Why I'm Not Babywise...My Prayer as a New Parent

If you are just now joining us for the Why I'm Not Babywise Series, Welcome!  Please take the time to read the rest of the posts in the series and feel free to leave comments or send me an email. 

My baby girl was a very fussy baby (acid reflux, food sensitivities, etc.) and we spent a lot of time walking outside with her in the Ergo to keep her calm. I would spend a lot of time praying as I walked along. There were many days when I was just so exhausted and doubting if we were doing things the right way, especially as I heard about "easier" babies that were already sleeping through the night. Of course, I wanted her to sleep through the night so I could sleep through the night, but I wanted to really think through what methods I would use to make this happen. I really wanted to pray through all of our parenting decisions. 

 I am not saying that just because the Lord led us to make certain decisions for our baby, that He will lead you to make the same decisions for your baby. However, I do ask you to consider this alternative way of thinking presented in this series, especially if have read and are implementing Babywise. I am not saying you are wrong and I am right and the Lord revealed something to me and not to you, I am simply asking you to hear me out. At the end of the day, we may still have to agree to disagree and seek to show one another love and grace. 

My dialogue with the Lord would often go something like this: "Lord, I don't know what to do. There are so many different opinions out there.  I know that you want me to respond sensitively to the needs of my baby. I know you respond sensitively to me. When I look in your word and study about what kind of Father you are to me I see compassion and response and sensitivity.You respond to my cries day and night. I know that my baby is not trying to manipulate me. Lord, I know you created babies to communicate their needs by crying and that she is not crying to manipulate me. I know that. But it is so hard. Please help me to continue to die to myself and serve her. Please help me to be the kind of parent to her that you are to me. Lord, your word tells us that you will never leave us or forsake us. The Psalms say over and over how you respond to the cries of your children day and night. Lord, even if you don't change the circumstance that is causing me discomfort I know you are holding me as I "cry" and work through it. Lord, I know you are more than just a God of love. You are a just God, a fair God, a holy God, a perfect God, and a wrathful God. But towards your children more than anything you show us love and grace. You sent Christ to be the picture of love and grace. He showed us how to be servants and to sacrifice for others. Your word says to consider the needs of others more important than ourselves. Lord, I had no idea you would give me a baby with acid reflux and other conditions that would cause her to be so fussy, but I thank you for creating her exactly as she is. You are teaching me so much about patience, grace, servanthood, and love. It is hard Lord, but I just have to depend on your grace that much more. Lord, sometimes I am tempted just to put her through boot-camp and train her because that is what the "books" say and that is what many of my friends say, but each time I consider that I feel a check in my Spirit and I feel you leading me in a different direction. I feel you leading me to respond sensitively and to comfort her. I feel you telling me to parent her the way you parent me. Lord, I know as she gets bigger there will be times when she must cry because I am not giving her something that she wants but doesn't need. But Lord, I know you have created babies with wants that are the same as needs. Her needs need to be met the same way you meet my needs. I think back to when I was a new believer and how vulnerable I was and how needy I was. I needed constant reminders of your love and I needed constant encouragement from those that had led me to you. If my "newborn Christian needs" had been ignored by you or by others I don't know where I would be now.  I would have not had the faith in you or the trust in you that I needed to continue to grow in my relationship with you Lord.   Lord, please continue to lead me by your Spirit and guide me every moment of every hour. Please help me to be sensitive to your Spirit and to parent my baby according to the principles of your Word. Please help me to continue to lovingly respond to her even when I don't feel like it. Lord, help me to show her your character and the character of your Son through the way I parent her."

This was my prayer day after day through the newborn months and still today as well. I hope it can encourage you as you pray through how to parent a newborn and an infant, and really any age child. We need to be led by the Spirit and not the "doctrine of men" as we parent our children in each stage of life. God is the only expert on each baby. Gary Ezzo is not the expert on every single baby. God is the ONLY expert on each baby, and He will lead each of us if we take the time to listen and clear out all the other voices that tell us they know how to raise kids God's way. God is the only expert on raising kids His way. Listen to Him and let Him lead you. It might take more faith and more prayer and more time than reading the methods of men in many of the popular baby books, but it will help you to be more sensitive to the Lord and more sensitive to your baby, and that is always a good thing. :)

Thinking about Japan, Praying for Japan, Helping Japan

John Piper has lots of great posts about Japan. Here they are...

