Tuesday, April 15, 2008

I am a Mama!

I am now officially a mama! I have a new son who is a little over a week old and life as I knew it is completely changed! I have gone from every emotion- from crying in complete frustration to laughing of pure joy at the sweet expression of his face. And all of that was in a span of 5 seconds! I can honestly say that I have not had a lot of time to think much this week. That is a strange thing for someone who likes to stop and ponder the moment. Luckily, my husband brought up something that has remained on my mind and it seems like a good post.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

This is a verse from the Bible that probably everyone is familiar with, whether they go to church or not. The first part of it is what struck my husband and me as we spoke of it. Our son was a few days old when we had this conversation. We are needed to meet every one of his needs and he does not have to do one thing for us. In fact, he takes away some of our needs being met, such as sleep! But, there is nothing in the world we would not do for him, including give our own lives. We would be willing to do whatever it takes to protect him from any kind of pain or harm.

That has given me a new perspective on grace. This verse is probably the first one I learned. I have heard lots of sermons and messages based on it but never really understood the magnitude of “he gave his one and only Son” until now. God chose, for the salvation of us, to allow his son to suffer and die. God also had to turn his back on his son in the midst of all of that anguish. That is about the worst thing I could imagine. How incredible is grace, that God was willing to do that for my life? I could not imagine a greater pain than seeing my son suffer and turning away from him.

When talking about Jesus dying, we often focus on his suffering. I am not downplaying that at all, I am just beginning to understand the absolute sacrifice God made at the same time. It makes me appreciate the incredible gift of salvation in a new way. Right before I had my son a friend, who is a young dad, told my husband and me that he had been a Christian for a long time but never quite understood grace until he became a dad. I was not quite sure at the time what he meant but clearly understand it now.