Where I AM
When my second daughter was born, I was doing in-home daycare and was at capacity of the number of children I could have under my care. It was a fun and stressful time. It was fun because I was able to be home with my daughters but it was also stressful because we needed the money so I didn’t take a real “maternity leave”. I went to the hospital on a Tuesday night and the next Monday all my kids came back.
It was also stressful because I wanted to breast feed her but it was just too difficult to be available to feed her AND tend to the four two year old’s who needed me to change their diapers, feed them and play with them. I ended up recruiting my sister-in-law to come to help out so everyone was able to get the level of care I felt was required for all of the kiddos in my care.
Now before my second daughter was born, my oldest daughter would often skip her nap as to be able to spend some one-on-one time with Mom. So often when she’d get up in the morning, her Dad would still be home or some of the kids would already be there playing and in the evenings, Dad would come home around the same time the last kiddo was picked up, leaving zero time for her to hang out with just Mom. When baby sister came along, this certainly caused some problems.
As time went by, they got used to sharing Mom time. However, I was working towards earning my Associates Degree, one a semester, one class at a time. Though we’d found a way to manage sharing Mom during the other kids’ nap times, me leaving to go to school proved to be a problem we had a more difficult time solving.
You see, my second daughter started to show signs of separation anxiety. Each night when I’d leave to go to class, she’d have a melt down. This caused me to feel guilty for leaving a screaming, crying baby and a toddler with my husband. It served to be a hard semester and again called on the help of my sister-in-law to lend a hand.
Her separation anxiety seemed to last for quite a while. She’d have a hard time when we’d leave her with family so my husband and I could go our for a “date night” or just to do some shopping without kids. When she began preschool, she didn’t want to go. I tried to set up play dates for her to socialize and she’d cling to me at first and when she did start to venture out, she’d check in on me by running back to me to make sure she could see me and feel me.
When I hear the words “I AM”, in scripture, I immediately remember the scripture when God tells Moses, he is “I AM.” And how Jesus would say “I AM” statements such as “I AM the bread of life” or “I AM the way, the truth and the life.”
I feel my daughters separation anxiety is an example of what WE NEED in our lives when it comes to God. As Christians we learn about how God is everywhere and in all things but we can’t see him; then we understand Jesus is our friend. We can’t see him either! But the Holy Spirit, though we can’t see it, we can feel the presence of it. We need to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit to be reassured that we are not alone and okay.
My daughter learned to trust that I was there, even when she couldn’t see or touch me. She eventually had no problem going to places without me but she trust that if she needed me, she could call me and I’d be there to pick her up or talk to her so she didn’t feel alone.
God is with us. Jesus says he is with the Father and the Father is with him. We know Jesus left the Holy Spirit to be with us after he died to save us from our sins. The Holy Trinity is “I AM” and it is wherever I am.
