Falling in Love...

There was a particular feeling that came with falling in love with my son. I held him close to me, as close as I could and I told him that I loved him. But I knew that I would never be able to hold him close enough or express perfectly enough how much I loved him. That feeling has happened once before in my life, the object of it then was my husband. For me though, love has always been less of a magical feeling than an active choice. I love my baby when I hold him and sing to him, I love him when I change his dirty nappy for the seventh time in twenty four hours, knowing that I will have to do it again soon, I love him when he has been screaming at me for an hour and all I can do is hold him and talk to him and cry - because love is doing those little things for someone, even when I don’t feel the love. Devotion and attachment are the lovely feelings that we crave, and they’re amazing but what they really are is just the fuel that feeds this active love.

Right now my baby is living off love. He needs his parents for every little thing from food and shelter to reassurance when he has the hiccups. Most of his clothes have been bought or made for him by people who have never even met him, people who care about our family and who were glad to know that he was born. He is a labour of love.

And so am I.

And so, on a grander scale, are we all. We are not only the product of the intense love of the creator, who begot the whole of creation our of the love relationship of the trinity, but we are redeemed from our sin by the sacrificial love of Christ. And here we learn what is the greatest love of all - why it is that I can’t express enough love for my child or for my husband in hugs or words. “Greater love has no man than that he should lay down his life for his friends.” I cannot hold him close enough, because only in personal sacrifice can I truly love as deeply as the perfect love of Christ.

Perhaps I will never be called upon to imitate Christ in the ultimate sacrifice, even if I did, I can’t wait my whole life to be martyred before I begin to offer sacrificial love. What I can do now, is offer my body and my life willingly as a servant to the child who needs it so fundamentally and to my husband to whom I have vowed myself. I offer them my time and my talent and I sacrifice to them my ambition, and in so doing, I offer all of that to the Lord, for it is in serving others that we are able to serve him.  

And I realise that there was a time when I held my child close enough to express the depth of my love for him. When he was in the womb, I surrounded him, I sheltered him and fed him from my body and I longed for him and did anything I could to protect and nurture him. In pregnancy, the mother’s body is sacrificed for the needs of the child. Her vanity is checked as she changes in shape. She is unable to live in the way she did before, she takes fewer risks. The pregnant mother accepts discomfort when it indicates that her child is healthy. And all of this is the least that the child deserves. Sacrificial love is written into creation in parenthood.

Love is not easy, it is draining, truly draining, deliberately draining oneself of 'self-love' and choosing to live for others. It must be rare to find those people who have learnt to love completely, some of them we call Saints.

 In writing about love, I have realised that I am a long way from mastering the art of loving, I am merely practising.

 

 

 

A lady complimented my baby today...

It felt wonderful! As a new Mum, I have just discovered this rush of joy that comes with hearing your child called beautiful. Among the other Mums I have met, I think the feeling is quite common. We didn’t realise it before but all we want when we leave the house with the pushchair is for somebody to peer in and smile.

Becoming a parent, I think, has brought into better perspective the role of God as the heavenly parent. He is Father of course, but he – she, if I may, is just as much a Mother too “should a Mother forget her child I will not abandon you.” And I feel that the lesson I need to learn from this particular aspect of being a parent is that if I take immense joy in hearing my baby praised, so will God be praised when I admire his wonderful creation.

Of course, I also have to remember to check my pride. I need to remember that my child is not the only beautiful baby around, that he is not my creation, I must be sure not to be hurt when people don’t notice him and I must know that being a Mother does not make me special. If I can do all of this and still take joy in my son and in other people’s reactions to him then I think I have found a moment in which I can praise God. I hope in this to be able to do good, perhaps it is a tiny act of kindness that I can perform to stop and chat for a moment, to welcome someone in that way into my family.

So now, I choose to be astounded by creation, by God’s handiwork of an intricate and beautiful world, by his amazing gift of humanity, by the child that he has placed into my care and by his own redeeming son whose advent is approaching. Further, I will try to welcome others into that moment of wonder when I can share the joy of being around a little child with those who stop to see him.

A Couple of Poetry Scraps

A little poem written during pregnancy

Blackcurrants

 

Will you come first or will the blackcurrants, my little one

When they flourish in the fading summer?

We have watched them from the start, from the very beginning,

When it seemed the winter would never retreat.

We felt the wind rustle the perfumed leaves, rejoicing every day

As we passed them on the way to work and home again.

That was when you were no bigger than a blackcurrant.

We waited until we heard the robins begin to sing-in the spring.

We watched while the flowers budded, bloomed and died,

Leaving bare stalks with a vague promise of more to come.

And now, little one, green orbs populate the branches –

Abstractly foreshadowing the currents they will become,

Teasing the impatient birds and me in their bitter youth.

You, will still be waiting, inside, when I am eating blackcurrants

On my way to work.

When you arrive, little one, the birds will be lamenting the end of summer

Nostalgic for the blackcurrant harvest.

An attempt at worship song lyrics...

Your presence, like water,

Refreshes a thirsty soul.

Your sacrifice, so perfect

Brings the sinner to your fold.

Lead me to you through the crowd

Of false voices pressing in

Let me adore, on bended knee, the only king

 

I must not guild you in silver or gold

To understand your might,

For all that they can do,

in earthly form

Is to reflect your light.

May I, like gold, be your reflection in my life.

 

Your every word, like dew fall,

Refreshes a thirsty world.

All that you teach, so perfect,

Builds and shapes your church.

Let me be silent in the storm

To feel your sacred power

Let me be listening to you through every hour.