Willing to Nurse a Baby
I woke up this morning to the oddly familiar sensation of milk letting down like when your baby is crying and it’s time to feed them. The feeling was so real that I felt my chest to make sure it was not full of milk…
Are you willing to nurse a baby?
NO! Oh, LORD, I hope You are not asking me if I’m ACTUALLY willing to foster a baby… my “baby” is almost 16 years old. I’m teaching her how to drive and I am LOVING the freedom in this stage of parenting. I’m in the “letting go and watching them fly” stage of parenting. There is NOTHING in me that would ever want to parent a nursing baby again!
Last week, I sat with a nursing mother as she fed her baby before getting back on the road for a long drive home. As we talked, my heart smiled hearing all the sweet sounds as her baby wiggled, cooed, and breathed heavily through his little nose guzzling mama’s milk. I found it interesting when simply hearing these sounds caused a phantom “let down” feeling in my own body, causing me to remember that time in my own life.
I thought about the flood of hormones that shoot through your body when the baby latches on and the intense love you feel for that baby as you look down, they momentarily catch your gaze, and accidentally lose suction because they break out in an ear-to-ear smile. You are their mom. You love them and they know it. They are your child, and you know it.
When they start to cry that familiar hunger cry, your body responds and automatically begins to produce milk and let down the nutrients they need. It is an incredible bond between a mama and a nursing baby.
After my mind played out all the magical memories of nursing my babies, it was as though my brain wanted to balance the scales and remind me that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. I remembered how hard it was to get the baby to latch on properly and how it took a lactation nurse to teach both the baby and I what to do. There was a proper way to latch on if you wanted your milk to produce the way it should.
She taught me what to do when, not if, the baby started biting the nipple, which is every bit as uncomfortable as you are imagining if you’ve never experienced it! She taught me how to eat and how much to drink if I wanted to produce quality milk because the quality of milk the baby got depended on the quality of nutrition I got. You made nursing a baby so easy that people and animals both do it naturally and yet, there were things I needed to learn in order to do it well.
I thought about how painful it was if the baby slept too long and my milk came in. Sometimes I would wake the baby to feed her just to relieve my own discomfort. I thought about how a baby is naturally born demanding milk every time it’s hungry and, if we don’t start to get the baby on a schedule we set, they can make it to the toddling stage while still waking a mom up a couple times a night to nurse.
I decided early on that I was NOT going to let my babies wreck my sleep! Following the advice in a wonderful book my sister-in-law sent me, I started my babies on a feeding schedule and I was getting full nights of sleep between 6-8 weeks with each of my girls. As my friends had 18-month-olds still waking them in the middle of the night to eat, I was thankful I set those boundaries with my babies so early in life. Saved my sanity.
Suddenly, I flashed forward to April of 2008 leaving the hospital with empty arms after the full-term miscarriage with my son Zander. For nine long months, I had planned for his arrival. His nursery was put together, his little clothes folded, a closet full of diapers and wipes, and a 20-month-old sister were waiting for him at home… but he would not be coming home.
Are you willing to nurse a baby?
What a cruel time to ask me again! My eyes are full of tears as I remember the pain both emotionally and physically of my milk coming in, apparently oblivious to the fact that there was no baby to feed. I was stuck in the middle of two realities: I was prepared to feed a baby and there was no baby to feed, which left me with two options: express some of the milk, understanding that would signal my body to make more, or die from the pain of engorgement.
My mind went straight from crying in the shower hoping enough milk would leak in the hot water to relieve the pain, to Zander’s memorial service where I asked everyone not to hug me because I was so engorged. I felt like any pressure would make my chest explode. I longed for someone to hold me and tell me I was going to be okay but my heart knew that, after losing a baby, it would never be the same.
Are you willing to nurse a baby?
(Wiping away tears) LORD, if that’s You, and You want me to nurse a baby, I’m willing to nurse a baby.
If you LOVE Me, feed My sheep.
Then I woke up.
John 21:15-19:
So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?”
He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.”
He said to him, “Feed My lambs.”
He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?”
He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.”
He said to him, “Tend My sheep.”
He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?”
And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep. Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me.”
