My Daughter and Me

Life can sometimes be very complicated if you are a mother, and no one can understand me better than mothers who have tiny little daughters. I have one, so believe me, I know what I am talking about. It seems like only yesterday that I was holding this little writhing pink creature in my arms, holding her close to my heart to keep her warm. Little did I know then that with that one tiny touch of her hand on my bosom, she was actually getting a grip of my entire life! Life changed dramatically since the day she came to this earth. Never have I felt such complicated and contradictory emotions in such rapid succession! One minute, I was holding her up for everyone to see, cooing over her slightest hint of a smile, proud of this cute little thing, and the next minute saw me crying out of sheer exhaustion of having to be awake at all times of the night. People kept telling me this was but a short period in my life, and it will be over with a blink of the eye. I wonder now whether they were just trying to be nice and calming, or whether they were all really ignorant about motherhood. For as I watched her grow, I saw more and more, that conflict was going to become a way of life for my feelings. On the one hand, I was the proud mother who watched her daughter take each step forward, growing from infant to child to toddler and on the other, I was the mother watching her little butterfly breaking free from the cocoon with a sinking heart. With each stage in her development, she showed me that I could be happy and sad at the same time. I was proud of her first step, but unhappy that soon she will not hold my hand while she walked. I was happy she began to eat on her own, but sad that she will not need me to feed her anymore. I was proud of her when she learnt to button her shirt, but sad that soon, she will not need me to dress her up. I was glad she liked school, but it tore me apart to see her let go of my hand and rush to her teacher. Conflicts! Conflicts! Conflicts! It’s a warm feeling with a blast of cold air. And then there are times when you are feeling cold, and there is the warmth of a blazing fire. Like when I wait for her after school. As I wait, I think of how much she has grown, and how she needs me less each day, and then the door opens, and she comes out, bag in hand. And the minute she sees me, her face lights up, and she comes rushing to me with a shout and almost crushes me in her hug. That is when I realize that life is going to be this way forever. She will never not need me, but she will also never always need me. 


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A Mother's Heart

After becoming a mother, many of my perspectives have changed drastically. I look at many things now through the eyes of a mother rather than through the eyes of a daughter. Yesterday, while watching an animated version of the story of Moses, I began to wonder about his mother. More often than not, when we think of the story of Moses, we think of him, how God saved him and so on. Yesterday for the first time, I put myself in his mother's shoes. She wants her baby to be safe, and so she does all she can to save him by putting him in a basket and setting him afloat in the sea. With what feeling that mother must have let go of the basket that carried her precious boy. Rather than see him slaughtered in front of her eyes she chose to let him go, pinning her hopes on her Lord. What faith she must have had to take that step. I imagined myself putting my child in a basket and trusting her to the mercy of the waves, and i am ashamed to say that i could not even imagine doing that. That kind of faith is most definitely not in my bag as yet! And then just think! She finds her son in the very house of his enemy - in the house of the very person who had issued the order to kill him and others like him! What would I have done? Again, I am ashamed to say that my faith would have most definitely faltered. Each day would have been torture. But then, look at how God works! Isn't it amazing that the very person who deprived him of all his slaves, grew up in the Pharaoh's own house! That the very person who went against him so boldly, was the one child who's life he had spared! That almighty God, who made pharaoh's downfall grow under his own protection, gave that mother the strength to go on! What a truly mighty God I serve! I know, that no matter how weak I am, that Lord who gave Moses' mother the strength to do the things she did, will keep my daughter safe, and give me the strength to bend to His will in her life. Praise the Lord!

Thankfulness

I have often thought of myself as a very thankful person, but recent retrospection has led me to believe the opposite. My thankfulness nowadays seems to stop where my purse strings close. That isn’t real thankfulness. Increasingly, financial worry, coupled with being in a new place, with no family at hand has made me less and less thankful and more and more worried. And so I decided that to be really thankful, I would have to start making a conscious effort to remember all the good things that God has graciously offered me. Instead of complaining about the smallness of my storage space, I choose to be thankful for a house, and a place where I can keep the stuff I really need, while I learn to throw out all the unnecessary junk I invariably collect. By giving me less room for storage than I had before, the Lord is teaching me to be less of a hoarder, and anyone who knows me well enough knows what sort of a hoarder I am. Instead of complaining about the trouble my daughter causes me while eating, I choose to be thankful first of all that I have a daughter to look after, without whom life in this country would have been almost a total misery, while so many many people in this world long for a child to call their own. Secondly, I thank the Lord that He has provided me with enough to make her another glass of milk if she spills the first one, while millions of people struggle to feed their children one square meal a day. Instead of complaining that I am bored sitting at home doing nothing, I choose to be thankful that God has given me so much time for leisure for me to pursue anything I want, while in many families, women are struggling everyday, juggling family and work, not as a choice but as a compulsion – to make ends meet, to fulfill commitments, and to give their children the best of everything, trading wonderful family time in the bargain. Instead of complaining about not having medical insurance yet, I choose to thank God for having provided my family and myself with wonderful health and the assurance of His protection from all sickness and disease. There are millions of things, some small, some big, to be thankful to God about, and I have realized, that when you truly spend time thanking God for His provision, you have very little time left for complaining. Try it. Thank Him for the air we breath, our ability to walk, our family, our friends, our capacities, our limitations, our ideas, our insights, our ignorance, our possessions, our weaknesses…the list is always endless. Thank Him more, and see the difference. Sometimes, like for me, thankfulness can be a real effort, but I tell you, it’s worth every cent…