Baby Shower Devotional
I’ve been asked to read a devotional at a few baby showers. Each time, I’ve looked in books and online to find something that I liked and always came up empty, so I ended up writing my own. I’ve varied it slightly each time but have essentially conveyed the same message. I thought I’d share it below. I hope this is helpful to you, whether you’re planning a baby shower or just need some encouragement as a new mom.
Here’s what I wrote for my brother and SIL’s baby shower:
Thank you to everyone for coming. We know some of you came from a long distance away. We’re so glad you all could be here. I thought we would start by going around. Introduce yourself and let us know how you know the soon-to-be mom and dad. You can also tell us where you traveled from. I’ll go first. I’m Laura, Rob’s oldest sister. And this is my house so I guess I had the shortest distance to get here.
I’m going to read a devotional, we’ll pray, and then eat brunch. Here’s a little about myself – I have three boys. My oldest is 14 and my youngest is 10 so it’s been quite a few years since I’ve had a baby. And while I don’t remember all the details from those first few weeks (for better or worse), I do remember a lot of the feelings I had and in a couple of months, I’m sure you’ll be experiencing a lot of those same feelings when you’re holding your sweet baby boy in your arms. And for me, those first days and months were filled with an overwhelming sense of love for this baby. I didn’t know I could love another human being like that. Your heart will physically hurt because it’s bursting with love. And when I felt that, especially early on, I would just cry, happy tears. Yes, I’m sure a big part of it was hormones, but it was also gratefulness. See when I would think about my love for my baby, I was reminded over and over that my Heavenly Father loves us infinitely more than I love my baby. It’s hard to even fathom, but it’s true. And unlike my love, His love is perfect and sacrificial. God loves us so much that He sent His son to die for us.
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
So I would stare at my baby and think, “Wow, God loves you and He loves me so much that He was willing to send His only Son to die for us so if we have a relationship with Him, we get to spend eternity in Heaven.” So awesome and overwhelming to think about.
The second point I wanted to share today is how much moms need to rely on God. There have been and will probably always be times when I stop and just say, “Lord, I need you.” In fact, I would often sing, “Lord I need you, Lord I need you. Every hour I need you. My one defense, my righteousness, Oh God, how I need you.”
It’s common for people to tell you, “God won’t give you more than you can handle”. And while I know people mean really well when they say that, it’s actually not true. God is most certainly going to give you more than you can handle. Sometimes I feel like he does every day.
But Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
God doesn’t expect us to handle it all. He wants us to hand it over to Him.
He wants us to say, “It’s not me, I can’t do it, but He can.”
He doesn’t want us to rally more of our own strength. He wants us to rely solely on His strength.
1 Corinthians 1:8 says, “[He] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
And II Corinthians 12: 9 reads, “But Jesus said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
You don’t have to be a perfect mom – the pressure is off! You don’t have to do more or be more because your baby boy doesn’t need a super mom. He needs a mom who needs a super God….the God who created him and loves him more than we can imagine.
This baby is God’s gift to you. God has chosen you to be his mom, not anyone else, because he knows that in Him and through Him, you can do it. You don’t need to, nor can you do it on your own. God will help you each day.
And we are so excited to meet your sweet baby boy and be a part of his life.
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