The child arrives on the planet and a new daddy shouts, and the grandparents weep with joy, but the mother is the first to see her child deeply. Children are born and you don’t have to teach a mother or child how to feel love. They bring their love with them.
She sees her baby and realizes that the old saying is true- babies come through us but not from us. And God whispers the words He always whispers following another stoke of wonder: “It is good.” He created the child and He created the relationship. There is a sacred connection between mother and child.
And the journey begins on that first day of life and the journey is filled with a vast collection of memories:
The first birthday cake
Mud pies
First steps
Bike rides on Christmas mornings
Lines on the door frame celebrating growth
Time out in the corner of a kitchen
A sudden illness followed by floods of concern
Healing and overwhelming relief
T-ball games
Goldfish funerals
Messy rooms
Adolescent brooding
Consoling heartbreaks
Failures and successes
ACTs And SATs and waiting nervously for results
Unexpected tears upon the realization that the journey into adulthood would soon be over.
The mother and the child
Their connection constantly changing and shifting over 17 years.
And as they back out of the driveway, boxes and memories stuffed away in the trunk, one last time they are off. This time not to camp, or a game, or a weekend but rather to a world of adventure that mothers and father release them to experience. They’ll be back again and again- but the journey has begun. Their daily presence is gone.
But not the love.
A mother’s love lasts, from birth, to childhood, through the teen years and beyond…
Endlessly unfolding…
The love never changes.
It is held in the mighty hands of Jesus.
This work by Matt Tullos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International