unsteady

by Alanna

I type this at the kitchen table, and next to me stands baby girl, holding on to the chair with two hands.  When she’s brave she only uses one.  She sticks out her tongue and focuses, her whole body wobbling as she balances on tiptoes.  Sometimes she’s not even standing up straight, her little bottom sticking out.  She first started pulling herself up about a month ago.  I used to be scared, hovering not too far away.  Her knees cave inward, her dark curly head wobbles from side to side and looks as if it will pull her whole body down with it.  She is so very unsteady.  And I’m protective, and it used to scare me.  Our hard wood floors beneath her.  But now I wash dishes in the kitchen while she stands at the couch, still shaking unsteady and smiling at me.  Because although it appears precarious to me, I could count the times on one hand that she’s fallen.  She somehow always manages to grab on to something as she’s tipping, or she sits herself down hard.  She knows how to get down without hurting herself.  In some ways, I see me in her.  So very unsteady.  I’m the one, tentatively, pulling myself back up after I’m down again.  One more bad attitude, grumpy tears springing to my eyes when baby girl wakes up from daddy’s drill and I don’t get to nap.  My ugly self gnaws at me some days.  And I’m afraid to stand, afraid to try.  Because sometimes my Christian walk seems so very unsteady.  I stand on tiptoes on grace, rather than letting my feet rest solid.  I don’t trust.  But somehow He holds me.  And miracle of miracles, I don’t fall to crack my head on the hard floor.  Miracle- unsteady me, held up by grace.  Sinful me, held up by His strong arms.  So I don’t want to fear.  If my faith and my love and my patience are going to be lacking, I want to at least trust that He is at work in me.  That someday me and baby girl will both stand more steady.  She reminds me to keep trying, and to smile in the midst of these attempts.  Thanks to our good Father, we are both held up by grace.