I recently read how young people don’t want to have children anymore. I can relate.⠀
After all, I resented early motherhood. It was over-glorified and underwhelming. A massive giveaway exercise that left me feeling spent each day.⠀
But as the days go by, giving has become receiving.⠀
Yesterday evening, I lie paralyzed in bed in the darkness, completely spent from a message I had preached on Risk, when my four-year-old firstborn snuggles up to me and shocks me with the Gift of unexpected words-⠀
“Mama, do you know God protects you when you preach?”⠀
Tears well up. How does she even know the word “preach”?⠀
Child, how have you learned to speak like that? Since when?⠀
And she continues, whispering in the dark, as she cups tiny fingers around my ear-⠀“You will preach well every Sunday, Mama. You must remember that. And when you are away, Papa does a good job making us Cheerios and cornflakes and milk.”⠀
She completely overlooks the fact that I missed out on slides and Papa burnt the pancakes. Cheerios was the backup.⠀
I am besides myself now, tears streaming down, and she pecks me on the shoulder to say, “I love you” before drifting off to sleep.⠀
The rewards of parenthood might be thin at first, but the gifts from our children later are-
⠀- Inexplicable.⠀
