Be Your Father's Baby-

THE FATHER'S HEART THROUGH A MOTHER'S EYES: EXPERIENCING GOD'S LOVE FOR ME THROUGH MY OWN EXPERIENCE OF LOVE FOR MY CHILDREN.....

(a devotion begun when Gabriel was only a baby....finished now, when he's still my baby...)

Today I was walking up the hill from the mailbox holding Gabriel, my “Gaby Baby” in my arms. He was lying on his back looking up at me as we walked. His eyes were a bit wide with the bounce of my step, so for reassurance, I pulled him up close to my face and whispered, “See? I do all the work. You just have to trust me. That’s your whole job. Lie there in my arms and trust me. That’s it. I won’t drop you, ever.” And I wouldn’t. And neither would his father.
When the picture entered my mind of dropping him, it occurred to me how naturally I would sacrifice myself in any way NOT to. I’d do anything NOT to. I remembered a story my mom had told me of a time when as an infant, my grandma had been carrying me when she fell. Somehow, she ended up with a series of really horrible bruises and a black eye, but her arms held me up and I never suffered more than a slight drop in gravity. She took the fall. She guarded me. That’s what we do with babies. That’s what I would do. That’s what Gaby’s father would do, and it echoed in my head like a soft message right back to ME…

Lie there in my arms and trust that I won’t drop you.

It’s my job to walk steady, watch for cracks in the way, stumbling blocks. And you’d better believe that if anything trips us up, MY elbow, MY knee, My foot, even MY chin – SOME part of MY body will make it’s way to hit the pavement first before a single hair of your head touches the hard ground. I will absorb as much of the impact as humanly possible for you. You just lie there and trust me.

In fact, isn't there a confirmation of this in Psalm 62, vs 1-2, that says, “My soul waits in silence for God only; From Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken,” NOT that you won't be shaken, because there will be bumps. But you can be sure when you hit a bump, HE took the hard hit, and YOU got shaken...but not shaken greatly. You are still safe and sound. Like a baby.

It’s easy for babies though, right? I mean, they don’t know otherwise. They have been trusting our arms to hold them safely since the day they were born. But as we grow it gets harder, doesn’t it? We learn to lean on and put our trust in other things, because sometimes other things do really hold us up nicely, for a while. And yet, no matter how trustworthy those thing seem, at some point, every single thing we learn to lean on: chair, wall, ourselves, a friend, a spouse- every single one of them has the potential and likelihood of an eventual crumble. Not one of them can promise - and follow through with “always absorbing the impact” of a fall for us, to “not let a hair of your head hit the ground” in that fall, should there be come to be one. The quality of the chair or wall, the wounded nature of the other human being isn’t made up of the integrity to be able to back a promise like that, even with the best of intentions.

It seemed to me, as I ascended the hill, that I was walking a parallel: We grow farther and farther from trusting God as we grow older. We lean on others and ourselves. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the greatest struggle in getting older is actually in trying to go backwards- back to the time when it was easy to trust. Back before something gave way and it hurt when nobody broke our fall. Back to the simple, know-no-other-trust of our youth, when it came naturally to put our trust where it belonged; in the One who loved us the most. And we knew instinctively who that was.

But that instinct gets fuzzy with age. Where does it belong- our trust? It’s easy to lie in arms you can literally feel, or at least arms you can imagine yourself in. It’s not so easy to be carried by the unseen. It’s not nearly as instinctive to “let go” and let faith carry us up the hill. Putting the faith to the test to drop us or not must be a very selective process, and a difficult one as it turns out, to come to the right conclusion. Gaby doesn’t have to struggle with this yet. I do. Probably you do too. I struggle every day to just lie there and put my trust where it belongs; not in another person. Not in myself. Not in a structure of any sort. Not even in the love of my life with all his beautiful skin on – or for those of us still awaiting him, putting trust in the dream of him and our “someday.” He’ll fall. He will. In some way, big or small. I know, because we all do. We all fall who have too much trust placed in us.

So remember, and revel in gratitude this any-season season, that (even if you have one already, or are still waiting for one), you don’t need a prince in order to be a princess. All you need in order to be a princess- is to be the daughter of a King.

The King.

And a daughter is a child. And a child is somebody’s baby. And a baby trusts her Father’s arms.

Happy Monday, Happy new week, all you lovely Princesses.