Let those eyes sparkle and shine

I love my daughter with a passion that scares me. Everyone tells you about it when you're pregnant (and even when you're not) that even if you don't like kids, you'll love yours with a fierceness that will startle you.

I remember the first time I had a mother bear instinct. Madeline was about 3 months old and I had stopped the car to put gas in it. I was looking at her through the window as she whimpered. I noticed a man filling his car with gas. He was walking around us. He wasn't doing anything weird or creepy, just walking. All the sudden I felt something rise in me for the first time. I got hot from my feet up. I thought to myself, "If anyone tried to hurt her, I could kill them with my bare hands."

I adore what she has taught me about love and about myself. I am amazed that she, of all the people in my life who have tried, has shown me the joy that children bring. To want to give up that career I had always wanted. To wake up every day, sometimes discouraged, but never defeated. To realize no one's hands or smile could change my day in an instant.

I used to be amazed when I'd read stories about mothers in oppressed countries who would give their children to other families so that they would be safe. Who wouldn't eat for days on end, to make sure their baby had enough. I remember one story about a mother who was told her daughter would never ever walk (I don't remember why). She quit her full time, high paying job and spent every day with her daughter - loving her and making sure she would have every opportunity that other children had. She bought a treadmill and worked with her daughter on it every day. She walked very very late, but she walked. Doctors . . . oh if they knew the power of mother's love. It's crippling and empowering. It's fierce and soft. It's love as God intended it.

If I had to run
If I had to crawl
If I had to swim a thousand rivers
Just to climb a thousand walls
Always know that I would find a way
To get to where you are
There's no place too far