God’s maternal love
I wonder if what I felt, feared, and learned as a young mother mirrors what God experiences when she tries to feed us.
Photo by miljko / E+ / Getty
Years ago, when my daughter was born, I knew that I wanted to breastfeed her. I had not grown up seeing women nurse their babies, so I spent my entire pregnancy reading books on the subject. At the end of nine months, I figured I was an expert. I also figured that since breastfeeding is a natural process, it would come, you know, naturally.
When the time came to actually do it, though, it only took me about 30 seconds to realize not only that my newborn had not read the books, but that the books were useless in the face of our mutual bafflement. I had no idea how to hold the baby. She had no idea how to latch on. Neither of us knew how to keep her tiny flailing fists out of the way of her frantic little mouth, and neither of us knew how to keep her from choking when the milk let down. The natural business of a mother feeding a child ended up taking weeks of practice, patience, clumsiness, and tears.
But over time, we learned. We figured out what to do with our bodies. We developed a rhythm. We nestled into each other, my daughter eagerly drawing the essentials of nutrition, affection, and protection from me, and I in turn—aching with tenderness, urgency, and wild, unbelievable love—sharing my whole self with the little person cocooned in my arms.
