š¦·"Tooth gap season is precious and entirely too short"
I started crying the other night. A sliver of white front tooth is poking through the gums in Rogerās wide-open tooth gap.
Tooth gap season is precious and entirely too short. He is a lovey-dovey boy (and was even more so that evening after spending all day home with me because of a fever). The tooth gap heightened the joy I found in his words and hugs and giggles, and I mooned over my girls when I said goodnight to them, too, rememberingāor trying toāthat fleeting season in their changeling lives.
And I was struck all over again by how different the world (mine, anyway) is with them in it. They werenāt here, and then they were, and everything changed.
When Mary ātreasured all of these things in her heart,ā was Jesusā tooth gap season one of them, on top of the actual miracles and events? Did she wish his adult teeth had taken more time to grow in?
Her world changed so fast: betrothed but pregnant, a new mother in the presence of shepherds and angels, visited later by wealth-bearing kings, fleeing to Egypt, raising a Promise along with an ordinary family and its ordinary treasures, life later upended by Jesusā public ministry.
Extraordinary events punctuating a mundane, often painful, life (like Simeonās parenthetical whisper to Mary in Luke 2 that āa sword will pierce through your own soul alsoā).
It feels symmetrical, then, that it was Mary who flipped the script: where Jesusā coming changed her world, she changed his, telling him to fix the āwine issueā at a wedding in Cana, despite his protests that it was not yet his time (John 2:4), and quietly kicking off his visible, public ministry.
A needed change that then changed everything.
Iām thankful that God feels differently about change than I do, that nostalgia doesnāt hold his hand back from his plans and purposes.
All-powerful, the Father didnāt leave his Son tooth-gapped and sweet; he let time march, drawing Jesus nearer and nearer to the Crossāthe source of the sword in Maryās soul and the catalyst of true, forever change: salvation for all who would hear and follow the Son.
NON-FICTION: Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence - Anna Lembke
Our āuber-ancient neurological machineryā¦is perfectly adapted for a world of scarcity. Without pleasure we wouldnāt eat, drink, or reproduce. Without pain we wouldnāt protect ourselves from injury and death. By raising our neural set point with repeated pleasures, we become endless strivers, never satisfied with what we have, always looking for more.ā
CHRISTIAN NON-FICTION: Live No Lies: Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace - John Mark Comer
āFor millennia, followers of Jesus have immersed their minds in Scripture, not just to gather data, memorize factoids, and get the right answers on a theology test. Doctrine does matterāvery muchābut not to āpass the testā and get into heaven. It matters because we become like our vision of God. The goal of reading Scripture is not information but spiritual formation. TO take on the āmind of Christ.ā To actually think like Jesus thinks. To fill your mind with the thoughts of God so regularly and deeply that it literally rewires your brain, and from there, your whole person.ā
FICTION: The Butterfly Lampshade - Aimee Bender
Benderās The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is one of my favorite novels in terms of its beautifully melancholy language/tone and slightly supernatural bent. So far, this novel about a young womanās experience finding her way after growing up around her motherās mental illness hits all those high notes.