Diapers and oatmeal before the day begins

This morning I woke up early, and the baby wasn't far behind. No dramatic moment, no particular feeling about it — just the sequence that has become the shape of my days. Diaper, highchair, spoon, repeat.

I don't always have language for what that kind of morning is. It isn't poetic while it's happening. My hands are doing the work before my mind has fully arrived. And yet when I sit with it for a moment, I notice something: I showed up. Again. Not because I felt ready or inspired, but because there was a small person who needed me to.

There's a line I keep coming back to — that God's mercies are new every morning, that his compassions never run out. I used to read that as a comfort for hard days, a kind of spiritual reset button. But lately I think I'm understanding it differently. The newness isn't just about forgiveness or a fresh start in some abstract sense. It's about faithfulness that doesn't depend on how I feel when the alarm goes off. It just keeps showing up.

That's what I'm doing too, in my small way. Not because I've figured out how to be a parent, not because every morning feels like a gift I'm grateful for in real time. But because the baby is in the highchair and the oatmeal needs to be stirred and that is what this morning asks of me.

I don't think the unglamorous parts of this season are separate from the meaningful parts. I think they might actually be the same thing. The diaper, the spoon, the early hour — this is what loving someone small and dependent actually looks like from the inside. It doesn't feel holy while it's happening. But maybe that's what faithfulness usually feels like. Just the next thing, done again.