June 5th, 2013
"Do you wanna hold babies with me tomorrow???" asked Serah, one of the girls on the team that is paired with us this month.
"Um…" Not one fiber of my being wanted to do this, "Let's see how it goes…if there's a lull tonight when they ask who wants to go tomorrow, like if it's super awkward and long…then that means it's for us."
Baby ministry is one aspect of our contact's ministry this month. It includes two baby homes: one has 5 babies and the other 8. Each night and each day, two-four of us have to go man the homes…for twelve hours.
We have many girls that LOVE and adore babies…so I was confident in them to jump at the chance to go…
"Who wants to go tomorrow???"
Silence. Followed by a continuing of conversation, almost not acknowledging the question at all.
You've got to be kidding me….Sigh. "Serah and I will go."
* * *
I've held maybe 4 babies in my life…maybe.
Not like four babies a lot…four babies = four times I've held a baby. Never changed a diaper….minus the pull-up I changed on a toddler that I thought you had to pull down to get off. Which wouldn't have been a big deal, but it was an explosion kind of a diaper…terrible. I have also fed a toddler once…but never held a bottle. Or burped a baby. But…here we go.
We arrived at seven in the morning. At noon, it was time. It was time for me to change a baby. His name was Blessing. And he lived up to his name by only having a wet diaper.
Holding that one later, I asked the Lord just what He had in store for me to grasp that day.
This baby…depends wholly on me meeting his needs. Any baby does.
They have to depend before they ever love someone.
They don't know how to do much. BUT they know how to cry.
They know how to cry.
They cry until their need is met.
And they begin depending on the one who meets the need.
Babies don't get to choose who meets their need. We hope it's someone that loves them…that makes all the difference.
Because the one that loves them will know exactly what they need when they cry.
A baby doesn't realize what that person has really done until later…til their needs have been met time after time…then they get to choose to love them back.
As we get older, we get to choose who or what we're gonna let satisfy that need.
We have a need, we assume we know what it takes to quench it, so we get that thing or that person.
And that's the one we begin to depend on.
We forget to cry.
We think we know better.
We think we know what we need better than anyone else.
Better than our Father does.
We find ways to cope, ways to defer the need for now…but really we just need to cry.
And let the One that is worthy of the weight of our dependence be the Father He is.
