My Baby Girl got her first label in the hospital. She was 29 hours old.
The nurse came in to try to help her breastfeed. I say “try to help” because I quickly learned that sometimes things are just better left to a mama and her baby. Baby Girl’s mouth was only yay long, and of course she was nourished from a cord for the past nine months, so there was a bit of a learning curve for both of us.
“She’s a lazy eater”, the words came barreling out of her mouth, “You better watch her, or she’ll end up being a grazer”.
I just laid there, Baby Girl in my arms, disbelief all over my face. It had only been 29 hours. Twenty. nine. hours. and already I turned into mama bear.
I was so caught off guard that I didn’t even know what to say, then for days later I thought of all the things I should have said. You know how the perfect words come after you’ve crafted them and re-crafted them over and over in your mind?
At 29 days old my Baby Girl had a type, she was one-of-those, she had a label. Lazy. A grazer.
Baby Girl’s next label came yesterday. It was most likely an innocent comment meant to express how fast she’s growing. But it was a label nonetheless, and it got this mama-bear’s hair to stand on end again.
“She’s huge!”, the comment said of a picture I posted of Baby Girl’s healthy and happy four-month picture.
Huge {exclamation point}, really? She’s really huge? Isn’t there a kinder, gentler expression than that? Maybe, “Wow! She’s growing so fast” or “You’re so blessed that she’s healthy!” or “I can’t believe she’s gotten so big already!”
Again, it’s all about semantics, but still the label was there and my heart broke for my perfect child.
Earlier in the day had listened to a podcast by Andy Stanley. He was speaking to middle school students, but I might as well be thirteen because I still have a lot to learn too. The whole sermon was about the labels that are put on us and the only One who has authority to be our label-maker.
God seems to speak to me in bundles. That’s how He gets my attention. A subject will come up in a conversation, then a scripture verse, then I’ll experience it, then in a podcast. Finally I’ll get it and know that this “subject” is really a lesson, and I need to listen.
Yesterday my lesson was on labels, and more specifically labels that will be put on my Baby Girl. Throughout her lifetime people will put hundreds of labels on her. Some positive and some negative, and undoubtedly I will be one of those people because I’m just that fallen and imperfect. There is nothing I can do to stop her from being labeled.
But what I can do is teach her what God wants her to do when the stickiness of the labels adheres to her person.
I can teach her that she cannot stop the labels from coming, so there is no point in trying. We live in a broken world and people are broken. We all use labels to help us cope with that brokenness.
I can teach her that the only One who has the authority to label her is God. He is the only One who matters. He’s the only One whose label will make a difference.
I can teach her to rip off the labels people (including herself) stick on her before they become super-glued. It’s important that she recognizes others’ labels quickly and deals with them.
I can teach her how to replace those labels that she ripped off from other people with new ones – ones from God. Labels that tell her she is worthy and perfect and forgiven and beautiful.
I can teach her to keep God’s labels adhered to her heart, so tight that if they are ripped off it will burn a little and she will notice.
I can teach her that God is the only One who has the authority to label other people, too, so she needs to love others and not put labels on them herself.
God is our label-maker. And He’s my Baby Girl’s label-maker. This is what I will teach her.
Image courtesy of suphakit73/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net
How do you handle the labels put on you or your family? Do you recognize them early and replace them with truth?
