Saturday, February 12, 2011

God's Baby Book


For years I have fretted over the clouded and tainted lineage of who I am. As a child, I grew up with the shame of being born an illegitimate child growing up in the fifties along with all the inferior feelings associated with that.  Perhaps the absence of either parent might have contributed to my issues with abandonment as well.  Don’t get me wrong, I did have a nurturing and loving grandmother, several aunts and uncles all willing to be there for me.   They were my rock.

As I grew and had children of my own, I realized I wanted to record every little detail about their lives, so that they would not have a blank record of their lives.  I wanted to record every minuet detail so that they would know how much they were loved, and that they would know that their little lives mattered to me and others that loved them.  I wanted to make sure they had a foundational security and felt safe and would know exactly when they got their first hair cut, lost their first tooth, when they rolled over, when they took their first step, and what their first words were.   In the case of my son, when his first stitches were…and there have been many!

But somewhere along the way, as I matured in my faith I began to understand who I really was. What I thought was important, really wasn’t.  In the big picture, what I figured out was that I was a child of God and my life had been recorded all along, and I had a baby book.  Because of His love, I began to understand the complexities of who my birth parents were, and how special they are, and how much He loves them.  As I came to a clear understanding of that, I have been able to forgive them and I have been able to love them as God has, unconditionally.  I don’t have a baby book of sorts, but I have a heavenly father who has recorded every detail of my life.  He even loved me before I was born.  How awesome is that? 

Just recently it was a real treat to find those baby books of my kids and reflect with my son who is now has four kids of his own, and my daughter, who just had her first baby.  It is just the best to go through the pages of their little recorded books, and see pictures! I laugh because the task of motherhood must have been a handful for me, there are a lot of empty blanks in their books, but I can tell you they are filled with pages of tears, memories and love.  Those beautiful babies, that God so blessed me with, have been a part of my own healing and now I love to share their stories with my little grandkids.  And yes…I am still keeping records of my little granddaughters and their little lives…but the best part is sharing with them how wonderfully and complex they are in God’s baby book. His workmanship is so marvelous, and how well I know it! 
 

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion. 
You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. 
Psalm 139: 15-16