Parenthood

Today I realized that being a Mum has helped me understand God's heart for us. Being a Mum is the hands down best experience but it does not come without costs. I read a hundred things about pregnancy and giving birth but was not prepared for what happened after. The wondrous love is, for me, accompanied with incessant anxiety, a sense of helplessness and a lingering feeling of guilt that I'm not up to scratch in this new role and that's just the emotional side. Day to day there's the nappies, and the many times the nappies are redundant and instead the code brown situation goes head to toe, the sleepless nights, the cries when they are dry and fed and burped and you've no idea what to do. For me there was also the horrendous mastitis, allergic penicillin reaction and abscess incident which meant hospitalization and separation for my little beauty. For many there are so many other things that make being a mum hard work.

So would I do it again now , knowing what I know? Of course. There is nothing about the costs that detract from the awesome, transforming feeling and energizing, uplifting power that Phoebe's smile gives me or the cuddles that make everything worthwhile. Whilst the leap is substantial I was pondering today on how God made us knowing that there would be huge costs. And the biggest cost of all was sacrificing his Son for us. Now it is border line heretical to compare the cost of my horrendous stretch marks to the cost God experienced for us but I realized today that any sacrifices made for your children, whilst painful at times, always seem worth it because love cancels them out. It's helped me remember why God loves me. Not because I've earned it but because I'm His child and he chose to have me.

There's a song that says: 'and did He see there in the straw by His head a thorn? And did He smell myrrh in the air on that starry night?'

Of course the answer is YES! God knew the fullness of the cost He would pay to win His children back even when Jesus was a tiny baby. The truth of that floors me. His cost puts all of mine in perspective and His love for me will make loving Phoebe easy whatever future cost that brings.