Casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. —I PETER 5:7
As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I worried about losing the baby.
When I made it to the pivotal point of three months, I breathed a sigh of relief. At each doctor’s appointment with no problems, I relaxed and let myself think that maybe, just maybe, this dream of mine of having a baby was going to be perfectly fine.
After Solomon was born and I held him in my arms, most of my fears subsided. But every now and then a gnawing, terrible worry haunted me.
What if, I thought, what if he just stops breathing?
When Solomon reached the age where such things are rare, I thanked God and expected my fear to go away. It did, mostly, but there were times when I found myself thinking, What if something else happens to Solomon?
“I can’t bear to think of it,” I confessed to my husband one night. Tony put his hand on mine. “Don’t think of it, then,” he said.
“But what if . . . what if we ever lost him?”
“Stop spoiling your love with worry,” Tony said. “Just love him.”
Love him. He was right. I was completely in love, and instead of enjoying it, I was splintering it with worry.
Dear God, help me put my fears aside and love with my whole heart.
Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you…—DEUTERONOMY 5:16
“I feel like wolf-boy!” my husband exclaimed as we giddily devoured the succulent Asian-style pork ribs my dad made for our celebratory return home.
Our fingers and mouths covered in sauce, we spent the evening joking about our exhaustion, the miraculous painless labor I had (until I needed a C-section) and our relief to be home after five days in the hospital with Llewelyn.
That night my parents opened up to us in a new way. Stories about having kids and being parents flowed freely as we reveled in the exhilaration of Llewelyn’s birth. As one of five kids from a Japanese American family, with both parents working, I’d often wondered how my mom and dad did it. Finally my dad shared a secret with us:
“When you have one child, it’s two to one. When you have two, it’s one to one. When you have three, you’re outnumbered. When you have four…they form their own tribe and run wild!” We hooted and laughed so hard my stitches hurt. It was truly one of the best nights I have ever had with my parents.
As a mother, my appreciation and admiration for my parents is deeper and fuller. I see things in them I never saw before. I understand the sacrifices they made for me and find myself looking to them and to the way I was raised for wisdom in raising my daughter.
Thank You, Father, for my parents. Help me honor them in a way that is pleasing to You.
