Six weeks ago, the greatest blessing of my life entered the world; my sweet baby girl.
Everyone tells you the love you have for a child is unlike any other, that the feeling is overwhelming and the emotions uncontrollable, but nothing can prepare you for the reality of experiencing that all-consuming love for the very first time.
In between the diaper changes, feedings, baths, spit ups, wardrobe swaps, and attempted sleep, the thought crossed my mind that I have no idea how God did it-how did He allow His Son, His lovely, perfect, beautiful, and harmless Son to sacrifice Himself for an undeserving world?
When I look at my daughter, the primary thing I see is innocence. She is untouched and untroubled by this world, has never done anything to harm, hurt or hinder in any way. She is fully and truly pure, so pure that the thought of anything or anyone harming her physically hurts me.
Jesus was a baby once, tiny and defenseless, sweet, adorable, funny and so very innocent.
God watched from heaven as Jesus gave His first cry, shed His first tear, walked on little feet, smiled a gummy grin. God watched as His perfect and virtuous Son was born into a world that did not deserve Him and knew that one day that little baby, so faultless and sweet, would die an awful, painful and lonely death.
How did He do it?
I have often wondered, and written about, who made the greater sacrifice, Jesus or God. Now that I am a mother, I think I have found my answer.
A child is the heartbeat of a parent, the newfound purpose, the meaning, the destiny. So, to send your heart away, knowing the inevitable harm that will come upon them, is a pain I could only imagine and could never fathom experiencing.
But, God did experience that pain, every day for 33 years He suffered it, the aching, the sadness, the desire to make it stop. Yet, even though He could have put an end to the agony at any moment and call Jesus back up to heaven, God chose not to, and He did it for you and for me.
With Christmas just around the corner my primary prayer to God is one of thanksgiving. I could never send my little baby to a place I knew did not deserve her, would not love and protect her, and would eventually fiercely harm her, but God did.
Our Father loves us more than we can imagine, Jesus is proof of that.
We serve a God like no other, a good, kind, selfless God who gave us His most cherished possession.
Thank you, God, for doing what I could never do.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son”
-John 3:16
A Woman Standing 