Lessons learnt from a rather hard week...

OK. Am going to say this in all honesty (and perhaps break many people's fairytale imagination about parenting...) .
Parenting is tough...and i am only at the newborn stage! :p

Don't get me wrong. We still believe that Isaac is a gift from God and we are delighted with his presence and love him very very much. But the little one has been testing my patience lately. While he was in the womb, I had prayed that he would be someone with a pleasant and gentle disposition, but that "gentleness" seems rather elusive at the moment...

One thing is for sure. He has been endowned with really good lungs, which can be testified by his ear-piercing screaming whenever he wakes up and cries for "food" as well as his marathon-like suckling whenever i nurse him. He seems somehow to be lacking in patience... and would just continue to cry out loud till i present him with either of his "food source". And even then, there still seemed to be a lack of gratitude shown (but then again perhaps thats too much to ask for from a 2+ week old baby!). Instead, the little one would sometimes choose instead to take his time to lick the "food source" like a connoisseur, slowly tasting the milk, taking his time to gurgle a little in his mouth before finally proceeding to suckle at it!! This is all fine if it is done in the day when mummy is much more energised and awake, but imagine it done at 12am, 2am, 4am, 6am...during the night feeds! Also, the little one doesn't understand that sometimes Mummy has his interest in her heart when she withhold giving him too much milk at one go, choosing to take some time off in between each suckling to burp him, so that he doesn't end up suffering with wind in his tummy. What does he do instead? Yes, he decides to protest by "screaming even louder" ("I want my food nooooooooow"!!!).

Sigh!!!

So every morning after waking up and evening before sleeping, I would pray that God would slowly help us to impart in the little one the Fruits of the Spirit (as spelt out in the book of Galatians in the Bible - love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness & self-control), particularly that of "patience". Through this, we are also beginning to empathise a little more with how God must be feeling about us. We are just like little Isaacs. We often lack patience and keep pounding on God's door to ask him to "give us this and give us that and give them to us NOW!!!" It is easy to sing the beautiful song "In His Time", but how many of us truly appreciate the lyrics "He makes alll things beautiful in His time"? Waiting is something that doesn't come naturally to most people, especially waiting upon God to hear of His words and to understand the value of Him knowing what is best for us.

Another important lesson that I am beginning to understand is that while the little one may test our patience to the extreme (imagine sleep-deprived mum trying to hurry son through the numerous night feeds...), it is unthinkable for us to ignore his needs and his cries for help (or food) 'cos we love him too much. Same thing with God. Whilst He may get "fed-up" sometimes with our numerous complaints and even us ignoring him, truely, He has said that "Never will I leave u nor foresake u" (Deut 31:6)!!