What it means to give your best

Migraine day five. In the bed, in the dark. Grandma and grandson pull out of the driveway for Mommy & Me music class. One of the few fun places I get to take him. Not today.

I miss my son.

Mom knows all my friends, all my neighbors, routines, and cupboards. I should be thankful for this. I am.

I wanted to take him this morning. I wanted to take care of him these past few days, months, years. Ability to care for your own child is a gift.

Is this how a birth-mother feels to give up her child for adoption? This child is mine, grew in me, part of me, knows me. But now I must let someone else care for him and know him and earn his love... because it is best for him. It goes against everything in you as a mother. Best for him. Even if it means letting someone else have him, hold him, meet his needs. And your broken heart.

But this is out of my control, and deep in my spirit I know God is in control.

Behind the need for control there is always the fear. Fear asks, "What if he loves her more?" "What if he is insecure because his mother regularly fails to show up?" "What if you fail him, this most precious and beautiful life you see?"

Wise husband asks, "Are you doing the best you can? Giving him all you have?" ...Yes. "Then you are not failing."

How can this be the best I have for him? It is humbling when you know all you have is not good enough for your child. Your child, who deserves the very best. When the grandmother has to provide what the mother can't.

But this is where my prayers come in, life-giving prayers, and God fills gaps that I cannot. Where the rubber meets the road and his name means God is His Strength.

Even at two years old he depends so much on God?

So I repent of fear, fear of losing my little boy love. Because God's love alone is perfectly complete and perfectly enough.

I cup my hands and while he dances at music class with his grandma, I ask to receive the gifts of this moment. Gifts that point to the perfect love which casts out fear. And though it hurts – and though I can't see Him or feel Him in his glory passing by me in this dark cleft in the rock – I know He is there like always, filling me. And in time I will turn and see His back, the gifts, and know that He was here.