Guest Blogger: Janet Brey

It’s amazing what your body, mind and spirit experience with the addition of a second child to your family. My biggest concern with the impending arrival of our daughter has been the uncertainty that our firstborn would experience while adjusting to the new inclusion in our family. Nobody can explain a mother’s love; it is simply something that must be experienced (I imagine it’s similar for Dad’s too!). To have God create something so miraculous and beautiful and then give us the opportunity to love it and raise it is one of life’s greatest blessings. I can’t tell you how much I love our firstborn, Corbin. The love is so powerful and truly comes from God. So naturally when we found out we were pregnant, some of my first fears were focused on Corbin and how my love might change for him and how he would adapt to a sibling.

Unfortunately, those fears have not subsided with the many months of pregnancy. I wish I could say that I easily handed it over to God and haven’t had to struggle with it any more, but that wouldn’t be honest. I have had several tearful moments worrying about how I would have to “share my love” instead of being able to pour all my love lavishly on one child. I’ve also worried that our son would be jealous of his sister and not understand why mommy doesn’t love him so much anymore.

Well, we’re on day number two now. Our daughter’s birth will be very memorable for many reasons! Her birth did not resemble our son’s at all, and it’s nice to have two very different but good memories for each of them. I can’t say that I’ve conquered my fears over sharing my love; in fact, it was very hard to send my firstborn home last night and watch his chin quiver and eyes look sad and fearful as he left. He kept saying, “Mommy…home!”. And I wanted to be there for him so badly! But I received some wonderful advice from my friend Gina just a couple of weeks ago and it’s that advice that is driving me forward. She told me, “Just think of it as multiplication, not division”. You are not dividing your love between the two of them…you are simply multiplying the love that you already have. You will have more love now to give and you will be able to bless more people (now 2 instead of 1) with it.

Wow. That advice has brought so much comfort and has encouraged me to face the future with more excitement rather than fear. It’s always amazed me that God is able to love us so much. I feel like I am one step closing to looking at life through His eyes. There is nothing quite like the innocence of a newborn child. It’s one of the qualities that make them so easy to love! Yet God looks upon us, with all of our many imperfections and sins, and finds us loveable as well. Loveable enough to send His one and only child to die for us, so that we may have a relationship with Him. Do I understand that kind of love? No; it is mind boggling. But what I do have, is a better understanding of God’s ability to enable us multiply our love, and that includes extending our love to those that are loveable as well as those that might be harder to love; to those that might already know God and those that are far from God. My prayer today is that God will continue to impress upon my heart the implications of multiplying my love…as a Mother and as a child of God wanting to reach those that don’t know God’s love yet.