So there's this mix of desperately-missing-dad grief and overwhelmed-happy-I-get-to-be-Boone’s-mom joy and it's making me think about what a refuge is and how I live in need of one.
Refuge. A noun.
a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble.
I'm guessing you've noticed being alive is kinda hard. There's pursuit, danger, or trouble that fills our days. So we need some refuge.
Good News.
In the midst of the betrayal and confusion and suicide and heartbreak and disappointment and funerals, as we await our own funerals (it's where we're all heading), God is wanting to hold us.
To hold us and comfort us and tell us He loves us--Refuge.
Here are 3 things my grieving/joyful new mom heart keep learning about God as Refuge:
1. God loves us.
All day everyday I stare at my son. Not because I have to, but because it’s all I want to do. I sometimes weep, undone with emotion at this one thought - I get to be Boone Tobias Martin’s mom.
Could God enjoy looking at us?
Could He, the holy Maker, weep with joy that He gets to be our God?
In this moment, as He watches you read, sees every thought in your mind, notices your clothes and your scent and your energy levels — is He enjoying Himself? I believe He absolutely is.
Not because you’re perfect and polished, but because you came out of Him. He designed you. I beam over Boone and God beams over you.
God designed life this way, making us in His image. So even me, an imperfect, moody, novice mom, gets a taste of what God feels for human beings as I raise my son.
He has wired His own affections into our DNA.
My husband and I are not trying to talk ourselves into loving this baby. It’s in our instincts; we can’t avoid it.
Much much much we can learn about who God is by looking at the love He has put inside of us.
When a friend is meeting Boone, I find myself wanting to ramble on about the little indentions in the tops of his ears, how often he lifts his arm straight into the air, that he has his dad’s feet, I’m pretty sure his eyes are turning blue, he holds my hand when he eats, he’s just started smiling, his eye lashes have grown a lot, his skin is the softest thing my hands have ever felt...
Could it be that God cares about the way you eat breakfast every morning? Or that He smiles when He watches you pull on your favorite shirt again? Or that He laughs as He talks to friends about the mess in your hall closet? Laughing with pride that you’re HIS kid with the closet mess?
Right now. In our current weak conditions. The Designer of the universe is enamored by his beautiful kids. Me and you.
We can rest in this place of being loved.
If God sees and delights in the everyday mundane of our lives, won’t He be filled with a Parent’s passionate care when we’re hurting?
2. God cares about our pain.
My son was circumcised on his 3rd day on the earth. When they brought him back into the hospital room and I saw the dried blood in his diaper, evidence of the pain his perfect brand new body had just experienced, I cried. I couldn’t stand it. My son had experienced pain and it hurt me.
Jesus was about to raise His friend from the dead: but He first paused to feel the pain His friends were feeling. And He cried with them.
John 11:35.
He has wired His own affections into our DNA.
God sees this pain, all of our pain, yours and mine, and He cries.
He sees, He cares, He cries.
3. God wants to comfort us
When Boone is crying, all I can think about is holding him.
The NIV Bible says “refuge” 96 times.
Like this:
Psalm 46:1 - God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble
God knew our days would be made of pain, confusion, mess-ups, being misunderstood, funerals. What He wants to do is hold us.
When Boone is sobbing as hard as his 8-week old body will allow, I lean over him, put my cheek right up against his,
whisper my love into his ear.
“It’s ok Boone, I’m here,” I say a million times a week. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Reading the Gospels, Jesus says it over and over to us. “Don’t be afraid. It’s me. I’m here.”
My mom instincts were put there by the Perfect Maker with His perfect Mom ways. God bends over us, puts His own holy cheek up against ours, whispers His love into our ears.
I’ve been reading articles about moms and babies.
The RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Saitama, Japan, studied the effect of a mother’s embrace on an infant - a baby’s heart rate slows immediately and crying subsides when they are picked up.
Researchers watched the behavior of 684 mother with infants in five different continents. In each place, mothers did the same thing when their infants cried:
they picked them up, held them and talked to them.
God has made us like Himself.
Researchers have monitored the brains of new mothers and more experienced mothers in the U.S., China, and Italy, finding that at both experience levels, and in each place, these responses to their babies cries were deeply wired into the nervous system at an instinct level.
We've got being a refuge wired into our instincts.
God has made us like Himself.
Deepak Chopra, M.D. says a close attachment between a baby and mother can prevent diseases, boost immunity, and enhance IQ in the baby. While babies who are not held, nuzzled, and hugged enough can stop growing, and if the situation lasts long enough, even die. Researchers discovered this when trying to figure out why some orphanages had infant mortality rates around 30-40%.
God starts us all of like this - desperate to be held. And I think that’s because He wants us to always live like this - held by Him.
Crying is better when we’re in someone’s arms.
Belly aches and hunger turn into heart break & cancer, and we’re still needing to be picked up and held.
God loves us, He sees our pain, and He wants to comfort us.
Ask Him to help you believe He wants to be your refuge.
Invite Him to refuge you.
Then take a moment to imagine His cheek pressed against yours.
Our souls need a refuge and God here You are.
