I’m open-minded when it comes to new things, BUT there was ONE THING I knew I had no desire to do…
I told myself I was going to go 11 months…
WITHOUT HOLDING A BABY
Some of you may say “Daaaaang! How hearless!” But hey, I’m just so afraid of how tiny and fragile they are. I can’t help but feeling like I will break one by accident. I can’t even remember holding my nephews to be honest! I just held my first small child back in October! After 26 years!
BUT
When on the World Race, you open yourself up to uncomfortable and unnatural situations. When we were told there was a Women’s Clinic on Wednesdays to serve in, originally I thought “That’s for the girls, not me”. So I was shocked at myself when I went up to our one host Natalie and volunteered myself to learn what goes on in the Women’s Clinic.
This is little Baby Emma. AND YES, she is indeed sitting in my lap.
And truth be told, I was super territorial over her after I held her and would not want to let her go.
Natalie came in the clinic Wednesday to do her typical check-ups with the women from town, and gave me my job for the day. Hold Emma….Oh boy…
Something came over me though.
Emma was 4 days old right here…and 3 lbs 8 ozs..very very very tiny baby, which only terrified me more.
Natalie helped deliver Emma the other night, and the mother already had several children and didn’t want another one. SO, out of nowhere, Natalie and Mike (two of our hosts) came into being the Legal guardians of Emma.
As I held this child, unwanted by her mother, I became overwhelmed with emotion, thinking about her the way I imagine and know that God thinks about all of us.
Thoughts of Scripture popped in my head left and right:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart ~ Jer. 1:5
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future ~ Jer. 29:11
I looked at the tiniest little fingernails of Emma, and just could not some welling up with tears.
Because I could hear God speaking over her, saying
I have a plan for her.
She is my daughter.
She will be loved.
Then I pictured myself as a small child just like Emma and how from the moment I too was a little tiny baby, and before that, God spoke a plan over my life. God chose to love me from the day I was born and His eyes have never left me or forgotten me.
He’s followed me from when I was just a thought, I was born, I was a toddler, I was in middle school, college, and now on the World Race.
God has seen YOU
He set you apart from the beginning to have a relationship with you
He loves you no matter what you’ve done and He’s made you YOU for a reason
It’s funny how I wanted nothing to do with holding a baby this year. And it’s such a simple task. It doesn’t require active preaching or hands on (technically) ministry. BUT, it’s those moments you choose to simply LOVE…and then you hear God’s gentle whispering.
Whispering, “I love you. I have a plan for you”
Thank you Jesus for never giving up on me and for giving me a plan.