According to tradition, Peter was crucified on a cross upside down in Rome because he felt unworthy to die in the same manner as Jesus Christ.
When Jesus asked Peter, “Do you (agape) love me?” He was asking him, “Do you love Me with unconditional love?”
Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I (phileo) love You with a brotherly love.” Jesus asked again, “Do you (agape) love me with unconditional love?” Again, Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I (phileo) love You with a brotherly love.”
So finally, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you (phileo) love Me with a brotherly love?” Peter answers, “You know all things and You know that I (phileo) love You.” And Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep.’”
In verse 18, when Jesus said, “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish,” He was letting Peter know that feeding His sheep would eventually cost him his life. Essentially, Jesus said, “Peter, if you really LOVE Me, it will cost you your life. Come and follow Me.”
Let’s go back to where it began in Matthew 4:18-20.
“And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him.”
Peter knew immediately when He met Jesus that he was willing to leave the world he had known as a fisherman to follow Him. I’m sure it was a longer conversation, but the long and the short of it was that he saw something in Jesus that was so compelling that he was willing to give the life he knew for the opportunity to follow Him.
It is estimated that Peter was with Jesus for the entire 3 to 3 ½ years of His earthly ministry. He witnessed many INCREDIBLE, unbelievable miracles and in Matthew 26:35 when Peter said, “even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!” he meant it.
It was an emotional couple of days for Peter. He is reprimanded by Jesus after falling asleep when he’s supposed to be on the lookout while Jesus prayed. He chopped some dude’s ear off defending Jesus when the soldiers came to arrest Him which, of course, Jesus corrected him and healed the guy. He watched his friend and savior Jesus being dragged off to court and, in fear, what he said he would NEVER do - deny Jesus - he did three times in a row, even unwilling to admit to teenage girls that he knew Jesus.
Jesus knew that Peter was incapable of agape love when He asked him, “Do you love Me?” With His third ask, He was acknowledging Peter’s limited ability to love Him and essentially asked, “With the measure of love you have for Me, do you love Me enough to feed My sheep?”
This morning, Jesus is reminding me that nursing a baby is a gift that not everyone will experience, but it is also a weighty gift that comes with great responsibility. When you are a nursing mother, it is your God-given responsibility to be available to feed that baby until it is old enough to eat on its own.
Weaning a child is a whole different chapter. In America, with so many good nutritional options such as formula readily available, a child can be weaned at a relatively young age and still thrive. Ancient Hebrews completely weaned their children by three years old, but around the world today, children are weaned anywhere between one and four years old.
Those are wildly different ages when you stop to consider that a one-year-old is barely learning to walk and some four-year-old’s attend kindergarten but, depending on the child’s needs, the cultural standards, and the available nutrition in that society, there is not a wrong age to wean a child.
Discipling can be compared spiritually to the relationship between a nursing baby and a mother. Discipleship is spiritual foster-parenting. Babies born into the family of God need someone to feed them until they are mature enough and able to feed themselves. There is a bond formed when you disciple, a love that is much the same as the love between a baby and its mother. There is a safety and a comfort when it is done well and, done well, someone who has been discipled matures with the desire to move on and disciple others.
To be done well:
The one discipling should be taught proper latching techniques or boundaries so they don’t get hurt while feeding the baby.
The one discipling should structure the feeding schedule ensuring that they are still able to get the rest they need and have time and energy to feed themselves well, so they have something of value to offer.
There is no hard and fast rule but the end goal of discipleship is that the disciple matures to the place where they don’t need to have their hand held in faith, but where their faith can stand alone, and they are equipped to disciple someone else.
As the disciple grows to maturity, done well, what was once a loving parenting relationship becomes a beautiful, life-long faith centered friendship of peers working towards the same cause of making disciples of all nations, baptizing, and teaching in a circle of spiritual life that culminates when we cross over from life on earth to life with Jesus and hear, “Well done, My good and faithful servant. Enter into the Joy of your Lord.”
In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus spoke to His followers and said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, TEACHING them to observe ALL things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Jesus is asking each of us who follow Him, “Are you willing to nurse a baby… for Me?”
John 21:15