B is for BABY

I've always been slightly suspicious of babies. I used to hang around with them and for a while was one of them. That being the case, I should know how they think, but my memory of that time isn't all that great and I'm not sure if I thought much as a baby anyway. I would have loved to have written down my memories during that first couple of years of pram life, or even told someone, but my writing skills were poor and my vocabulary probably amounted to little more than 'ga ga' 'da da' and 'ma ma', not entirely adequate for expressing one's innermost thoughts to the rest of the world, who seem to be completely satisfied that I have nothing important to say at one year old! As to whether I was a good baby or not, I'm completely dependent on someone else's opinion since I have no recollection of my own and since I'm more a 'factual' sort of person myself, I tend to regard such opinions with a little indifference and a greater amount of disbelief. And aren't most babies similar anyway. They sleep when you're awake, waken when it's your bedtime and cry at the most inopportune moments but mostly as a call for nourishment or because they ache somewhere. Soon, however, they discover that tears are better than words for demanding something, though this turns out to be successful only in the short term, until the doting parents catch on.

Our firstborn cried for three months, but only at night, when colic reared its ugly head. You could have set your alarm clock by him, for the pains always came in the late evening and could last until daylight and often did. I almost became addicted to gripe water! Imagine that! Ending up, drying out at the Betty Ford Clinic and explaining that it all started with a bit of colic while my son grows up a well adjusted young man! Still, when the second baby arrived home and appeared to be intent on the same pattern of nocturnal behaviour, only with more volume, action was needed and came in the form of a local minister who prayed for babies with colic. And while we hadn't prayed for that, we had been given two and we understood his gift for helping us. That night of the phone call was the last we ever heard about colic and it did prove that God works in mysterious ways.

Like most new parents, many things changed for us when little feet arrived. Our grocery list regularly included little jars of less than appetising baby food, rusks, powdered milk, dried packet food, nappies, cream (not for strawberries either), cotton wool and of course a few litres of gripe water, for whoever wanted it. A whole new set of equipment arrived too with the Moses basket soon giving way to a cot and then a proper bed, a high chair, playpen, pram and buggy for the public viewing sessions, car seats and stair gates as little feet began to wander. Routines became established and the day's activities were based around the smallest people in the family. Holidays were restructured, no longer to suit our needs and every cough or sneeze was investigated thoroughly. But we enjoyed every minute of it and while at times we wondered what the babies would grow up to be, each year brought a little more independence and more importantly God kept a hand on their young lives.

My sister-in-law has two babies now, though one is more of a toddler. I empathise with her for she has reached the stage that , for us, seems light years ago now. It's not always a comfort to tell her that the difficult days will pass, but they do and more quickly than we expect and it's not uncommon when they're gone, to wish for just a few more of those times, for we never get a second chance at rearing a child and every baby is different. Still, I laugh when I think of the Health care advisor who came to our house to 'support' us with our first baby but who clearly had no personal experience of rearing babies except for the knowledge she gleaned from her trusted textbooks. There's no substitute for learning on the job and no childcare book was ever written that can prepare a parent for the unique characteristics of their newborn baby.

Yet don't we often show the same spiritual ignorance. The world is full of Bible scholars, of learned memory verses, of scripture quotations but that doesn't mean we have ever experienced the real Jesus in our lives. Too many of us our still babies, as Paul expressed in Hebrews, 'In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food.' You see, there's a time to move beyond the milk, to put away the toys and to feed on something which gives us greater spiritual strength and builds us up. It's time to get up and discover life beyond your playpen. And don't be afraid, your Father's just beside you!