Help Japan—At Least Five Options

Japan, people want answers...

The Tears of Christ

Prayer for Japan

More thoughts on Japan...

My heart is just so heavy for the people of Japan. Several of the International Students we used to hang out with here in Memphis are back home in Japan and I was so worried about them. It was several days before we heard from them but they are all safe. It still saddens me for the hundreds, maybe thousands, of others who lost their lives, many of which who probably did not know Jesus. My heart just breaks for these souls and for the people now living in rubble and breathing in radiation.

John Piper had a great blog post that I will simply repost here:

Father in heaven, you are the absolute Sovereign over the shaking of the earth, the rising of the sea, and the raging of the waves. We tremble at your power and bow before your unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways. We cover our faces and kiss your omnipotent hand. We fall helpless to the floor in prayer and feel how fragile the very ground is beneath our knees.

O God, we humble ourselves under your holy majesty and repent. In a moment—in the twinkling of an eye—we too could be swept away. We are not more deserving of firm ground than our fellowmen in Japan. We too are flesh. We have bodies and homes and cars and family and precious places. We know that if we were treated according to our sins, who could stand? All of it would be gone in a moment. So in this dark hour we turn against our sins, not against you.

And we cry for mercy for Japan. Mercy, Father. Not for what they or we deserve. But mercy.

Have you not encouraged us in this? Have we not heard a hundred times in your Word the riches of your kindness, forbearance, and patience? Do you not a thousand times withhold your judgments, leading your rebellious world toward repentance? Yes, Lord. For your ways are not our ways, and your thoughts are not our thoughts.

Grant, O God, that the wicked will forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Grant us, your sinful creatures, to return to you, that you may have compassion. For surely you will abundantly pardon. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus, your beloved Son, will be saved.

May every heart-breaking loss—millions upon millions of losses—be healed by the wounded hands of the risen Christ. You are not unacquainted with your creatures' pain. You did not spare your own Son, but gave him up for us all.

In Jesus you tasted loss. In Jesus you shared the overwhelming flood of our sorrows and suffering. In Jesus you are a sympathetic Priest in the midst of our pain.

Deal tenderly now, Father, with this fragile people. Woo them. Win them. Save them.

And may the floods they so much dread make blessings break upon their head.

O let them not judge you with feeble sense, but trust you for your grace. And so behind this providence, soon find a smiling face.

In Jesus’ merciful name, Amen.

Praying for Japan and the Middle East

Matthew 24:4-8
 ⁴ Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵ For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. ⁶ You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷ Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of birth pains."

There has been crazy stuff going on in this world. From everything in the Middle East to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, it makes me go "what is going on Lord?" And it reminds me that Jesus will come back. Each day we are closer than we were yesterday to the Day of the Lord. Because of that, those who know Jesus can have hope and peace. For those that don't, I pray they would be drawn to Him through these tragedies. We need to be praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ that are scattered all over the Middle East. We need to pray that they would be bold in the face of persecution, and that they would use every opportunity to speak the gospel and to declare where true freedom comes from--only from Christ. We need to also pray that those in the Middle East that do not know Jesus would come to know Him, that they would hear the gospel from believers there or that Jesus would meet them in their dreams. And for Japan, we need to pray that they would find comfort and peace in the only thing that is constant, in the firm foundation of Christ our Lord. He is a Rock and Stronghold. I pray too for the believers there, that they would rise up and serve their fellow countrymen and show Christ in word and deed. I pray for those there that do not know Him, that they would seek Him for answers and draw near to Him for comfort. Let us all be reminded of the frailty of our owns lives and not take a single breath for granted.