The Bond

From the moment I was set to become a parent, I felt a strong calling from the Lord to seek His thoughts and His ways in my attachment to my children. I pored over my Bible, highlighting verse after verse that spoke of God's lovingkindness and His response to our calls. I saw how attached to us God is, and purposed to try and create a similar attachment between my children and me. I wanted to make sure that they had a solid bond with me from the start, and I wanted to continue to develop that bond as they matured and grew to be the people that God created them to be.

Over the years I have been frustrated on more than one occasion when I see the Church pushing for separation of mom and baby. As far as I'm concerned, a mom and baby are nearly inseparable. It's a mistake to be a Christian organization that purposes to separate mother and young child. We are unknowingly succumbing to an insidious attack by Satan on the precious bond of mother and child. Even little things like purposing or suggesting, (and some groups even demand!) a separation perpetuates the myth that success, ministry, study, rest, enjoyment, and personal growth aren't possible unless we as mothers forsake our God-given duty to our blessings. We treat our blessing as curses. We lament the labor and trials of the early years, and we limit our child-bearing time to a small window of our adult life. We rush through the early years two or three times so we can get on with our lives and our service.

And the children also suffer because they are sequestered from interacting with the adult Christian world. They fulfill our muddled perception of them because they aren't given the chance to interact with us regularly. And we forget that they are children and will behave childishly. They will disrupt. They will make certain tasks more difficult to complete in what we think is a timely fashion. But they will also  bless. They will uplift. They will challenge, and if we persevere, we will grow. And they will grow.

We are doing God a disservice by treating children as some burden to be shuffled off, and we're perpetuating the myth that kids get in the way of success-even success for God, enjoyment, growth, service, study, ministry, and even rest. We are lessening our impact because we are treating a blessing like a curse and when we limit our impact, we aren't realizing our full potential, strength, and development in Christ. Let's embrace these beautiful blessings, as challenging as they may be at times, and let God teach us how to serve Him with them.