By Andrea Goebel
God’s Way
“Hello! You look good!” The doctor’s welcoming words to our new baby were followed by a loud cry.
Here we go, I thought as my husband and I watched her carry our son over to us. Life’s beginning now.
With the birth of each of our children, I felt immense relief followed by wonder about our new life ahead. This time was no different, and anticipation turned to joy as my husband and I relished our first moments nurturing our newborn.
During our hospital stay, we talked about what our life would be like once we transitioned home. How would our older children respond to their baby brother? What were we excited or nervous about? As confident as I had felt before our son was born, suddenly, I felt anxious about this new journey. We had just upended our sense of normalcy; how long would it take us to feel that way again?
Sure enough, when our son was fussing as we visited family a week later, I was reminded that I had to relearn some things about the infant stage.
“Does he have a wet diaper?” my mom asked.
“I didn’t check,” I admitted.
“You’re not in baby mode yet, are you?” she laughed.
As I carried my son to the next room to change his diaper, I agreed: I was not in baby mode yet. I thought we would transition smoothly to this phase since we had cared for two babies before, but I still could not identify our newborn’s every need or explain the reason for his cries.
As I had learned to do many times before when I felt overwhelmed by my imperfection, I asked for God’s grace to accept my abilities in this stage of life.
Beginnings are wonderful, and they are challenging. Whether it be a new job, home, relationship or child, each change requires us to pivot and adjust to a new normal.
Ecclesiastes chapter three reminds us of the purpose of the different seasons God designs in our lives: “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens” (Ecclesiastes 3:1), including “a time to give birth” (3:2), which my family had just experienced. Furthermore, “God has made everything appropriate to its time” (3:11).
These verses offer us much to reflect upon and hope for when we enter a new phase in life. When we realize that God places us in different seasons of life for a purpose, we can ask ourselves what we can learn from and how we can grow. We may need to adapt to a new way of doing things. And because this is just a season, it will pass one day, and then we will enter another phase of life. We must embrace each season while we are in it, or we will miss the beautiful opportunities He provides us.
During the first few weeks home with our newborn, I yearned to feel in control of our new normal. At the same time, I recognized that I will never be in control of my life; that’s God’s job. My job is to accept what he has in store for me and learn from it. If I only focus on a future when our family will be in a different season, then I will miss the beauty this season provides: the warmth of a sleeping baby snuggled in my arms; the voices of my son and daughter talking to their younger brother; the sight of my husband and infant son gazing at each other. I don’t want to pass this by, so I will ask God for grace to accept our struggles and focus on life one day at a time.
He will provide us with all the grace we need wherever we are in life; we just have to accept it.
Andrea Goebel lives in Mt. Vernon with her husband and three children. They are members of St. Philip Parish in Posey County.