Why “No Small Thing”?

Eight years ago, I was pregnant with my first child.  It was a time of great excitement and expectation, and I had so much to do!  One of those all-important tasks was the baby’s birth announcement.  I set out to create just the perfect announcement, choosing just the right paper, just the right ribbon, just the right font.  And of course, I wanted just the right quote to be printed on the announcement.  During this extensive search, I came across the following quote (which, by the way, I did not use for the announcement) by Charles Dickens:

“It is no small thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.” 

I thought it was a nice quote worth remembering but it wasn’t right for what I was doing, so I wrote it down and filed it away for another time, another use.  Several years and babies later, I was going through old files and ran across a piece of crinkled, lined notebook paper on which the quote was scribbled.  It was with new eyes that I read the words.  I had real clarity in that moment.  I understood the magnitude of loving, and being loved by, my four little creatures.  I felt my heart leap as I read the words that had seemed so ordinary just a few years earlier.  Extraordinary now, I realized a few things:  

I know that my life, my vocation as a mother, is no small thing. 

I know that I cannot ever take the love my children have for me for granted, for it is no small thing. 

I know the Lord blessed me with four beautiful angels on Earth.  This is no small thing.  

I never could have understood how challenging, exhilarating, heartbreaking, overwhelming, precious, breathtaking this life is.  Never.  And I would not choose another life, ever.  Because this is no small thing.