The very first event after childbirth that my spouse had dreamed about for so long was lying on her stomach. She shared her bliss with me with such joy when this dream finally became reality. I immediately remembered the time when I took off the belt with the watermelon, never to wear it again. It turns out that most people don't need so much for happiness. One person said that to learn to rejoice in a bad situation, you need to live in very unfavorable surroundings, and then return to the bad, and it will no longer seem so terrible. But we are set on good and try to extract good from everything, extracting precious from worthless.
Someone appeared in our world who truly became the most important person and therefore could change all our plans without unnecessary words and attract all attention only to himself, not considering our interests. He could easily wake us in the middle of the night and demand mommy's breast or her caresses. He could quickly cancel all our trips with his crying and dissatisfaction. He taught us to speak in whispers and walk on tiptoe during his sleep. And if he noticed that we were doing something wrong and allowing ourselves not to monitor the dryness of his diapers, he very quickly put us in our place and achieved comfort for himself.
Our entire daily routine began to revolve around this important little person in our family, and all his small demands didn't cause us discomfort, because we loved this miracle and wanted to serve him with a pure heart.
Our daughter fit into our family life so quickly and brought new adjustments to our relationship that we now couldn't even imagine life without her, and all our conversations and prayers were only about her and about how and what to do correctly and where to get wisdom for raising a worthy person.
When I went to work and was busy solving work tasks, mentally I was with my family and constantly thought about what was happening there, what else I could do, how to live further, and what else I could invest in my daughter. Against this background I wanted to pray a lot, which I constantly did, working with my hands. I thirsted to ask for special wisdom and light so as not to make fatal mistakes. And every evening when I came home, a surprise awaited me in the form of my spouse's stories about what happened today, what new things she learned about our daughter, how our baby behaved, and much more from the child's life.
Our love for our daughter grew along with her. In the light of this love it wasn't difficult for us to abandon our plans and change them in her favor. For us her well-being and comfort became much more important than our personal interests. And in all this we remembered our parents and began to understand their love for us and how much they had to endure to raise us to be who we are today.
Interestingly, for our parents this baby also became the most important and main person. I noticed that in their homes all our childhood photographs were very quickly replaced with pictures of the most important person. They were no longer interested in my wife and me, and all their calls contained questions and instructions about our daughter and about what we should better do for her. We listened to their advice, but sometimes we had to ask them to give us the opportunity to decide for ourselves how and what to do with the child and to make mistakes ourselves and learn from our mistakes.
Our parents often asked to take the child to themselves, but since we were breastfeeding our daughter, in addition to the granddaughter they got her mother too. My wife didn't mind parental help, as this freed up her time, and she could sleep or do other things that she somehow couldn't manage to organize.
We even noticed that our daughter interested our parents more than we ourselves, but this didn't cause jealousy or offense in us, since we perfectly understood their feelings and that the most important people should be in first place.
Sometimes it happened that, coming from work, I spent all my time with my daughter, observing her, communicating with her, explaining to her the names and meanings of many things. Meanwhile my wife solved her questions or rested from us, not worrying at all that we had left her without attention. But when the moment came, and our daughter was awake, and we didn't pay attention to her, then she very quickly resolved this issue and reminded us who was the boss in the house. We were always happy to call her our little general who carefully monitored the order around herself.
Our daughter knew very well the time of her feeding, and if some delay occurred, she made such noise that we preferred to postpone all other matters and give her what was rightfully hers. Also, if she was given less than enough, she didn't agree with such arbitrariness and stood firmly on her position, calming down only when she received what was due. And these demands didn't embarrass us at all. Our love for this most important person was much greater than she could contain, and she understood and felt this perfectly, and sometimes reminded us of herself to receive another portion of caresses.
Each new month of life brought us new discoveries, and we impatiently waited for when our miracle would begin to walk and talk on her own. And it was very interesting to observe the awakening and development of the mind. When our daughter began to smile consciously, reacting to our faces and voice, this made us so happy that we were ready to give everything in the world for this smile. Our voices quickly calmed her, and mommy's hands and gentle words brought peace and comfort with them.
Mommy's nutrition was also immediately reflected in the child's well-being and health. Any poor-quality or acidic product immediately made itself known after breastfeeding, so my wife carefully checked and thought through everything before eating it.
At the appropriate time we began to give additional nutrition besides the breast, observing the reaction of our daughter's organism. She gladly accepted everything new and joyfully savored exotic food.
We decided to record all the bright moments from our daughter's life so that we could later tell her how much fun we had.
With the growth of the family, life expenses also increased, but this didn't embarrass us, since love for each other and for our daughter gave proper meaning to all our expenditures.
In our house it wasn't customary to talk in raised tones, so the child also grew and developed in a calm environment and was surprisingly very calm. I made it a rule to speak tenderly with my spouse in our daughter's presence, and always tell the child what a wonderful mother we have and how I love her. Although I realized that my daughter might not understand anything yet, I believed that my intonation and atmosphere of love had their positive influence on the child, and these confessions brought genuine pleasure to my wife.
When we knelt for prayer, we always took our daughter with us so that she would be present during our ritual, and when we prayed for her, we laid hands on our child and believed that the Lord hears and answers.
We don't know what our daughter would have been without our prayers, but we saw what she became through our prayers, and we always thanked God for this.
Questions for Reflection
Please read Eph.6:4; 1Tim.5:8; Prov.4:1; 6:20; 22:6; 31:26; 1Sam.12:23; Is.38:19; Ps.8:3 in light of this lesson. What other verses from the Bible came to your mind? What did you understand from this lesson? Why do little children become the most important in the family? Does your care for little children make them the most important for life? Do you think the Lord shows His special care for us when we are born from above? Is there anything wrong with parents caring for their child with reverence and adjusting their plans to his needs? Will you love the one you care for a lot? Does love help to joyfully bear all limitations in caring for a newborn? Why doesn't any parent like it when their children cry? Can a child force you to do what he needs with his crying? Why do grandparents fall in love with their grandchildren so quickly and dote on them? Should breastfeeding be stopped for convenience and switched to artificial nutrition? What should you do if the child is crying and mommy isn't nearby?