new mom Archives | All The More: Collective Blog

“God, we had such a good thing going!”

June 17, 2022 Bailey Lenzen 3 min read

My husband and I were recently en route from Philadelphia to Washington DC listening to a podcast by The Bible Project on a passage in Exodus when God changes his mind: Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. Exodus 32:14 We got into this discussion about whether God changes his mind or not. Spoiler alert: This is not really a blog about this question, as exciting as that might be. Part of my response to him was this though: God no more “changes his mind” like we do as God loves like we do. We and God are not the same thing. We are made in His image, but we aren’t Him. However, we do strive to be like Him, to care like Him, to mourn like Him, to be bold like Him, to love like Him – in summary, to […]

How Motherhood is Teaching Me to Reimagine Sacrifice

May 6, 2022 Rachel Marissa 3 min read

“Look at how much God is letting you sacrifice for this little one already,” she texted back with the confidence of a seasoned mother. My friend’s wisdom stunned me. I just shared how I’d been experiencing chronic pain throughout my entire pregnancy. Get to sacrifice already? Is she nuts? I’m about to endure labor, delivery, AND postpartum recovery after suffering for nine months. What about that is blessed? Wait… did she say ‘ALREADY’? Only the beginning And… turns out… she was right. A challenging pregnancy was only the beginning of how much the Lord would let me sacrifice for my little one. The first five months of my daughter’s life would include some extremely difficult moments: Cluster feeding (16 nursing sessions per day for three weeks), colic, thrush (twice–in a row–both of us), severe neck rash, “poor coordination” of the mouth (rejected bottles, weekly OT rehab), sleep-deprived insomnia, Torticollis (weekly […]

Grace and Mercy in the New Mom Season

March 18, 2022 Bailey Lenzen 3 min read

This past December, my husband and I welcomed a new member into our family, Owen. In the months leading up to his birth, I was all in on reading to prepare for taking care of a baby: the classic What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the Christian book Made for This on childbirth, and the baby whisperer book, The Happiest Baby on the Block, kindly gifted to me by a friend. In addition to having a handy dandy best friend who is an OBGYN, I read all the articles on Lucie’s List and did extensive research on baby products. Even in the midst of all this learning I knew none of it was actually going to adequately prepare me for the trial by fire experience of having a little human we’re suddenly responsible for. All this — while I’m recovering from what the comedian Ali Wang calls someone’s house being […]