Faith, Hope, and Love Revealed
Love in a baby’s grip.
Hope for a newborn’s life.
Faith for a baby yet to be.
My first journey through pregnancy was a roller coaster of morning sickness, kicks and summersaults, and an exploding belly I had no control over. The baby coming four weeks early saved me from the terror of a forest green bridesmaid dress retrofitted to my 8-month expansion. I was terrified of bringing her home. I had no idea what I was doing or how I was going to manage with a tiny human fully entrusted to me. But in that cute little nursery I’d spent hours preparing, rocking her for the first time, I felt her firm little grip wrap around my finger and my world changed. In that grip, she told me it would be ok. That we would be more than ok. That together, with love, with strength, we could conquer it all. I knew then that no matter what came to pass, my love for her would know no bounds and I would spend the rest of my life loving and protecting this child. Love, revealing meaning.
Armed with confidence, I thought I’d be a seasoned, experienced second-time mom ready to slay the day. But the next time I held my own newborn was my toughest trial yet. He was perfect to me, but the doctors saw something that was off. Two days after a specialist’s visit and five days after birth, I was handing that baby to a scrubs-clad nurse and wondering if I’d hold him again. Out of the despair of possible loss came hope as soft as a whisper and as heartening as the first light of dawn. Two surgeries and a few months later, I would marvel at the fiercely independent little man who could devour a banana in seconds while singing cha cha cha to the mardi gras mambo from the back seat. Hope, defeating fear.
A quiet yearning told me the family was not yet complete. But fate seemed to have a different plan. Then, while chaperoning college students on a spring break mission trip to Mexico, I encountered the last of this holy triad. As we were preparing for a 2-mile desert pilgrimage from Hermosillo to its outskirts shrine of the Virgen de Guadalupe, our host priest suggested we pray Mathew 7: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Faith is trust that what you receive is what you need most. I asked for that child that was already formed in my heart, but if a third baby was not meant to be, to be granted the clarity and the strength to understand what was to be instead. Our family was completed exactly 9 months later. Faith, opening trust.
Coming out of a broken home, conditional love was all I knew and believed I could get. In marriage, in friendships, in familial relationships, I had believed lines couldn’t be crossed lest love be withheld. But then I became a mom. Each time, motherhood revealed the mysteries of love, of hope, and of faith, in a way that I could never have imagined and in a way I was forever transformed. Each child revealed one of these mysteries; each one forever building on the others.
I wish I could say I’ve since had boundless faith, limitless hope, and selfless love every day of my life. That the passage of time as a working mom was full of perfection and joy and peace. I’m lucky if even one of those perfect virtues casts a dim light on any given day. But with God’s grace, I look at those three now-adult faces and rejoice of the gift of true north I will always have guiding my path.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends……
And now, faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these, is love.
Corinthians 13.
Love in a baby’s grip. Hope for a newborn’s life. Faith for a baby yet to be.My children…my greatest blessings and my paths to God’s eternal love.