Who's Taking Care of Me?Намуна

KNOWING YOUR BABY

Did you ever think it was possible to know so many details about another human before becoming a mom? 

“Can I help you put your baby down?” your mother asks. 

“Yes,” you answer, “But he likes to be cradled with his head like this while you rock him for five minutes and sing this song.” 

“What does your baby’s digestive pattern look like?” the pediatrician asks.  

“Well,” you answer, “She has a wet diaper after every meal and two dirty diapers a day. Would you like to know the shade and smell of her poop?”

As moms, we seem to know everything about our babies. If they follow a routine, we know when they eat, sleep and bathe down to the minute. We’re aware of any ailment they have, whether it be a rash or cradle cap. We learn the difference between each of their cries. The older they get, the more we know what comforts them, what makes them smile, and what they’re trying to communicate. No one knows your baby better than you. 

On the flip side, as mothers, we often feel unknown. Taking care of a baby can be isolating: it can feel like too much of an effort to get all our baby’s things together to leave the house, and coordinating schedules with other moms can be a feat in itself. As mothers, oftentimes we lack the adult connection that we had before our babies. And more than that, sometimes we don’t even want to be known. 

Taking care of a baby is extremely challenging. Maybe you’re so sleep-deprived and worn down physically that you just feel numb on the inside. Maybe you’re struggling with postpartum anxiety and feel overwhelmed with terrifying thoughts of something happening to your baby. Maybe you feel discontent or angry with the reality of the intense responsibilities of motherhood. I know I have struggled at times with each of these realities. 

These feelings are hard to share with people. We worry we’ll be misunderstood or judged. But at the same time, we long to be fully known and accepted. 

The Bible offers us hope here. It tells us that God knows us, even more than we know our babies! In Psalm 139, King David writes that God knows him completely: God knows everything he does, and even his innermost thoughts are an open book to God. God is not only all-knowing, David writes, God is also everywhere. 

Why does David note God’s constant presence? Shame leads people to hide from God, and if God knows all of David’s actions and thoughts, that means He knows all of David’s sin. But David does not want to hide from his all-knowing and all-present God. In fact, he describes the reality of God’s presence as “too wonderful”! David delights to be fully known by and fully present with God because he knows he is fully loved by God. Yes, God knows all of David’s sin, but God has covered David with His mercy. David is confident in his good standing before God. 

The same is true for us! God knows everything about us, and He is with us everywhere. He knows everything that we might consider shameful, and He still loves us so more than we know. Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross has taken care of all our sins, past, present, and future, so we can be fully confident in our good standing before God. 1 John 3:20 says, “Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” 

Understanding that God fully knows you and is fully with you, take a moment to rest in God’s unconditional acceptance of you.