I’ve just changed his diaper again for a countless time, and I look up to meet his gaze. He sees me, he sees me! It’s been days and weeks of watching him sweetly drift in and out of sleep. I have offered open, all-nighters at the milk bar located above my midriff. Nestled in my carrier, he comes with me wherever I go. I sing along with the love-songs crooning in the grocery store, but to him, to this tiny bundle I call mine, I have sung hymns and spiritual songs alike over the past weeks, and seen only the reflex expected of newborn intuition. But this time he gazes knowingly, awakened to my voice. I tear up and begin a simple tune yet again. He engages, he smiles, and I melt. 

He isn’t but seven weeks old and now this give-a-thon has brought about the awaited love exchange. I am flooded with emotion, and my soul cries out in gratitude to God for this grace—this call to motherhood. How meaningful the long nights and slow days resonate as I experience my baby engaging in the love I have been pouring out for him. What a grace to be drawn in like this.

I think of how the Holy Trinity is relational to the very core. There is a radiant exchange between the persons of the Godhead, and you and I have been invited in. “For God . . . is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). The love between the Father and Jesus is exchanged continually, becoming the very embodiment of the presence of the Holy Spirit. I recall the day I recognized the face of Jesus for the first time, realizing his love that had always been present, awakening in me an exchange that led to a life of faith. I remember the song sung over me that day.

Now, here in my ordinary life as a mother, I touch the radiance of saving truth—love is here “being manifested . . . with the Spirit of the living God . . . on human hearts” (2 Cor 3:3). Here in my long nights and slow days, here in my simple ways of caring (and crooning), I am called to be an image-bearer of divine love. The light of glory is here because God ordained love to be what awakens souls.