Growing up in a Christian home, I’ve always known that God loves me regardless of my own response to him. However, loving Georgia, despite the fact that she doesn’t outwardly display any love back (and may never) – that has given me a deeper understanding of how deep God’s love really is. This concept led me to a verse from St. Paul in Romans 5:8 – “God shows us his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. God doesn’t just love us when we are doing good things – he even loved us when we weren’t loving him, when we were rejecting him. 

I have devoted this guest post to a friend of mine, Talia.  I have not read anything as moving, as heartbreaking, or as soul-enriching this year.  This is her account of how her fourth child with her husband Dave, has deepened her understanding of God, even – and especially in the midst of deep pain.

I hope this story refreshes and restores your trust in our heavenly Father as much as it did mine.

Here is Talia story about Georgia …

I am not a writer. I don’t blog, I don’t journal, and I very rarely write anything personal up on social media. But given it is Easter, I thought it was a good time to share a few things I’ve learnt recently. Please note, I am not a theologian – these are merely my reflections.

My daughter, Georgia, is 10 months old. She is my fourth child. I had a very normal pregnancy – morning sickness for the first trimester, a smooth second and felt like an elephant for the third. All the scans and measurements were normal. Her birth was much like my first – quicker than expected and catching the midwives by surprise. She even looked like her eldest sister when she was born. She was quiet and sweet, fed well and slept a lot. I went home four hours later and marvelled at the blessing it was to have a settled and peaceful fourth child.

But when the midwife came for a prearranged home visit, what she told us would change everything. After her first weigh in since leaving hospital, we realised Georgia had lost 20% of her body weight – way over the acceptable threshold. On close inspection she had become floppy and pale – again outside of expectations for newborns and indicating that she was deteriorating quickly.

Our midwife strongly recommended we present back to hospital via emergency. We arrived and then spent two and a half weeks in the special care nursery.

Read More