Loved Before Your First Child

Everlasting love. Before you were born. Before you were a daughter, a wife, a mother. Before anything you did or failed to do — He already loved you.

That's the foundation. Not your performance as a mother. Not your years of service. Not the sacrifices you've made. God's love for you wasn't activated by motherhood — it simply is, from everlasting to everlasting.

And it's from that love that everything else flows. The patience you find when you thought you had none left. The tenderness that shows up at just the right moment. The strength to start over after you've failed. All of it reflects a love you received before you could ever give it.

You don't need to earn God's love by being an exceptional mother. You already have it. Now the question is: can you receive it? Can you let that love fill you before you try to fill others?

That's the invitation this chapter opens with: living out motherhood from love, not toward it.