I recently delivered a beautiful, healthy baby boy. He was a “rainbow” baby after two miscarriages and thirteen months of trying to conceive again. Needless to say, my life has been turned upside down. It’s so easy to pray for something and imagine your life with your answered prayer, but honestly I didn’t have a clue what I was asking for! I can just see God receiving my prayers and laughing to Himself about the reality of what was to come when He answered them.
While I am so in love with my eight week old, Barrett, and I adore being his mom, life has drastically changed. Sleep is a distant memory. My poor womanly parts will never be the same. My marriage had a bomb dropped on it, and the last time I had a quiet time with Jesus was when I was pregnant.
These past eight weeks have consisted of feeding my baby, hearing him cry, and watching him sleep. I haven’t studied my Bible, my prayer life seems nonexistent, I haven’t prepared for small group in weeks, and I haven’t even pursued my husband. Not only have I not been able to carve out time to do these things, often I haven’t even wanted to. Talk about feeling guilty, try admitting that one!
I knew having a baby would be hard, but I wasn’t quite prepared for these challenges. Along with all of the differences and adjustments that come with life with a newborn, I was also plagued with immense guilt. I was stretched thin and exhausted. I began to believe that I wasn’t a good mom or a good wife, and I most certainly did not feel like a good Christian.
While the discipline of these things are vital to our walk with the Lord, I allowed myself to forget the grace extended to me as a child of God. I missed the mark and instead of allowing the blood of Christ to once again plead my cause, I chose to sink into the guilt of not measuring up.
I’ve held myself to this standard of a poster Christian who doesn’t struggle with their time in the Word, has a perfect prayer life, perfect marriage, and a clean house with scratch-made cake on the table and in-depth theological studies for their small group every single week. When I don’t meet this standard, I feel failure, which turns into guilt. The truth is, I never meet this standard. I struggle. Hard.
I’ve spent most of my life trying to earn God’s love and approval by not struggling. I can tell you, it makes for a miserable life. I have a feeling I’m not alone on this one, though. Unconditional love is a hard concept. I mean, do you honestly believe the truth that God loves you no matter what you do… or don’t do?
God can love us unconditionally in all our shortcomings because He is the I AM. He is everything that we are not, so there’s no pressure, His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). The perfect I AM died for the I-am-nots so that we could be sanctified despite our sinful nature, despite of who we have failed to be.
I love the story where God first introduces himself as I AM. In Exodus 3, Moses is freaking out because God has selected him to be the leader, liberator and spokesperson of the captive Israelites. In a moment of fear and worry, Moses essentially asks God, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead Your people out of Egypt?”
God’s response is bone chilling, “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:14)
God is when we aren’t.
When I am stressed to the max, don’t make time for God, not loving to my family, or when I miss opportunities, I am still wholly loved. I am sanctified. I am free from guilt.
Lean in to Him today. Remember He has covered you with His love and grace that fills all our holes, shortcomings and failures. I am thankful that I am not, and that the perfect I AM is everything I need and more.
Amber, thank you so much for being vulnerable and honest in this post. It is very encouraging to see the raw true struggles of another woman of God. As women I think we all want to show off a little, and make life seem easy and fun (especially with babies), and like our time with Jesus is always consistent and satisfying. My hope and prayer is that we can all be a little more real with one another, and remind each other that God doesn't call us to be perfect..because He knows we will fail again and again! He is the only perfect one and we are called to trust that and love Him to the best of our ability..some days it may be loving Him by feeding and changing and burping our babies :)
ReplyDeleteYou are doing great..Know that loving your son is loving Jesus too!