Voices

As I sat at my computer checking email today, I was listening to a movie my husband had on the TV. It was the Ashley Judd movie "Double Jeopardy." I have seen this movie multiple times, but I had not seen it since becoming a mother. Pre-motherhood, I thought that the big tragedy in this movie was that this woman was framed for the murder of her husband, only to find out from prison that he wasn't really dead. Since becoming a mother, I have decided that the true tragedy is that this woman had to live separated from her young son, even though she had done nothing wrong. There was a scene where the woman taking care of her son brings him to visit her in prison and as he sings his ABCs to her (which he had just learned), they place their hands on the glass, trying to touch each other with this clear barricade blocking them. Pre-motherhood? "Oh, that's too bad." Post-motherhood? Sob city. This whole new vulnerable place opened up in my heart when I gave birth, and that place cannot imagine the unfathomable. What on earth would I do if I were kept from my kids? I cannot even wrap my brain around this at all. As I'm thinking about this and shuddering, I overhear Ashley Judd's character say to a fellow prisoner, "They say that even if a baby is separated from his mother at birth, he still recognizes her voice years later. Do you think that's true?" She was worried that after she got out of prison, her own son wouldn't know her. Again - I can't even go there in my head. But that got me thinking even further. If I cannot handle even the mere thought of being separated from my kids, how much more does it pain God to be separated from His? That being said, do you think that even if they have never really known Him before, once they hear His voice, do they recognize it? The answer is right there in the Bible: "My sheep hear My voice and they know Me." As I think about this scripture, I get a visual picture of my 5-week-old son when he's hungry. No matter who is holding him, when he is hungry, he roots around, searching to be fed. Inevitably, whoever holds an infant who is breastfed will say, "Sorry, buddy, I can't help you," or, "I can't do anything for you, little guy," and the baby will cry and cry until he gets to his mother. Once he hears Mommy, he calms right down because he knows that he is about to be fed. Perhaps those lost children of God are just rooting, searching to be fed. They may initially spend time with those who can't do anything for them before finally getting to the One who can fill them up. I pray that, even as a housewife and mother, I can help direct some of those lost children to the best parent there is.