Creative Outlet: Newborn Love

Almost two weeks ago our oldest son, Caleb, made me a grandma when his fiancée June, gave birth to sweet little Rose Elizabeth.

I immediately fell in love with her when I first saw her five minutes after she was born, lying skin-to-skin on her mother and looking at the new world with wide dark eyes. The next day when I got to hold my little rosebud I thought my heart would burst.

Watching Caleb and June care for the baby over the past two weeks has brought back memories of when that same son made me new mom.
After string of nights with not much sleep and probably unbalanced hormones, I told my husband, Dave, "I don't love Caleb."

Shocked and disbelieving, he said, "You do too. You love Caleb."

"No," I said. "No I don't." And I absolutely meant it. I looked at that baby who I had unquestionably loved the day before and felt nothing. I was certain. I didn't love him.

However, the next day, after finally getting more sleep I was doing much better and could confidently say I loved my baby.

I loved watching his expressions as he moved from sleep to waking, as he started tracking with his eyes, and even smiling. Joy!

But even though I knew I loved him, and could laugh about the one day I had said I didn't, I was aware of my limitations.

I couldn't sit and watch all of his goofy faces all of the time. Sometimes I needed to cook, wash dishes, or tend to the laundry. And even if I left all of those things undone, I still knew that physically I couldn't be present for every smile or cry. Sometimes I had to sleep.

And I thought how my favorite psalm, Psalm 121, says God "neither slumbers nor sleeps."

God's love isn't limited by physical exhaustion like mine was. He doesn't need to take breaks. He can be ever-present. The psalm continues, "He will watch over your life. The LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore."

God isn't limited by time and space. The same God who knit Caleb together while in my womb (Psalm 139) was around to fearfully and wonderfully make my granddaughter Rose as well. And He loves them--and all of us--with a love that is so wide, so long, so high, and so deep that we can hardly comprehend it (Ephesians 3:17).

A mother's (or grandmother's) love is only the beginning.