Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Jump In With Both Feet (11/28/19)
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TITLE: The Expert | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marilyn Borga
12/05/19 -
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The nine-month pregnancy passed without incident. I breezed through the labor and childbirth with a minimum of trauma. At last, our son had arrived! We gazed into his beautiful midnight-blue eyes and pronounced him the best looking baby that had ever been born. As soon as the nurse handed him to me, I examined every inch of him, from his downy black hair to his exquisite tiny fingers and toes. He was perfect. Soon we couldn't imagine our lives without him.
For the next few days I enjoyed the luxury of having my meals and snacks brought to me. Every few hours, someone would bring my clean, freshly diapered, precious child to me to nurse. All I had to do was rest and recover. Soon, that honeymoon phase in the hospital ended. One morning my husband settled me into the backseat of the car and helped me strap our child into his car seat for the short ride home.
I don't know what was going through my husband's mind, but I distinctly remember a tinge of fear coloring the elation I felt. We were taking our newborn home! But for the first time, we were totally, irrevocably responsible for another human being, an utterly dependent one. The enormity of it settled on me like a blanket. What if we didn't know all that we needed to know? What if we didn't turn out to be perfect parents? What if, horror of horrors, our child didn't stay as perfect as he was at that very moment? Were we equipped to form him physically, emotionally, and spiritually into the child he was meant to be? What joys, sorrows, frustrations, and challenges lay ahead for us?
But there wasn't time to dwell on any doubts. We were parents. I did the only thing I could do. I jumped in with both feet and started running. Life accelerated and I had to keep pace. There was little opportunity to slow down in the years to come.
Turns out, I wasn't an expert after all. I made mistakes. I muddled through. Life with children wasn't perfect, but after over three decades I can attest that it was far richer than I ever imagined it could be.
Fortunately, my husband and I knew just the right expert to help us. That expert is the father of more children than there are stars in the sky. Unlike me, he is absolutely perfect. And though he was and still is the perfect father, he had trouble with his kids from the very beginning. Yet he loved them with unfailing love.
It didn't take me long to figure out the hard truth that our children are not mere extensions of ourselves. They are individuals with minds of their own. They don't always act the way we'd like. The father of all foresaw our tendency to want our own way, but he wanted our love and devotion to be genuine. He decided not to force himself on us. Instead, he devised a plan to allow us to live with him forever; we only need to choose. He sent his beloved firstborn son, Jesus, to atone for our sins.
I jumped into parenting thinking that I knew more than I really did. I soon learned that I was every bit as dependent on God as my infant was dependent on me. My experience tells me that, whatever God asks me to do; he will equip me to accomplish. He doesn't require my perfection or expertise, only my hearty obedience.
And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23-24 (NKJV)
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