When I first found out I was expecting a baby, joy overwhelmed my happy heart. After years of waiting, it was finally my turn to experience the “love like no other” my friends and Hallmark had told me about for so long.
High on naiveté, I envisioned myself floating on “Cloud 9” for the rest of my life, buoyed by butterfly kisses and the intoxicating scent of baby skin. And when my firstborn arrived, I did indeed experience an unspeakable love. I marveled at how it took mere seconds to fall madly in love with him.
It’s a beautiful, mysterious thing, this love of mother and child. And yet, as time would teach me, there exists another side to this fierce love—a side that lacks a place among the glittery Hallmark cards… because along with the glorious highs of motherhood come the painful lows of motherhood.
The hard love days of mothering.
When this beloved firstborn was 3, I sat in a cold room while a cold doctor delivered the news I’d feared for months: he had Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Those three little letters shook my very core, sending me hurtling down the path of hard love.
While other moms took their children to playdates, I took my son to therapies. While other children enjoyed parties and holidays, I navigated embarrassing meltdowns and difficult behavior.
On the really bad days, I’d collapse into bed, tears falling freely, and cry to my Heavenly Father. How can I best love this child? I feel like I’m failing!
The tough truth is, sometimes knowing how to love others—even our own children—is hard. It’s continuing on another day, even when you’re exhausted and might break. It’s putting one foot in front of the other, even though you’d rather lock yourself in the bathroom and cry.
It’s giving more of yourself, even after it seems as though there’s nothing left to give.
Whether it be motherhood, friendship, or family, loving others as Christ would have us do isn’t always easy. Children push you to the brink; wedding day joy fades with the years of trials; friendships change as seasons pass. And we ourselves aren’t always easy to love!
Everyone desires that enduring love like no other, the kind that courageously withstands the hard days. Incredibly, our Heavenly Father answers this desire with a steadfast love that cannot be shaken—even on the hardest days.
Though we test and doubt Him at times, His unwavering love never falters. On the cross, He gave us all of Himself in the greatest act of love this world has ever seen. Indeed, though our love as mothers for our children is fierce, it is but a shadow of the Father’s love. Isaiah 49:15-16 says:
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (ESV)
What a promise! On our hardest days, we are never without His unfaltering love. It not only sustains, it flows through us, too—empowering us to extend love on those hard love kind of days.
Friend, are you living in the reality of God’s steadfast, unconditional love for you today? May I gently encourage you, as I encourage my own heart, to lean into this enduring love of the Father. Let it be your strength—on the hard love days and every day in between.
About the Guest Author:
Meredith Houston Carr is a writer and unrelenting dreamer. An attorney in her former life, she now enjoys the never-dull stay-at-home mom life with her three energetic children. Meredith is passionately devoted to writing words that encourage and infuse women with hope — a hope that leads to the joy and strength needed to walk through life’s hardships and into the abundant life promised by Jesus. After several adventure-filled years on the West Coast, she and her husband now make their home in Athens, Georgia. You can find her writing for Proverbs 31 Ministries and her blog during naptime and in between loads of laundry.
Connect With Meredith:
https://www.facebook.com/MeredithHoustonCarr
https://www.instagram.com/meredith.h.carr/
