When I was a young mom, the best part of my day was in the middle of the night. In the hushed quiet of my baby’s nursery, I held my infant to my breast and with just the whisper of a song, and only the soft light of the nightlight, I nourished my child while I nourished my own soul. The only discord was the occasional creak of the rocking chair that cradled us both. As if I had never counted fingers and toes, I counted them again, and pondered the years to come. The life I held was so small, so dependent, and yet so totally complete. Aside from external influences and an experiencing of the transforming, enabling grace of God, the Creator had already bestowed on this incredibly precious life, all the potential needed for growth, for learning, for creativity, for personality, for maturing, for becoming. My thoughts would attempt to envision the paths these little feet would walk, the skills his hands would master, the vastness of the world that would become his. Holding a grandchild in my arms many years later, the resounding awe of those quiet pensive moments that I so wanted to hold onto forever, and yet I dared not hold back the potential God had given, that same awe washed my spirit in its sweetness.
But in moments wholly apart from these, I have thought of Mary, the mother of the Christ-child. What would it have been like to hold my own Creator in my arms? What would have captured my spirit as I held my firstborn child, and contemplated where He had come from and where He would go? The world was already His. The skills that others learn come from aptitudes He has designed. My mother-heart would have claimed Him as my own, loved and longed for Him from the deepest recesses of my being, and yet recognized that this was not only my child, but a child that had been born from my body to be a child that would call the whole world to Himself, and to His Father. There could be no selfishness on my part, no unopened arms, no closed heart to shut out the others who would want His touch, His healing, His truth, and His grace. Would I have dared to let myself envision the years to come? What would it mean for my child to become a savior? Would He play like other little boys? Would He accept my comfort and my arms of love? What would it cost Him to fulfill all the potential His Father had for Him?
I would have nursed Him at my breast, bathed and dressed Him, and whispered the songs of my own mother. I would have wrapped Him warm and snugly and laid Him oh, so cautiously, in His infant bed, wanting to hold onto those moments forever. I would have helped to teach His little feet to walk, but I would have known that some day those feet would walk away from me. They would walk the path His Father had for Him with uncompromising purpose while I prayed for grace to let Him go. And yet still, amidst my ponderings, I would long to echo the words of Mary, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!”
– Bev
(Related Bible reading: Luke 1:42-55)
