Personal Ponderings When I Think of My First Child: First Love

My most recent picture with Joseph. 
October 2022.  

We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19    

    

    Joseph, born to me at a very young age, is my oldest child, soon he will be 28 years old. Even before I learned I was carrying Joseph I already wanted him. I was never obsessed with babies, but I always knew I wanted to be a mother. I can easily say that I "planned" my pregnancy with Joseph, but I know better now. No matter how fertile one may believe they are, no child can start in the womb unless our Creator God first brings it to pass. I am confident when I say that children are a gift from the Lord. (Psalm 127:3)

    I was a broken teenager, age sixteen, when I gave birth to Joseph. Born by C-section, I can still remember the day of his birth like it was yesterday.  As broken as I was, there was nothing broken in the gracious and perfect gift, my son. The circumstances in my life weren't the most pleasing, but every single thing about my little baby boy was pleasing and brought me much joy. In fact, in my short years of sixteen I'd already entered into a world where I was unsure if any kind of love existed, but the very moment I saw the positive pregnancy test is when I felt that love is true. At this time in my life I was alone in my brokenness, in a fragile state, I had been looking for someone to just love me. I was desperately searching for a way to make my life whole. Plan as I may, little did I know, out of that brokenness God was not yet blessing me with someone to love me, but a child for me to love. A child, my child, my first true love. I'd like to say that I felt at least some kind of love before this, at least one from my parents, but things were so broken and shattered that I didn't. Later, God would restore those relationships with my parents, but in the time before that God gave me a beautiful baby boy to love, adore, and to raise. I had never ever felt that any kind of real love existed before loving my son. And now, the love I had for my son ran deep, deep into the core of my inner being. A mother's love so deep it could hurt, a good hurt. I was consumed with this goodness of love towards my child, still am, a love never ending. 

    Be it sixteen and alone without Joseph's father, I was his mother, and whatever it took, I would take care of him. It's what I wanted to do. In a way, this child saved me. Those on the outside couldn't see it; God gave me this child like the life saver given to the drowning person all alone out in the sea. There was still sorrow in and around me, but I had every reason now to keep going. I had purpose now; I'm a mom. To simply love my son and my efforts for us to survive were of no neglect; this was when my prayer life was ignited. 

    Although I didn't know exactly how to love God and put Him first, through motherhood, He would became my greatest need. I needed Him more than ever now. Somehow, I knew that underneath it all no one could love greater than God, not even a mother. God's love and protection over Joseph what I desired for him more than anything else in this world. I mentioned earlier that in a way this child saved me, but this is the real truth- We can trust God alone for the saving and nothing else, not even a child. God knows our story from the beginning to the end and everything we need in between. God, with His saving-love, had already been pursuing me since I was a little girl and in between then and now I'm so thankful He gave me Joseph at just the right time. Joseph never really saved me, but he is what I needed, and God did not withhold that good and perfect gift. I am blessed to be his mother. Isn't God good!