In the Image of the Creator

In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength. (Is. 30:15)

Dearest Daughters,

The first three years of a child’s life are beyond tender and beautiful. They are absolutely critical. They shape the child’s emotions, expand his potential, and create structure in his intellect and brain that will last a lifetime. The bonds that are formed in the first three years cannot be overlooked. If they are missed, the child’s entire life, emotionally, cognitively, and spiritually, can be affected.

Of course, we serve a God who redeems all things. But I cannot stress enough how much we must invest in our children, especially in that early development. I have already seen the impact of more or less investment in my own children during that season. And this begins on day one.

The first moments of a baby’s life can determine whether they will survive or not. The smell of their mother, the touch, and especially her voice will cause them to want to breathe, to live and to thrive. Looking in her eyes is the first thing that most babies do, and they can imitate her within the first hour. Try it. If you stick your tongue out at your newborn, they will do it back. And pretty soon, if you smile, they will smile at you. If you talk to them, they’ll coo back. If you love them, someday they’ll love, too.

I remember and treasure the memories of each of you when you were little babies breastfeeding. Breastfeeding was one of the most special moments I have ever experienced. Every time, I would get up and sit in my chair during the night to feed you. Only once you got bigger, did I not wake up and look at you at each feeding during the night.

I admired you, talked to you, prayed for you and dreamed of who you’d become, as I fed you. And we began to communicate in the very first days of life.

I had a pattern with breastfeeding that I found extremely important and edifying. We would start out by just talking, praying. At times, I even shed tears over you, stroking your cheek, rubbing your head, smelling you. These are the most cherished memories, and I always prayed for you. And then, as your eyes would drift shut in the comfort of feeding, I would pick up a book or a Bible beside me and read for the rest of the feeding. This became both a bonding and an educational time for me.

I recently was talking with a young mommy who told me that she felt inspired by what I shared about these feeding periods as she had noticed that her normal pattern—and one she saw in all of her friends—was to be on her phone during breastfeeding. May I caution you that I think this is not a wholesome activity. You will miss the most precious moments of your life and the most critical moments for your child could be being neglected. I’m not saying it should never happen, but a pattern of this could be devastating.

Phones serve their purpose, but they are also a distraction. And when you think about the word distraction, it means lack of traction. Phones can easily distract you from moving forward, from making progress, both in your life and in the life of your child. Worse yet, you are imprint training distraction from human connection into your child. If the child sees you always, even in the most intimate of times, distracted by devices, they will also be distracted.

And, as I have said before, their first window to God is you. If they would believe that God is love, they experience His love for the first time through you. If they would believe that He is attentive, they must experience that connection through you. If they would believe that He is merciful, they experience that mercy through your own forgiveness.

So bear this in mind. I’m not saying that I’ve never been distracted while breastfeeding. Certainly I have. I’ve eaten dinner while breastfeeding, even washed dishes one-handed in a pinch. But there must be times that you fully devote to that shared bonding moment, and lots of them.

Let’s just focus for a moment on distraction. I’ll tell you a story to illustrate my point.

A few years ago, I noted that I had not had a dream in a while. Now, I don’t place a whole lot of weight on most dreams, but throughout my life there have been times that God definitely spoke something to me through a dream. I noticed that it had been a long time. And then I started thinking, I haven’t written in a while, and most of my life I’ve written every day.

I felt a little frustrated in that season, frantic and harried. I asked the Lord about it, and I felt that He showed me something. I was distracted with many things. When I prayed and examined my life to see where I was distracted, I felt that the phone was one of them.

Now, I don’t spend a lot of time on the phone. I don’t waste time on social media or things like that, but I do have to have it with me all the time because of the nature of my services as a midwife, minister’s wife, and paramedic. These callings require me to always have it handy, constantly checking texts, constantly answering it. And it’s easy to check the text, and then check the email, and then write a note, and then . . . and on and on it goes.

During that season, I was reading a book in which there was a story of a man who lived in the 1920s and raised ten children. All of them went on to be extremely successful—inventors, musicians, and such. When questioned about how successful they were, he had an interesting response. Most people just thought, “Oh, it’s just in their DNA,” and certainly DNA plays a role in people’s talents and giftings. But he said, “Oh no, it’s not our family DNA, because I worked with an orphanage and all of them had the same outcome. It’s how I taught.”

He believed that when our brains are in a meditative state, that we can learn with much more clarity and retain far more memories.

Now, at the risk of getting too scientific, I’ll tell you there are four states of brain waves: alpha, beta, delta, and theta. Beta waves are the highly alert, problem-solving waves where our brain is constantly moving from one thing to the next. They occur in the analyzing mode, or the distracted mode. Alpha waves are the waves that are more meditative, dreamy, as when you’re daydreaming, reflecting, remembering. These are often achieved in the shower or driving down a familiar country road. You suddenly begin to remember things. I’ve had to pull over to the side and write myself a note because I suddenly remembered things I’d forgotten. We’ve all been there.

Theta waves are the waves of when you’re in between sleep and awake, first thing in the morning. Often people have powerful intuition and revelation in those moments just prior to being fully awake. And some people, in prayer, go all the way into these waves. And delta waves would be the deepest sleep.

Our phones and the distractions of life have a way of keeping us from going into prayer, reflection, and those brain waves and patterns that allow for creativity. And this is what I felt the Lord showing me: that I would lose all my creativity if I allowed myself to be distracted and did not intentionally go—in prayer, in music, on a walk—into those places where I could hear God’s voice in the whisper of the breeze, in the sound of the birds, in the beauty of a sunrise.

I must go to those places to hear God, to gain creativity, to think of crafts for the fair, to sing a song, to write a poem, to write these letters to you. And the phone is one of the ways that can keep us from that if we do not become intentional at finding those spaces with the Lord, His creation, and our children.

I would say breastfeeding our babies falls into those spaces of meditation, reflection, creativity, and insight into the future for our children.

So please spend time with your babies. Spend time with the Lord and His creation. Do not allow the enemy to hijack your creativity, because this is one of the strongest ways in which we are made in the image of our God. He was the Great Creator, and no other creatures, except those made in His image, have creativity.

So don’t become distracted. Be a creative mother, taking advantage of every bonding moment so that your child can be created in His image and develop into the fruitful, productive person that God made them to be.

With all my love,

Mom