Gratitude in times like these!

I hate to admit it, but when it came to decorating the nursery for our first born, I went a little, shall we say, overboard. I locked in on a “Cow Jumped Over the Moon” theme and had an artist decorate the walls with cow spots while I hand sewed valances for the windows. I think it must’ve been the nesting thing. But perhaps the biggest decision my husband and I had to make was the crib. Mainly because nobody in our family had a crib they were ready to hand down, so we were left buying one. After scouting around and deciding it had to be black to match the cow spots on the wall, we finally agreed on what could be summed up in one phrase: THE MOST EXPENSIVE PIECE OF FURNITURE IN OUR HOUSE!!!
 
If you haven’t been crib shopping lately, you might be having sticker shock, though it’s nothing like the shock I was about to have. After settling my baby to sleep in the crib for ten months, I heard the news. The “perfect” black crib for Charlie’s “perfect” nursery came with an unexpected extra … lead paint. The manufacturer was recalling all of them thanks to a little mix-up in Indonesia. I was devastated. It’s not just that my baby had been sleeping in the crib, it’s that “The Beaver” had been in it. Yes, that’s the nickname Charlie got at about 7 months when he started chewing on the side of his crib. By the time we’d heard about the lead paint recall, he’d worked his way around three sides, practically chewing his way right through.
 
Besides the helpless anger I felt toward the crib company, I simply felt lost. How was I supposed to keep my child safe when even the best crib I could find had failed him? After a lot of soul-searching, and some encouraging results from Charlie’s lead-level blood test, I came to the conclusion that you just can’t protect them from everything. And maybe that’s not what it’s about. There’s only so long you can swaddle them before they are busting out and exploring the world. It’s not always going to taste sweet or feel good, but true safety is within. That’s the place we go for protection and if I want to give Charlie the best armor in the world, I’ll begin by teaching him the Prayer for Protection:

The light of God surrounds me.

The love of God enfolds me.

The power of God protects me.

The presence of God watches over me.

Wherever I am, God is.