Preparing for Parenthood

I sit here writing on the verge of a drastic life-change. Within a couple weeks, days, or possibly hours, we will have a new addition to our family: our daughter, Lively. It is an interesting and exciting thing to not know the day or hour when such a huge life transition will happen! And it has sent me into super nesting mode: cleaning, doing laundry, washing dishes, and overall trying to get our house in order for when we return from the hospital with a tiny baby girl.

Ironically, all these preparations have distracted me from the most important thing as I prepare to be a mother: my relationship with my God. It shouldn't surprise me how easily and quickly I forsake my intimacy with God to accomplish my to-do list. This has always been a constant battle. I often put my to-do's as a priority over time with God. It is something I have had to confess and repent of on many occasions. And this is exactly what I spent my morning doing 2 days ago.

Not only had I been idolizing my to-do list and elevating it above God, I had been avoiding God all together because I was sure He wouldn't let me continue to whittle down my list. (It's amazing how quickly I will avoid true interaction with God when I don't think He's going to let me do what I want to do.) This resulted in a stark emptiness in my soul that finally drove me to prayer and true interaction with God to deal with the problem. And of course in His grace and mercy, I feel like we pick back up where we left off.

I am so foolish sometimes. Of all the preparations that are needed for this major life transition, the greatest is for my soul to be healthy, alive, and rich in relationship with God. This is my greatest need every day, but ESPECIALLY as I approach this new role in life. As soon as I begin to make "legitimate" excuses for why other things are more important than my relationship with God, that list of "legitimate" excuses will continually lengthen. It is a slippery slope and will be never ending. My priority must always and forever stay the same: to cultivate and enjoy a living and active relationship with my Creator and Savior. This is what I was made for, and I can do nothing of eternal and lasting value without being connected to Him.

So as I sit here watching my belly move around as my daughter kicks her feet, I contemplate the incredible importance of my relationship with God. He is my constant, my priority, my all in all, the reason that I live. Again, I pray that I will never forget this and never let anything come between me and Him. May I always be a woman whose heart belongs fully to God.

What is keeping you from Him today? And is it really so important that it would steal you away from the one thing that matters most? For Jesus Himself said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26) Not even our own children (as I am learning myself) are to come before devotion to Jesus. Let us be whole-heartedly devoted to Him above all other things.