Today I decided to leave early for church, but I left too early that I had time to sit in the trendy Pussy Galore’s café, enjoying a hot bowl of pumpkin soup and bread, while J was asleep in his pram. It also gave me time to write down my reflection. What a refreshing hour of break, and it seemed to give a return that seemed like a few hours.
When J was a baby, I read somewhere that it’s a good idea to get him attached to a soft toy, so that it would be easier when you travel and wanted him to sleep or when you bring him to visit a doctor. It would apparently also be easier to wean him from the pacifier. However, I never succeeded in making him attached to a soft toy.
Last weekend, I took 2 days to teach him to care for an individual by taking care of the training teddy bear. Within 2 days, I was amazed at how much bond he has built up for his training teddy bear. This morning, he was crying a lot. When my Superstar opened the door to his room, he realized that it was because the teddy bear had fallen off the crib onto the floor. J wanted to pick the teddy bear up.
What we never succeeded in doing before, we unknowingly succeeded by letting Jsohua take care for the teddy bear.
Through this, God taught me an important lesson about love:
It’s through taking care of a person that real love grows and continues to flourish.
I used to complain about how much work it was to take care of J, when he was a newborn, and asked God why He doesn’t just create human beings like He created giraffe – can walk immediately after birth! Today God answered me, and now I know that there is at least one reason why God created newborns so utterly helpless and dependent. It is through all those sleepless nights and thankless labour of taking care of a newborn that somewhere deep inside a mother… subconsciously the love and bond for the child begins to grow and flourish.
This is perhaps also why the Christian wedding vow emphasizes “being together through thick and thin, in sickness and in health… till death do us part”. It is through taking care of our spouse, without calculating who does more and who does too little, that the love and commitment for a person deepens. Just as J in the process of taking care of the teddy bear developed a strong bond with it, so have I in the process of taking care of J for the last 2 years developed a strong bond with J.
God is teaching me that we need to love our spouse like the way we love our child, unconditionally and without calculating. We need to accept each other and give without asking for return. So the next time, for example, when my Significant Other does not do his dishes or does it lower than the standards I have expected, I would learn to keep quiet and not calculate who is doing more :-)
As I sat in the café and thinking that one day, J would leave us and go to the end of the world in pursuit of his dream, being trained to be cross-culturally comfortable by his family. That day would come when I have to let him go and fly away… tears began to swell in my eyes….
Let us pause for a moment and reflect: have you try to take care of your spouse or only demand that your spouse does things for you... like a "tai tai" in the Singaporean context?
A prayer to God:
“Dear God, help me not to be guilty of having the "tai tai" mentality. May I learn to take care of my Significant Other, like I take care of J, without any complaints and calculating who is doing more or less. May You help me find ways to show love to my Significant Other in a language that he could understand. Family is the primary building block of society. In our church and our lives, may You continue to keep our light shinning bright, so that we have strong marriages and families to bring homely warm and cheers to the world in need of love and warm.”
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