I started writing a post entitled "What I've Learned from Audrey" and had so many points listed out, I thought instead that it could be a series, of which this is the first. When I first started writing that post, I'll be honest, it was just to get one done in the month of May. But it really caused me to start thinking about the past 15 months, all I've learned, and how much I've changed through motherhood. And once in a while, a little introspection is probably a good thing. Before becoming a mother, I can't say I really knew love. Yes, I love my husband, my parents, my friends and family. But the love a mother (or father, but I can't attest to that personally) feels for her child is the most intense, fierce, gentle, terrifying, wonderful thing I've ever known.
Even though I don't have as much time as I'd like to spend in quiet meditation, I'm learning more than I ever did about God's love for me. How could he possibly love me more than I love Audrey? How could he love Audrey more than I love her? But He does, and that makes me love Him all the more.
Anyone who even compliments Audrey in some small way endears themselves to me. How much more someone who loves her more fiercely, gently, sacrificially than I do?
Love is also terrifying. I read somewhere that being a parent is like wearing your heart on the outside of your body. You are intensely vulnerable. Even when Audrey just pushes me away in favor of someone else, my heart breaks a little. What will happen when she leaves me for good? Or even worse, what if something ever happened to her?
Love opens a whole new door to fears, but it also reminds me of the hope that I have. This life isn't it for us who believe. We will all meet again in heaven, and my heart clings to that.
Every day I pray for Audrey's faith. I want her to have that hope, too. I want her to love Jesus more than anything. That has become my deepest desire.
Motherhood has led me on such a journey: one of faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love (1 Cor. 13:13). So thank you, my sweet Audrey, for teaching me so much about it.