God set a certain order to stages of life. Not many would doubt that. But the beauty and strategicness of it is more and more evident to me everyday.
Case in point. You know the childhood song kids would sing… “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.” Even thinking about it brings me back to those shy feelings on the playground.
But it’s true. You fall in love, get married, and then often times you have a baby. There is a beauty to the unfolding of that story. But it is more than just a fun story.
Before you are in a relationship, you are single. You don’t have too much to worry about but yourself. You have friends, family, and other responsibilities but for the most part you can make your own decisions, spend your time as you please, and basically do what you want. It’s a fabulous season of finding out who you are, exploring your passions, learning about yourself. Singleness is a highly underrated season.
Then comes marriage. Dating is a transition when you start to take someone else’s view, needs, and desires into consideration. And engagement is definitely dying to yourself and compromising… Hello wedding plans!
But marriage is living together. Combining 2 lives. Making decisions. Making dinner. It’s truly learning selflessness.
But the thing with marriage is that on those days I do choose to be selfish, my husband can still make his own dinner and do his own laundry. While I am called to uplift him emotionally and spiritually, if I choose to fail at that he can take care of himself. It’s not the way it is supposed to be. The marriage doesn’t thrive in those moments. But it can survive for a bit until I get my act together. Not that I am proud of those moments. Not that I am excusing them, but there is some grace there.
Then comes a baby. A tiny little being who needs me. He doesn’t just need support, he literally needs me for life. To physically survive. He can’t just pick up the slack if I felt like being selfish. He is helpless. He cries when he is hungry until I feed him. He can’t just wait for a little bit until it is convenient for me. With a tiny human, I can’t just tell him to get over it if he is hungry at 3 am.
This is a new lesson in selflessness. To care for a being who literally can’t care for themselves. And I am not yet even to the hard part. The teaching them to be a good person part. The teaching them to deal with their emotions part. Where I have to die to my need for logic and order and respect. And I will be asked to step into the messiness of life again, not for myself but for my baby!
At least now, I can bounce him when he is crying, watch netflix while he naps, and still get a shower in while he is in his pack’n’play.
But the thing is he will only be helpless for a blink of the eye. Soon he will be feeding himself, walking, driving, and living his own life for himself.
And then I will be the helpless one. Because for now I can take care of his physical needs. I can feed him, bathe him, and hug him when he is sad.
But I can’t make his decisions for him. I can only protect him from so much, but then I have to let him go. I can train him and teach him but I can’t force him to do anything.
I can pray for him and teach him what the word says. I can demonstrate what loving the Lord looks like and I can describe to him to beauty of the God I know. But I can’t make him follow Jesus.
I can pray. That’s it.
Motherhood is where selflessness and helplessness meet. God has been teaching me to be selfless in stages for my whole life, a little at a time. But I have also been running from helplessness for a long time too. Increasingly desiring to be in control. But motherhood is slowly helping me realize how little control I have. I was able to deny it in my 20’s when I was pursuing my independence. But now looking at my little baby, I realize how helpless I really am.
God gives us these little gifts to remind us who we are. I love my baby more than anything, but not more than God does. Ultimately everywhere I lack is made up for in Christ. And while I want the best for him, I want the safe best. The easy best. The pretty best.
But God is in control. He will bring my baby through trials, just like He brought me through them. He will gently nudge him through hard decisions, through temptation, through confusion. And I have to trust that God is calling my baby to himself, just like He called me.
But I have no control over what that looks like. And for the moment, I can take care of this precious gift as best I can. And pray. Knowing the God of the universe is in control.
So being helpless is not as scary as we think. When we are trusting the one who needs no help.
