Joy. Pain. Side by side.

A reminder that you are not alone. Parenting is hard.

Remember the awe of holding your baby for the first time?

The chubby little fingers that grasped so tight. Bright, round eyes fixed on whatever moved. Bouncy feet as they learned to put a little weight on them. First giggles, milky smiles, the way they fell asleep safe in your arms.

Remember the waking up every two hours? The chart to count how much milk they’d had because they were losing weight. Painful initial breastfeeding before they found the right latch.

Jaundice. Colic. Reflux. Whooping cough.

Remember how both joy and pain lived simultaneously? Or delight and exhaustion? The way tenderness and frustration sat side by side?

Because I do.

And this week I was reminded so much of this truth.

Joy can live alongside so many emotions. Especially with a newborn.

My sweet friend Rebecca from Northern Ireland sent me a voice note. Her first baby is three weeks old and already she’s had to learn the art of breastfeeding, expressing and bottle feeding in the repetition of her day. Recovering from a c-section she is relying on family to take multiple trips to and from the hospital for check ups.

Our close friends Joe and Sophie had their first son around Christmastime. We got to meet him for the first time last week, and watch in delight as he babbled, grabbed toys to shove in his mouth and watched us with wide, awed eyes! We laughed and played, chattered about his growth and saw their joy over his sweet personality. And yet our friends have learnt how to manage reflux, the pattern of walking him to sleep in the carrier, how to manage business and remote working around his needs, and to cope on little sleep.

Both of these babies brought joy.

I can see the pride in the faces of each mum and dad, the laughs and smiles the babies brought at their births and the amazement they hold at each new milestone they reach.

But I also saw the fatigue. The anxiety. The constant reminder that you’re on a new path and trying to make it, desperately wondering if you’re doing any of it right. In the unspoken, the stifled yawns, the jokes about sleep that were attempting to cover up the exhaustion.

And I get it.

The joy is deep. It is wondrous. The new life we are gifted is a beautiful thing.

And yet in this the pain sits beside it.

What if we were honest? What if we told new parents that we too held and still hold that burden and blessing of both suffering and joy. Imagine their relief to know it is not just them. That it is possible to feel both, yet not have one relieve the other.

Jesus never promised us a cushy, easy life this side of heaven. But his word says that the joy of the Lord shall be our strength and that in his presence we find joy.

Joy. Pain.

Delight. Exhaustion.

Tenderness. Frustration.

Our love for our children remains even as we are broken, drowning, touched-out and weary.

The joy lives alongside the pain.

I would love for you to share this thought with someone you know; a new mum, perhaps a parent struggling with overwhelm or anxiety.

Because we need to say this aloud.

Parenting is hard. Community eases that burden to remind us we are not alone.