Having babies is not an end, it is a means. It is a means to growing in faith, to learning more about God, to learning more about ourselves, to pleasing God, to blessing the world.
It is not the only means to these things. For some, not being able to have babies is the means to these ends. Perhaps you are single, or have an unconvinced spouse, or a health issue. ALL are means, and all require a massive amount of faith, which pleases God.
However, this is about the specific means that babies provide. So, on the one hand, this is not about creating another line in a long list of religious rules, “Thou shalt have babies,” but rather a working out of the ways having babies bring us closer to our end–that God would say to us, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the rest of the Lord.”
Let’s get real.
To illustrate, I’d like to (briefly) share my story.
I was not raised to become a mother. I was raised to see babies as a threat and to deny my maternal instincts.
Men, children, and family life were all presented to me as obstacles to one’s personal development.
Growing up I witnessed that the denial of the essence of what it means to be female is spiritual and emotionally damaging. It causes women to become neurotic, cold, and mercenary.
Sadly, there was no softness in my mother’s heart for tiny persons. She disdained people who used cute voices and pet names to speak to babies. She worked hard to keep us and the house and finances in order, but was rarely warm or interested in us.
I was reminded regularly how my entrance ruined my parent’s marriage, and after I was married my mother would write to me in her letters, “Whatever you do, DON’T get pregnant.”
She resented and distrusted men in general, and this included my husband. I could not share my love and joy of having children with her. Each time we announced a pregnancy, we braced ourselves for her reaction. One of the great heartaches of my life has been having a mother who was only able to fulfill her obligations, but had lost her motherly affections.
I could never explain it to her. I know she tried to connect, but we were on different frequencies. I had a heart that was warmed by the breath of God, which is only enjoyed via surrender. This is something she could not understand.
(Which goes back to the idea of small-mindedness and big-heartedness that I spoke of previously.)
I was the victim of a cold, robotic parent, but Jesus made the difference. He helped me to love and forgive my mom; to see her as a person of value in my life, who really did sacrifice and try her best, but just had parts missing.
He also helped me to thrive and flourish in spite of the parts that were missing. Today I have come a long, long way towards becoming the mom I longed for, and the mom I know my mother wished she could have been.
As the Bible says in James 2:13:
MERCY TRIUMPHS OVER JUDGEMENT.
Having babies and rearing children has not been my destruction, but a grand part of my salvation. The pain and sacrifice I have undergone is nothing when compared with the joy and satisfaction I have experienced.
Jesus said if we want to find our lives, we first must lose them. I availed myself so that God could use my body for the purposes of bringing His children into the earth, and after these many decades (including great hardships and heartache), I would not have had it any other way.
No amount of career success or money could ever compare with the satisfaction of caring for our 15 children.
This is why I call this little space on the Internet “Mom Delights,” because mothering is meant to be full of delights.
And so it is my desire to communicate the heart of lovely, warm motherliness to others, and to encourage it and bring it out by God’s grace, just as so many other women have done it for me.
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12-14
This has been a short podcast, but I hope a powerful one. Next, we will get into the nitty-gritty of being pregnant and having lots of little children about to care for.
You can listen to the podcast by clicking below:
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