the kammerzells

This post was written by Morgan Day Cecil, a few months back while just before giving birth to her daughter, Emma. It is a part of a short series of posts about motherhood that I will be running on this blog for the next month or so.

Morgan and I have known each other for a few years now, having “met” (in the virtual sense) through the wonderful world that is the internet – we both blogged in our previous lives about single parenthood and life in general. Our stories are similar – she had a baby, she met  the man that the universe intended for her, got married, had another baby (very recently) and is living out her happily ever after.

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It is a Sunday morning and it is quiet. My husband has gone for a workout at the gym and my son, gratified with a belly full of cereal, is playing in his room. It is just I and the Emma in my womb, 2 weeks shy of being born. And it is quiet, not in the way of an empty meadow or a room with no souls, but quiet in my heart with the stillness and peace of happy.

There is the sound of a slow train and our new Tivoli radio playing old jazz. And then the buzz of the microwave  me my coffee in my favorite mug is now reheated. I am in slippers, a Natori bathrobe, and with warm drink in hand I return to the chair by the window where it seems I might just be able to sit and stay for while with my bible, and just be in this perfect kind of quiet—

Or, no.

My babe with the Spidey underwear comes down the stairs in tears.  All is not right in his  5 year old world. His little heart is sad and he comes to his momma for help. I, this little man’s momma, is ready with a hug and already praying she can fix whatever is broke.

A Cars 2 Train is the center of this drama. A piece has dislodged and it is devastating the boy with the blueberry eyes. I tell him to breathe. I breathe and then I surprise us both by actually fixing the toy.  There is a God who comes to our aid.

All is better and he runs back up stairs to tell Finn McMissile he can safely board now the spy train taking him on his next mission.

I stay in my chair by the window, for a moment, Sunday morning light pouring in, Jazz still playing. Coffee is no longer hot but the quiet never left me. I smile, give thanks to the God who never left me either, and stand to return to the microwave. For the third that morning I reheat my mug. This time I reflect on how motherhood is all about the little interruptions that make up a life.

And because of all the interruptions, Motherhood is about falling in deep friendship with your own patient, loving breath so you can be in these interruptions not interrupted. If you can carry even small pockets of peace and stillness with you moment to moment you will never be separated from self, from heart, from the God that guides you and created you mother.

Please, Lord, help me remember this quiet place, where all is not forever perfect– broken moments pierce us and those we love– but all can be made right by gently being with whatever is and by breathing in this place with You.

Morgan Day Cecil is a contributor to Transformed Magazine and is currently working on a guide for single moms on how to create a beautiful life.  She married a man after God’s heart and that man adopted her son. Now the three of them, happy as clams together, are gearing up to welcome the 4th addition to their little family, a baby girl named Emma, due early 2012. They live in Portland, Or. If you want to connect to Morgan, you can find her on Facebook and Twitter. She also spends quiet a bit of time on Pinterest these days.