lessons from stevie

steven curtis chapman, that is. yesterday while i was writing my post, i was thinking of his song "his strength is perfect," which is a take on 2 corinthians 12:9. "his strength is perfect, when our strength is gone/ he'll carry us when we can't carry on..." old school stevie wisdom. then yesterday afternoon, after emmy's nap, the vaccines she got in the morning started to bother her and she became really clingy and cranky and you could just tell she wasn't feeling well. so i turned on some music and sort of danced around with her, which she's liked since she was a teeny baby. a couple of times, i tried to stop and get her interested in a toy or something, partly because my arms were tired and partly because i was getting bored. each time, she'd cling tighter, whine a little, and wiggle as if to say, "keep dancing me, mama!" and so i did. at one point, i started to get really annoyed...and then the song changed, and out of the over 5500 songs i have on my ipod, which i just had playing on shuffle all, stevie's song "cinderella" played- "i will dance with cinderella/while she is here in my arms/cause i know something the prince never knew...all too soon, the clock will strike midnight/and she'll be gone." point well received. i sang the whole song to her at the top of my lungs, and held her a little tighter, and was completely renewed. you see, one day, my sweet little girl that loves to be held by mommy, sometimes a little too much, will be a devilish teenager who is embarrassed by me and does whatever she can to spite me. one day she will move out of our home and begin her own life, and if she's anything like me it will be far away from her parents. one day even sooner, she will decide she has far too many interesting things to do to spend any time in mommy's arms. and these things aren't even going down the road stevie himself went down, when his little girl left him to go home to Jesus. so yes, i will dance with cinderella, and at least for the day, i will remember to choose to enjoy it while i still can.