We have a son!
We were blessed with a beautiful and healthy boy in December, just over three weeks early due to the concerns over his well-being.
His name is Noah Peter and I can confidently speak for both myself and my husband when I say that we have never experienced a love like this.
I look down at his perfect and innocent face whilst I am nursing him and I am struck with awe at the miracle that he embodies. I am overwhelmed with so many emotions as I watch him sleep and I often have the realisation that he is real. A real-life human being and we made him through our love for one another.How awesome is it that we have been entrusted with such an amazing responsibility: to bear children; populate the earth; teach a new generation of the wonders of God and the world He lovingly created!
Since becoming a mother I have a new sense of understanding and empathy for some of our favourite characters in the Bible.
Reading about Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac, after his long and desperate quest to get him, makes me worry.
Would I be able to do that?!
I don't think that God would ever put me in such a position; He had a specific plan for Abraham and needed to know that he trusted Him wholly.
God gave me my son. I prayed long and hard for him for many years before he was ever conceived. I knew that I would be blessed with a son, a Noah, I just didn't know how or when. With this in mind, I trust that the Lord has a plan, not only for me but also for him.
I sing to him and I sing over him. I speak God's blessings over his life and I read Bible stories to him - it's never too early to plant those seeds! I spent many hours, before and during my pregnancy, praying for him - that he would be healthy and happy. That I would be able to provide a warm and loving home and that I would be equipped to teach and nurture him. I so desperately want to be a mother who is good - not just "good enough", and I long for him to know that he can come to me with any problems or worries he may face in life and we will talk and pray together. I can't wait to teach him how to pray and to share all the questions and answers I've found along the way in my journey, so that he knows that it's OK and even a good thing to have questions!
I pray everyday that my son will grow to know and love the Lord and that I will succeed in my responsibility to bring him to know all about the goodness of God. I pray that he will answer God's call on his life and that he will be a mighty man of God who quickly finds his place in the Kingdom. That he will be a prayer warrior and that his passion for the lost will exceed even my own. I pray the same prayer I pray over my husband; that I will be second in his life, that nothing and no-one will ever come before his heavenly Father.
I read about the time that Mary was pregnant with Jesus, and when he was a tiny infant. Did she know what was ahead of Him? Did she look upon his peaceful face with a heart that was breaking because she knew what was coming only thirty short years away? Or did she smile in the belief that she would have her precious boy forever?
I can't even tolerate the thought that anything bad could happen to my son. I couldn't imagine it. The love I have for him is so alien to me. It is beyond words. I would give my life for him in a heartbeat.
But that's exactly what God did for us, isn't it?
We, His sons and daughters; His precious children who He created and knew so well that he could count the hairs on our heads, we needed Him. We were falling farther and farther away from His grace and He watched in despair as the world He lovingly created and furnished for us was crumbling into oblivion.
He gave up a part of himself. His only true Son, Jesus Christ, our Messiah. He allowed His pride and joy to come into our immoral world and sacrifice Himself for the rest of us.
I can't imagine doing that.
I guess it makes me even more thankful for God's mercy and grace. And I understand more (though I will never fully understand) His love for me.
I pray over my son daily. Lord, may he always be found righteous like the Noah of the Bible, and may he be a rock that you will build upon, like Peter of scripture.
