watch your mouth.

My 2 1/2 year old is talking now. A lot. His ease into the wonderful world of verbalizing has gone exactly the way many of our friends told us it would: Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Then bam! A whole lot of somethings flying out of his mouth, often adorable, frequently humorous, and occasionally disturbing. It's one thing to be looming over a toddler who's babbling unintelligibly and weeping because you confiscated the Sharpie he was using on his closet door; it's quite another when you're wrestling the new roll of (so cute, but now destroyed) wrapping paper from his hands while he locks eyes with you and screams, "No, Mama! NOOOOOO! Myyyyyyy paper!" Because now the little man isn't a baby who doesn't know what he's doing and all is right with the world after a few hugs, some smooches and maybe some cheese and crackers to really smooth out the wrinkles.

No, now there are the furrowed eyebrows in my mirror while I put on my eyeliner. There's the moment of contemplating at the edge of the bed, the methodical rubbing of temples while I wonder and think and pray about how to manuever through this swamp of parenthood. (Wait, it's actually a wading pool, right? Did I miss the boat for the wading pool?!) I am always thinking about what my words and actions are impressing upon my children. I'm a loud, emotional person; have been since I was Gabriel's age. My boisterous personality has made me friends, helped me thrive professionally, and generally enjoy my adult life having lots of fun! There's a balance to everything, though, and my inability to rein it in has, at times, caused me trouble.

I used to curse like a sailor in high school. The f-word was my favorite. I was the classic teenage potty-mouth... I was doing it because I could, and in retrospect, I can see that it was also one of the few ways that I actually rebelled. I was too frightened to break most rules, but profanity was something I could couple with good grades and high aspirations. It added a little flavor to what I figured was a pretty drab outfit. Years later, I still utilize some bad words... I like to call them the PG-rated kind, but that's like eating a plate of bacon while insisting you're just sticking to a low-carb diet: You're missing the point, amigo.

Let's throw out the bad-word debate for a second and get to the heart of it all. More than any asterisked thing that could come from my lips, I'm deeply disturbed by some of the uglier thoughts I've put into words. I'm prey to the high-horse temptation just like everybody else. Sometimes, it just feels good to take the list of what everyone else is doing and lay it next to yours: "Well, see, I'm not doing that... or that... or that either! Man, I am preeeeeeetty amazing!" Gross, huh? Especially because, in the last 2 years -the ones, I consider, I have grown most spiritually- I have said some of the worst things I've ever said. One particular instance: While I was pregnant with Eli, some friends and I were discussing something I couldn't go to because I would still be prego. I jokingly suggested to my unborn child that he, you know, hurry up and be born massively premature so I could attend.

When we left, I got in the car and cried the whole way home. Why did I say that?, I kept asking Ben. I was born several months premature. I have visible scars on my left arm from the month I spent in the hospital post-birth, marks inside my elbow where dozens of IV's delivering life-saving medicines were carefully inserted into my tiny arm. Why did I say that? I spent a lot of time sitting in the rocker in E's nursery that night, rubbing him where he was still safe in my tummy, begging God quietly to forgive me for whatever I was harboring inside myself that would lead to such a horrid slip of tongue.

This is one of the few areas that breaks me -instantly, cleanly- when I go to Scripture to see what He has to say about it.

"...For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."
-Matthew 12:34

After all this time, all these mistakes... They are a humbling indication of how much in need of a Savior I still am and will forever be, of how dark my heart will remain if I don't consistently place it in His hands and let His Holy Spirit guide me in my life. There is hope... There is always a promise:

"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD.
"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."
-Isaiah 1:18