Held

I do a lot of different things at my job: I take kids to school, I pick them up; I change diapers, I create activities; I plan field trips; I go to story time; I help with nap time; I load and unload groceries; I deal with the daily temper tantrums of two-year olds and all other year olds; I help cook for 30+ people. I do a lot of different things at my job. But, my favorite thing to do is simply to hold the babies. It's true, I'll admit it--I'm a baby holder. It's amazing: I honestly didn't even know if I liked kids before taking this job, and I now I am proudly professing my "baby-holdingness." Life is funny. God is funny.

I spent all morning with one of our new babies, and I got to do my favorite thing: hold him. We can't hold the kids all the time because otherwise they will become accustomed to it and expect it all the time, and we simply don't have enough staff to hold all the kids all the time. But, today I could do what is normally not permitted, just hold him.

So, I did.

It's an incredibly sweet thing, on many levels, to hold a child. Dependence. Vulnerability.

These inverse feelings are new for me, and I am still processing many of them. But, I am enjoying the beauty and newness of it all. In many ways, I feel closer to God through these experiences and understand better different parts of my Father.

For example, as I held this baby today I was overcome by a strange, but sweet spirit of worship, understanding that just as I held this child, so my Father holds me, always. We are all infinitely held. The keen desire this baby had to be as close to me as possible was overwhelming as I thought of my own keen desire for closeness to my Father. I was this baby's source of comfort, and security. If I made as if to leave him, he reached out to me with imploring arms and eyes, wordlessly begging me to stay. If I moved, he moved. If I sighed, he sighed. We were working in unison. As he lay against my chest, I could feel his breath, his hair, his skin, his heartbeat. It was a human moment touched by the Divine.

It was a moment that made me want to be a child again, if only to more fully understand the relationship with my Father, or rather how the relationship with my Father really looks. Sweet moments indeed. And all from holding a baby.

I'll say it again with pride: I'm a baby holder.