Friday, January 27, 2012
Baby Faces
I can still feel the warm weight of him snuggled down against my chest. Sound asleep, our youngest grandboy was cuddled, rested and relaxed for his second nap on me in as many days. There is nothing quite like having a baby in the family. Even our older grandchildren relish a baby and know that the baby days are short lived.
Though delightful, every parent remembers that those early days are demanding. Babies don't always know what they want but they know that you have it. Since they don't use words you understand yet, communication is tricky. They cry when wet, hungry, hot, cold, frightened, lonely, or just because they can. At first the cries for each of those very different things sound very much alike.Therefore, you study them and hold them close, speaking softly in reassuring tones.
If you are the mother, you might nurse them and continue to sustain and nourish them. You swaddle them tightly and keep them warmer than you'd like because they like it. They keep you up and get you up. Sleep is a gift that you catch hold of when and if you can. Keeping them clean is a priority and as you change diapers or bathe them you observe every change of skin tone or rash. For them you are their protector, their mobility, their parental unit. And you do it all willingly, if not always gladly, because you love them and they are yours: part of you, part of your spouse; part of the past, part of the future.
It is a love sacrificial and unconditional, a commitment without end. Are there rewards?
Absolutely! Wondrously they love you back. You are their favorite person. They develop a radar regarding your prescence. No one makes their face light up like you. Everything is new and wonderful or new and not so wonderful and you are the one they tell everything to. Breathe deeply and enjoy the sweet fragrance of a new baby's skin. Linger as you enjoy that big drop of milk on the quivering lip of a sleeping babe, belly full, totally relaxed and trusting in your sheltering arms, peaceful again. All is well with the world when all is well with their world.
When they hurt, you are always sympathetic. You will go to extraordinary lengths to keep them happy and safe, reluctant to give up even if you have tried everything in the book and it doesn't work. You are committed. There is no going back, only forward. Together. Until death do us part.
The apostle Paul tells us in his letters to the Thessalonians that this is how he cared for the new believers - gently, like a nursing mother loves her children. He wasn't there very long, nevertheless, his letter drips with longing to go back to that nurturing environment again. Because they were loved in such a focused, intentional, complete way, the Thessalonian church was very different from the other churches."We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us." (1 Thes 2:8 NIV)
Later Paul boasts about their perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials they endured. They stood firm and were a model to others of love and faith. All because Paul loved them with the intensity of an infant for a short while before he left them to practice what he preached? It seems so.
Sadly, I have discipled a very few with that kind of consuming intensity. Might that be a missing link in teaching new believers to become believers who will shake up the world? Or at least to make it wonder? It is a question worth asking. What will I do about it?
Though delightful, every parent remembers that those early days are demanding. Babies don't always know what they want but they know that you have it. Since they don't use words you understand yet, communication is tricky. They cry when wet, hungry, hot, cold, frightened, lonely, or just because they can. At first the cries for each of those very different things sound very much alike.Therefore, you study them and hold them close, speaking softly in reassuring tones.
If you are the mother, you might nurse them and continue to sustain and nourish them. You swaddle them tightly and keep them warmer than you'd like because they like it. They keep you up and get you up. Sleep is a gift that you catch hold of when and if you can. Keeping them clean is a priority and as you change diapers or bathe them you observe every change of skin tone or rash. For them you are their protector, their mobility, their parental unit. And you do it all willingly, if not always gladly, because you love them and they are yours: part of you, part of your spouse; part of the past, part of the future.
It is a love sacrificial and unconditional, a commitment without end. Are there rewards?
Absolutely! Wondrously they love you back. You are their favorite person. They develop a radar regarding your prescence. No one makes their face light up like you. Everything is new and wonderful or new and not so wonderful and you are the one they tell everything to. Breathe deeply and enjoy the sweet fragrance of a new baby's skin. Linger as you enjoy that big drop of milk on the quivering lip of a sleeping babe, belly full, totally relaxed and trusting in your sheltering arms, peaceful again. All is well with the world when all is well with their world.
When they hurt, you are always sympathetic. You will go to extraordinary lengths to keep them happy and safe, reluctant to give up even if you have tried everything in the book and it doesn't work. You are committed. There is no going back, only forward. Together. Until death do us part.
The apostle Paul tells us in his letters to the Thessalonians that this is how he cared for the new believers - gently, like a nursing mother loves her children. He wasn't there very long, nevertheless, his letter drips with longing to go back to that nurturing environment again. Because they were loved in such a focused, intentional, complete way, the Thessalonian church was very different from the other churches."We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us." (1 Thes 2:8 NIV)
Later Paul boasts about their perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials they endured. They stood firm and were a model to others of love and faith. All because Paul loved them with the intensity of an infant for a short while before he left them to practice what he preached? It seems so.
Sadly, I have discipled a very few with that kind of consuming intensity. Might that be a missing link in teaching new believers to become believers who will shake up the world? Or at least to make it wonder? It is a question worth asking. What will I do about it?
