So Many Stories in a Mama’s Hands

On May 1, 2012, my life changed forever, again. My third baby was born.

Emerald was long hoped for. After multiple miscarriages, I was beginning to resign myself to the reality that I may not have any more children. But then she arrived.

I really thought that I was beginning to have motherhood figured out. After all, I had gotten two other human beings from birth to eight and four years old, and I was actually sort feeling smug about my mothering abilities. I was a confident mother. I felt competent. I felt like I was in control of things. I was sure that when this third little doll arrived that I would whip her into shape, get her on a schedule, lug her around in a sling, and go on with life.

But then she arrived. And she cried a lot. She wanted to be held twenty-four hours a day. Two other children still needed me just as much as before her arrival. I was exhausted. I felt like a failure. I felt weak. I felt like everything I knew about mothering flew away about a week into her life.

I don’t know what it is about that third child. For me, it was like starting over. It was just as shocking as having the first one. Life changed in every possible way, and I wasn’t prepared for that change. My two other children were older. We were way done with diapers and pacis and not being able to go to the movies. Plus, there was now a serious math problem: my two hands + three children = not enough hands.

And, believe it or not, I had to start over as a mother. I had to relearn why we do what we do. I was back to that first really hard square of giving yourself out for someone who can’t give anything back.

Then, in no time at all, she learned to look for my face when I spoke. She learned to smile. She learned to get that chubby little fist to her mouth. I watched her in amazement, and I remembered that it is a privilege, a trying and challenging and exhausting privilege, to be given one of these little souls to love and nurture. And I put her on my shoulder, our faces touching, and her little baby gurgles in my ear took me back to other precious moments with my babies. I put my hand on her tiny back and it stretched all the way across. I paused to consciously consider how small she felt under my hand, and I vowed to remember that for the rest of my life.

When Emerald turned my mothering on its head, I turned to the only place that I could: to my Jesus. And, for one of the first times in my life, there wasn’t an ounce of pride or confidence or self-reliance in me. I was empty. He showed me what it’s like to depend on Him.

All of my kids’ arrivals left unique marks on my spirit. But, when Emerald was born, God gave me what I desperately wanted, and then He showed me what it is to be desperate for Him.

It’s amazing what a difference one little life can make.

And now, here I am, a full eleven years later, changing diapers and warming cups of milk, relying on my Jesus. It’s amazing to think about how all those years ago, when the Lord was carrying me through those first months with Emerald, He already saw how He would drop this precious one into my life right when my nest was beginning to empty. These, too, have been days and weeks and months of seeking Christ and learning in new ways how much I need Him.

This will be my 19th Mother’s Day, and I don’t approach it with confidence like I did with my first baby. Nor do I approach it with pain like I did when the miscarriages kept coming. Maybe more than ever before, I will greet this Mother’s Day with a sense of humility, of God’s goodness and His sovereignty and His presence. He has taught me so much through these four children, and I have many more lessons to learn. I’m grateful that He has kept all of His promises. He never leaves. He never changes. And He always gives me what I need, for His glory, for my good.