and even when we dine, there is glory there.