Stories are my specialty. So, I figured possibly, just maybe, if I wrote a story and threw in some bible verses, it just might pass for a devotional.
Hot dog, I'm on to something! (Yes, I know, I haven't even reached pre-school in my spiritual walk.)
Good news is, I think I fooled all 25 ladies that were there. They thought it was a devotional the whole time, he he.
Behold, my story-with-some-bible-verses-added-in-turned-into-a-devotional:
Letting Go and Letting
God
Congratulations,
C on your soon to arrive precious baby.
The Psalms declare, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a
reward from Him.” You are about to
embark on an adventure that many have experienced, few have wished they hadn’t experienced
and none have mastered. Parenthood. Motherhood.
Loss of control-hood.
I aptly
titled this devotion Letting Go and Letting God because in my experience, all 6
full years of raising children, that one of the REALLY big lessons I was
intended to learn was how NOT to be in control.
Now, I wouldn’t consider myself an overtly control-hungry person (my
husband and brother might disagree).
Throughout high school, college and my early professional years, I was
driven, goal-oriented and meticulous. But,
I didn’t lose sleep over not making the All-A Honor Roll, or keeping a 3-point
whatever-ever GPA, or even finishing a lengthy, expensive college career in less
time a Med-student would put in. So, I
never considered myself a “control freak.”
Then, I got
pregnant. My control-freak tendencies
started to surface but not in the typical fashion you would expect. Finances were a big worry. Which vitamins should I take? How should I wear my seat belt safely? Will I go back to work? Who will watch my precious if I do? Which car seat is the safest? They were all very typical questions for a
first-time pregnant mom, but they were bringing to the surface a deep darkness
I was blissfully unaware of.
You see,
babies have a way of stripping you to your core and bringing you face to face
with your Maker whether you want to go there or not. I must admit, after reading this through
numerous times, I started to fixate on the word “strip” and considered changing
it to a less-ferocious adjective to explain the breaking down process. But, I chose to leave it because for the
first time in my life, when that newborn entered our home, it was the closest I
had ever been to being permanently void of wearing clothes. Our house was easily PG-13 and there weren’t
too many people complaining about it. So
stripping it is.
This breaking
down process starts with the mental-stripping of longing for a baby. Whether
time is on your side or not, quite a bit of soul-searching and relationship
breaking and building occurs while you’re just waiting. Then, the pregnancy. Ohhhhh, the pregnancy begins the
physical-stripping portion of the process.
Who would have ever thought “those people” were serious when they spoke
of strange food cravings. Jim was sure
he was going to have to make a special trip to Sam’s Club to buy me a 5 gallon
jar of pickles for the first baby, or stop by a fruit stand every day to buy me
a watermelon for the second baby. And
pains. Back pains, belly pains, swelling
pains, head pains, foot pains, leg pains, ear pains (those were Jim’s ears
aching), etc. etc. etc. Pain is your
body’s way of telling you something is wrong.
Pain is God’s way of lightly tapping you on the shoulder to get your
attention. Then, the bundle of joy
arrives and the stripping is kicked into high gear. Contractions, labor and delivery (I won’t
even begin to discuss the “literal” and “metaphorical” magnitude of stripping
that happens during that whole process), hospital gowns, doctors for your baby,
doctors for you, family dynamics, hormones, breastfeeding, feelings of
confidence being swallowed by insecurities and doubt and the end-all be-all à the complete, null and void, absence
of sleep.
There’s a
reason why sleep deprivation is used in torture camps. Sleep deprivation is serious stuff. It’s enough to cause you to not want to brush
your teeth in the morning, unknowingly put your underwear on inside out or
rationalize why it’s okay to go longer than 2 days without bathing. It causes you to make drastic decisions. I remember at one point, about 2 weeks into
severe sleep deprivation, I found myself having to place post-it notes on the
changing table to remind myself to change her diaper in the middle of the
night. One late night incident about
that time, Jim confidently proclaimed through his sleep-deprived frontal lobe
of rationale “That baby is trying to kill us!” and I burst into a
wet-slobbery-sobbing fit of denial.
The
stripping process is painful and ugly while en route, BUT, because you know
this isn’t only going to be about how hard newborns can be, the end of the
journey is breathtakingly beautiful. You
see, as we’ve all heard before, God uses our hurt, pain, hollowness and sleep
deprivation to draw us closer to Him.
Which, in newborn-land, is the divinely intelligent and perfect design
God had for becoming a parent. He knew
that once we entered life as an adult and things became fairly easy to control,
we would struggle with finding the desire to seek His will for our lives. So enter in a baby. Flesh of our own and helpless, inexplicably
beautiful and mysterious, yet still manages to turn our world upside down. Never, would the idea of giving up on this
child enter our thoughts. So at our
lowest point, when pain, sleep, rationale, and even personal hygiene is at its
worst, what else is there to do but give up control by letting go and letting
God.
2
Corinthians 12:9 God said “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made
perfect in weakness.”
Now, for the
other mothers in here with teenagers, they might disagree on my earlier
reference to things being at their worst with a newborn. I’ve heard that mothers of teenagers known
why animals eat their young. Regardless… Remember this, whether it’s trying to weigh
the pros and cons of a hand-me-down crib vs. buying a new one or the tough
decision about returning back to work or feeling like your body is broken,
always, ALWAYS, turn to Him. He is in
control. Ultimately. Completely.
Forever. And he loves that baby
more than you could ever fathom.
Psalms 139
13 For you
created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
I’ll wrap
this up with a quote I have grown to love.
I have no idea who Kevin DeYoung is, but apparently, he was important
enough to have been included on the front of our church bulletin one Sunday and
I’ve had his quote on the fridge for over 3 ½ years. When seeds of doubt or anxiousness are
creeping in and thoughts of “steering the wagon” on your own are inundating
your psyche, remember this:
“We obsess
about the future and we get anxious, because anxiety, after all, is simply
living out the future before it gets here.
We must renounce our sinful desire to know the future and to be in
control. We are not gods. We walk by faith, not by sight. We risk because God does not risk. We walk into the future in God-glorifying
confidence, not because the future is known to us but because it is known to
God. And that’s all we need to
know. Worry about the future is not
simply a character tic it is the sin of unbelief, an indication that our hearts
are not resting in the promises of God.”
Great Bible Verses for
strength, renewal and hope
21 A woman giving birth to a child has pain
because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish
because of her joy that a child is born into the world. John 16
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like
shifting shadows. James 1
11 For I know the plans I have for you,”
declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you
hope and a future. Jeremiah 29
5Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean
not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3
6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every
situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to
God. Phillippians 4
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