Lessons from Samantha Grace - Part One

So about that baby in this story...

After 10 years of waiting, praying and hoping, she arrived on December 8, 2012, cuter and more precious than any dream we ever conceived: Samantha Grace Sherman - which means "God hears."

I'm already dreaming of the things I want to teach her; the books I want to read to her and the places we'll go. But in these first few months of life, her presence has been teaching me far more than I've been teaching her.

There were three particularly poignant moments these first three months. Today I will tell you about the first.  It happened the first week home from the hospital. My husband and mother both left to run errands, leaving me alone with my baby for the first time ever. Before pregnancy, I prided myself on my vast experience with babies. Yet NOTHING could have prepared me for the weight of responsibility that came with the arrival of my very own baby. I was SO stressed. The delivery and c-section, left me weaker and more vulnerable than I have ever felt in my life. It baffles me, even now, to think that God entrusts a woman with the most precious task on earth, caring for a helpless newborn at the very time when we are at our weakest and most helpless ourselves. Mentally, emotionally, physically broken. I honestly don't know how I would have made it through those first six weeks without this promise from Isaiah.... "He (God) gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."   I recited this to myself dozens and dozens of times those first weeks.

But back to that first poignant episode during week one: First, you have to know that my greatest fear that week was Samantha choking.  In the hospital there was a moment in the middle of the night when she silently started vomiting and choking on amniotic fluid and I was unprepared for it.  I happened to turn at exactly the right moment to see her choking, but I had no idea what to do and she started turning blue.  I turned her over and somehow she got through it, but I came away from the episode thoroughly traumatized and gravely afraid of being left alone with her.  Nonetheless, the moment came later that week when everyone left the house and I was alone with my baby.  I had just finished feeding her.  I sat her up to burp her and I said aloud, "Jesus, please help us not to be scared by ANYTHING."  What I meant to say, was, "Please don't let anything scary happen."  But that's not what I accidentally said.  I said, "please help us not to be scared by anything."  So what did He do?  He expertly allowed the thing for which I was most afraid to happen at that very moment.  Literally, as the last word left my mouth, Samantha projectile vomited for the first time, splashing the bassinet, two feet away.  Milk came out of her mouth AND NOSE!

We lived through it and I smiled.  He could not have more clearly spoken into my life to say, "We are not going to avoid all scary situations.  Instead, I will be WITH you and you do not need to be scared by ANYTHING.

For those of you who think a baby vomiting is not a scary thing, it is humbling to share this story with you.  Indeed, it does seem a bit silly to me, looking back on it now.  But we all have fears.  Insert a different fear and maybe you can relate.  What fear do you carry that you can let Jesus be WITH you to overcome?