Physical Difficulty #savoringtimewithGod

I am going through the devotional book Savor, by Shauna Niequist with my women's bible study. I thought the questions were so great and thought provoking that I wanted to share them and my answers with you. I would love to hear your answers in the comments or if you blog about them too please post your link in the comments!


June 4 p 168

Q. Have you ever run a marathon, or fulfilled some other physical goal that pushed you beyond what you had thought you could do? What did you learn from that process?

A. Well I gave birth to 3 babies. And nursed them.

Before the first one I thought it would all be fine and easy. I was planning to have an epidural and breastfeeding is natural, right? I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I didn't know how hard it would be. When my epidural didn't work right with my first two I learned how excruciating labor and child birth could be. At one point with my first I honestly wasn't sure how I would make it. But I did make it, and went on to birth 2 more children. I learned I am capable even if it is horribly hard. I also learned that I can endure horrible pain for a short time period as long as there is an end in sight. But even in that moment when I can't see the end I would still choose to do it all over again for my precious children. I guess I learned how strong I am?

Nursing babies took a whole different level of strength. I wrote about this before, but Nursing my first was incredibly hard. It was very painful. Problems with latch and neither of us knew what to do. In the beginning, for the first several months I daydreamed at every feeding about switching to a bottle. I sometimes wished that the doctor would find a medical reason for me to stop breastfeeding and switch to formula. (That sounds horrible, and I cringe writing that, but it is true). There were times I honestly didn't know if I would finish the week nursing. But I made it through. I made it to a year nursing both my first and second (still working on my 3rd). It started being easy sometime between 3 and 6 months (I can't remember for sure when, that whole time is a little fuzzy). Again I learned how strong I am. I can make it through. I learned to take the hard things 1 thing at a time, (I will make it through this one feeding don't think about the next one). I learned that pushing through one hard thing may make the next one a little easier (the 2nd and 3rd have been easier for nursing, one naturally and 1 with the help of a tongue tie being clipped). I learned that it is ok to lean on something to help you make it through (I doubt I would have made it through without nipple shields, I've used them with all 3 and they are a life saver!). I learned that hard things are only a season. I learned that God is right there with me through those hard seasons