LLFJ

Daddy (Mario) went to a Missions conference for 5 days and left me to experience the joys of being a single mother to a newborn. There was no joy.

But there were lessons learnt. Like icing your eyes makes the swelling go down really quickly, before you are seen and have to explain why you look like you’ve been beaten to a pulp. Anyhow.

Apart from the practical lessons of dealing with a newborn alone, I learnt a lot about myself and about God. Some questions remain unanswered for the time being, but that’s Ok.

One of the lessons that stood out was about neglecting God while trying to do things for Him. Here’s how it played out:

Judah needs his mummy for everything. He needs his mummy when he’s hungry, he needs his mummy when he’s tired, he needs his mummy when he has a dirty diaper, and he needs his mummy just to hold him to feel comforted and safe. So the only time his mummy gets to have a bathroom break is when he is asleep. But there are so many other things to do during those five minute breaks: Judah needs clean clothes, so I have to wash. Judah needs to be properly nourished so I have to eat (and yes, eating became for him, cause I would sacrifice anything for sleep!). It would also be better for Judah to not have ‘salty milk’, so I tried to keep up with showering too. And in order to avoid an ant/roach invasion, I had to do some house cleaning. So what does a girl do that NEEDS to do everything for the sake of her newborn? She has to put him down of course. I longed for him to go to sleep. I dreaded the sight of the bus heading towards the house; the loud roar of the engine breaking the silence of a community whose inhabitants were all away at work. It would wake the baby I had worked so hard to put to sleep, and I would have to give up more precious time to get him back to sleep…and by the time I got that done, he’d wake up anyways to be fed. Nothing would ever get done and my sanity would continue to slowly erode from sleep depravation. I had to get this baby down, for the sake of the baby!

And this is what I learnt: We can get so caught up in ensuring, with very good reason, that we do all the things that we believe God needs us to do. And in order to do ministry really well, we may end up having to ‘put God down’. Good ministry requires planning meetings, and time dedicated to rehearsals and run-throughs. We must have fellowship time to build relationships, and participate in outreach, because faith without works is dead. They’re all very important, and I agree that they must be done, but, at what expense? Is there any time left, after doing all these ‘necessary’ things, that we actually talk to the person we claim to be doing it for? Or listen to Him?

I don’t know when it happened, but I woke up after a long hard night (do you call it waking up if you never really went to sleep?) and I took my screaming baby in my arms and hugged him and just held him, for as long as he needed to be held. Salty milk wouldn’t kill him, and I needed to get over my fear of cockroaches anyways. And in the time following that realization, I learnt his cries. I began to understand what he needed and how exactly to give it to him. I knew that the sucking this time didn’t mean he was hungry, but that was when he needed to be comforted so he could fall asleep. And that he would only fall asleep thrown over my shoulder like a sac of potatoes (And no well meaning older women, his head will not fall off). And though it was most likely gas, he gave his first unmistakable smile. And I began to like my baby boy.

My baby boy was still just another thing I was doing for God. God gave him to me, by no doing of my own (they need to teach that in the birds and bees lessons!) and my responsibility is to grow him to be a Jesus boy, then a Jesus man. But I still have to talk to and listen to God to even begin to get that done. And that is how I have to treat all ministry. Yes, the work is important, but the person I’m doing the work for is of much more value and worth.  

So I will not use time left over to spend with God or with Judah…left over time is for dirty laundry J