Forever His Child

​I think she wanted to be a mama from the time she could start walking and talking. Always acting grown up. Always taking care of her baby dolls, and then her siblings. Always putting on a brave face. And then she was telling me with wide eyes and a shaky smile that she would be okay, but she was just my little girl. My first. My baby, and I could see in her eyes that she was scared and my mama heart hurt for her. I knew this was something she would have to go through. The Doctor thought it best for her overall health but it was very hard for this mama to watch her baby as they wheeled her away. 
This wasn't the time she had to have her tonsils out and tubes put in her ears when she was only 4 years old, although that's exactly how my heart felt. This was 23 yrs later when my daughter had to have a procedure done to make sure she didn't have cancer. And even though she was an adult, when I looked into her eyes she was still my little baby. The same baby that the Doctor placed in my arms in the delivery room as I wept tears of joy. The one I loved more than life itself and couldn't imagine loving anyone as much as I loved her, and yet God showed me 3 times again how much love I had to give. For 18 years they are our everything and they may go to college, get married and have children, but they are, and always will be, our babies. 
Mamas of little ones, when your baby is sick or hurt and the tears flow and your heart breaks because it is so hard to watch them go through this pain, please always remember that is exactly how your own mother feels about "grown-up" you. You will always be her baby. And mamas of grown children, sometimes it's even harder when they're adults. It's hard to stand by and watch pain, physical or emotional. It's hard for advice to go unheeded or to sit and cry with them when life is scary and uncertain. When mistakes have been made. I think worry over our children and grandchildren has to be the biggest obstacle a mama goes through in life and something we need God for so desperately. Whether the little girls tease her on recess or the boy with the cute smile breaks her heart. Whether she has the stomach flu with a high fever or a bad dream during a thunder storm. Whether she can't get pregnant, though they've tried and tried or the Doctor finds "abnormal cells" ~the tears are almost unbearable and the heart ache is always the same. It's crushing. I'm very thankful she did not have cancer, but I honestly don't know how mama's can do it without the Lord by their side. He is our God of comfort~ to talk to and cry with and share our mama heart with. 
So from the moment they are born, you teach them that God is always, always there. That He is the God who answers prayer and the One who loves them so much more than even you do. That He will hold them as the nurses wheel them away and He will take care of them. That He can give peace in the midst of every storm. Show them the miracles in your life because of Him. Show them who God is and place those babies in His arms, the safest place they could ever be, no matter their age. They will always be your baby but they will forever be His child.