Not the same

Nature

God is our Sustainer

My first-hand experience as a mom

I remember very vividly the feeling of not being a normal mom. I was in the NICU with my twenty-six weeker who lay vulnerable in his little incubator while I watched helplessley on the other side of the window. I just wasn't a real mom in my eyes. I felt like I had that experience stolen from me.

In a way, looking back, my harsh begining as a mother was a lot like the harsh realities of motherhood in nature all around us: the tiny little birds that spend hours and days preparing a nest - not just any nest, but the right nest for their coming brood; the Carolina wren parents, for instance, will actually build more than one nest usually, and then pick one to use for their babies.

I just wasn't a real mom in my eyes. I felt like I had that experience stolen from me.

I got to witness this beautiful, amazing and interesting progress for myself on a couple occassions as a pair or two used our porch as their nesting grounds. Those funny little birds didn't realize the dangers of building a nest in a cardboard box, however, so one year they actually utilized a box that was propped up by other boxes that we had collecting on our porch to eventually take to the recycling place out of town. Unfortunately for the birds, one windy day the box they were nesting in had blown over. I frantically went out to try to "save the birds' eggs" and thought that I got them all and had put them back in the nest and made their box more sturdy by moving it a little bit and having more boxes to surround it. The days went by and I didn't know if the parents even came back or if they abandoned the nest altogether. But one day I could hear the sound of babies and I poked my head around the curtain just in time to witness three fledging babies on what seemed to be their last day in the box. Later on, when I knew the wrens were completely done with the box, I ended up finding two eggs at the very bottom of the box that didn't hatch. But the parents couldn't do anything about those two eggs. Even if they knew that the eggs fell from the nest, they weren't physically able to bring those eggs back to the nest, as it had fallen too far. The pair just did what they had to, and they did it valiantly, as they raised their three young right next door to a cat that would love to catch them, and probably a whole slew of other wild animals like snakes, squirrels, and raccoons. The parents did what God made them to do, and in a way that is what I had to do as well. Except, being a mom to a premature baby on oxygen came with a lot of different hurdles. It came with hurdles that I never dreamt of prior to becoming a parent.

...we have a choice: we can either trust God, the sustainer of our life, or give in to fear and have our trust in God shaken so badly that we begin to falter.

Being a mom to a micropreemie was like sailing in uncharted waters when all you ever did was maybe go to a lake a couple times and the beach, but always stayed in the shallow waters. I had no idea what to be doing when things started happening that we didn't understand. And I wonder, what do the animals God made - like the wrens - do when things happen to them that they don't understand? A hurricane, a tornado, a flood, the unexpected deforestation of their home. There's so many treacherous things that can come barrelling down on us in our life, and none of it is necessarily anyone's fault either, but we have a choice: we can either trust God, the sustainer of our life, or give in to fear and have our trust in God shaken so badly that we begin to falter.

The parents did what God made them to do, and in a way that is what I had to do as well.

During the months that followed my son's release from the NICU, we battled many storms that were unavoidable and in some ways felt so unfair. Every time we got over one hurdle, another one would appear, like the battering waves of the ocean. There was no simply escaping it. Either we would have to hold on to our faith and hope in God to help us through all of it, or we would utterly break under the harsh circumstances. So it is with the little birds, who - if we would pause to recall - are so cared for by the Creator God that not even one falls without His knowing it. And He doesn't just have this knowledge like some unemotional being that sits up on a throne and peers down at us as we stumble, saying in sarcasm, "Why don't you handle these trials more like Jim and Elisabeth?" - no, God cares so much for us and He feels the pain we endure as we endure it. He feels our afflictions and grieves with us as we go through them.

Either we would have to hold on to our faith and hope in God to help us through all of it, or we would utterly break under the harsh circumstances.

Of course, it is never easy to go through any trial or suffering - even with this kind of knowledge - because God never promised us that any of it would be easy. Instead, He promised that He would be with us in it. So we have to take heart and trust God. When we do, and when we prevail over the hardships that we face, God uses it for our good. We don't stay stagnant in our faith when we do go through trials; instead we have the opportunity to grow from those trials. We end up like the gold refined seven times in the fire, or the diamond that is cut out from the deep. Our faith shines brighter and others can see Jesus in us more clearly when the dross of an easy life and prosperity that clouded our lives are finally removed.

So we have to take heart and trust God.