Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Lessons From A Child

Becoming a mom has opened up a new realm for me.

When you are single you get to interact with God on a one on one basis. There is such beauty in that relationship, the adventures and the many lessons along the way. When Luke and I got married it opened up a new way for me to relate to God. For the first time I was able to experience and better understand the relationship of a bride to her groom. I was able to experience a new spectrum of Gods character and role in my life, his role as my beloved and mine as His spotless bride. I feel God designed these different stages in life in order for us to continually get a better grasp of His heart and get a better view of how He sees us and how He wants us to see ourselves.

Having Joah and becoming a parent has propelled me into yet another side of my relationship with my heavenly father. It seems I have gained a new perspective on how He relates to us and how I can or maybe should be relating to Him. Interacting with a newborn makes me realize how much my behavior  mimics that of my infant son. For example, when I am feeding Joah sometimes I will pause halfway through and burp him before he keeps eating. You would think I stole his lunch money on pizza day. The cries come instantly, without fail. Each time it would happen I thought, "I wonder how long it will take him to realize that more food is coming. Im not going to leave him hungry, he has no reason to be upset."His reaction prompts the feeling that he doesn't trust me to keep providing food. The Holy Spirit quickly nudges me to think of my reactions to God when circumstances arise, instead of continually trusting God to provide not only food but in every other area, too often I find myself reacting just like my son. With impatient tears.

Infants tend to respond to different feelings directly, if they are hungry they cry. There isn't any filter or rules for appropriate behavior at this point. Sometimes we are like that in our responses to different circumstances, we react with our emotions rather than filtering things through the Word of God first. Instead of reacting to feelings of loneliness or abandonment with tears or isolation we should look to the Word that says that He will never leave us or forsake us. Our response will look quite different. Another circumstance could be concerns with finances, instead of instantly getting stressed out and anxious we know He says that He will provide for all of our needs, we can choose to respond with trust and faith in Him.

Sometimes we are unable to comprehend the full picture or the grand scheme of things but I know we can save ourselves a lot of time and a lot of tears if we choose to trust that our heavenly father has more food coming. He can and will provide for all of our needs. His love for us is more immense than we will ever be able to comprehend, it is the most beautiful and treasured thing I could ever experience or possess.