Reflections

My itty bitty baby is turning ONE next week. *sniff*

And I can feel a transition happening.  My itty bitty baby is itty bitty no longer.  He is quickly morphing from baby to toddler right before my eyes.  

The first 6 months were tough.  We were so so tired.  In survival mode.  But now he is sleeping.  (I will never stop praising God for the gift of sleep.)  And crawling and cruising and babbling and all the other things that big babies/almost toddlers do.  We have a routine, and our days are pleasant again, usually.  And I have found that now that I am no longer using all my brainpower to just make it to the next day, I have a chance to think again.  And since my baby is turning one, I have started thinking about the impossibly huge and important and daunting task of, you know, actually raising a child.  

And it's not that I didn't know what I was getting into, it's just that now that it's actually upon us, I realize I have no idea what I'm doing!  This little person depends on us completely to raise him into a God-fearing, productive and kind member of society one day.  That's a lot of pressure.   

I look around me and I see a fallen and depraved world.  Every time I read the news I get more and more afraid of the world that my son has to grow up in.  Not just for his physical safety, but also for the intense societal pressure and the lies that he will have to face and combat.  

I have realized that being a mother, by necessity, has torn down the walls to my heart.  It is impossible to stop, nor would I want to.  My love for my child is fierce and unguarded, and nothing like I have ever felt before, and that is good, that is how it should be.  But it also means that my heart is wide open. I feel more deeply.  I can no longer close my eyes and my ears to the pain of this world, shut it out to avoid feeling it.   

Sometimes the fear of the unknown is stifling.  What if?  I pray every night that Xander will be safe from all harm and evil, that he will love the Lord and live for Him.  But that is no guarantee.  I pray that I will be a good mother, that I will be gentle and loving and forgiving, and yet know when correction is needed and how to best apply it.  But I know without a doubt that I am human and I will mess up, I will make lots of mistakes, I will hurt him unintentionally. 

Parenting is scary stuff, and I am only just beginning to find that out.  I can only do the best I can, and pray that God's grace will cover all my failures, resting in the knowledge that he loves Xander infinitely more than I ever could. Praise God for that.