Tuesday, February 23, 2021

"It Won't Always Be Like This"

“It won’t always be like this.”

These words God deposited in my heart when our baby girl was a few days old, eating around the clock every two or three hours, which meant I was sleeping in thirty- to forty-minute increments.

Little did I know then that this phrase would become a mantra for other areas of my life.

When I'm recovering from surgery, or suffering through COVID, or experiencing (most recently) food poisoning: “It won’t always be like this.”

When our girl is teething, or coughing, or going through a developmental leap, and our (normally) good sleeper spends a few nights in the chair with mommy, I tell myself: “It won’t always be like this.”

Those tough first weeks with a newborn morph into four- and five- and six-hour stretches of sleep (and now our girl sleeps ten or eleven hours… *high five!*), and the sleep-deprived days are memories we joke about with a hint of pride for our survival skills.

God’s words to me are both an encouragement (“this is temporary”) and a caution (“don’t wish away this season”).

I’ve always heard women say they forget the pain from childbirth—like it’s this supernatural thing God does in our minds so that we’ll continue to procreate.

As a pregnant woman, I received this with skepticism, and now, about 15 months after my first childbirth experience, I understand what they mean.

It’s not that I’ve forgotten the 21-hour, all-natural delivery, but I don’t really remember the pain. It’s like a blurred scene on the film strip of my memory.

Howell remembers that day far more vividly than I do—and I think he’s a bit scarred by it. I can’t even recall the intensity of the contractions. Certainly I remember having them, but I can’t conjure up what they felt like. And I remember that it hurt at the end, but it seems so brief, so passing because moments later, I held my baby girl, and none of it mattered.

That experience was less than 24 hours. Somedays when I remember we spent almost a decade waiting for our girl, it, too, feels like a blink in time.

Not then, of course. But now—on this side of it.

I’ve found that my greatest defense against discouragement in a tough season is to remember. While the pain, the suffering, even the intensity of time—minutes, hours, days, years passing—fades, what remains in my memory is God’s faithfulness.

It stands out above the noise.

Time and again, I remember what He has done for me.

God’s word calls our affliction “light” and “momentary” (2 Cor. 4:17), and I’m sure Paul’s suffering goes far beyond anything I’ve experienced. (In fact, that sort of perspective is good to hang on to.)

Paul goes on to tell us to focus on what is unseen, the eternal, rather than the temporary (2 Cor. 4:18).


 
Peter says it like this: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).

Notice that our faith is more precious than gold that perishes. Gold sounds temporal, huh?

But faith—that’s among the things unseen, the things eternal.

His words to me are true: “It won’t always be like this.”

Today I can hardly believe our miracle girl is running all over the house, holding her baby doll, and playing “pretend” with her as she rocks her and feeds her the Cheerios from her snack cup. The girl I spent weeks feeding around the clock now holds a fork and feeds herself. And the nights that felt hard are forgotten, replaced by the warmth of my bed and the comfort of my husband.

If you’ve been grieved by various trials, my friend, if it feels hot under the fire right now, don’t lose heart.

Whatever we are going through is temporary. It might be over in an hour, or a day, or a week, or a year. Even if it takes years upon years, our circumstances are still temporary.

So let’s fix our minds on Christ, on the things of the Spirit, which are life and peace (Ro. 8:6).

Let’s ask God to give us His eternal perspective.

And let’s remember all the times He’s been faithful before to bolster our faith that He will do it again.

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