Letting Go of the Baby Clothes

By: Angela Gillaspie, Copyright © June 2000-April 2004, All Rights Reserved

I thought I was ready, but judging by my tears, I wasn't.

For the past couple of months, I prepared myself for that moment. Peeking through the mini blinds that morning I watched my husband Paul stack twenty-something boxes and garbage bags filled with old baby clothes, baby shoes and baby memories on my front porch.

In a couple of hours, the folks from Hannah Home (a local non-profit organization that collects discards for battered women and abused children) were going to load up this stuff and give it to needy families and thrift stores. "He who gives to the poor will not lack," I told myself.

After Paul drove off to work, I went out and looked through the bags and boxes one last time. On top was a slightly stained newborn-sized T-shirt with a clown face that I painted for my daughter (who was almost ten years old at the time). All three of my kids wore this shirt when they were babies. Feeling no guilt, I tucked the T-shirt in my pocket.

Each item I touched was like living a mini home movie. One little suit reminded me when my daughter was just weeks old and we went to a family barbecue in the steamy heat of July. A little green pair of shorts reminded me of my oldest son sitting in his baby swing hollering, "F-f-f-f-f-fing me!" A pair of scuffed shoes gave me the image of my youngest son running to me the first time he saw a caterpillar. He thrust his new fuzzy friend toward me, "Look Mommy! A Cal-err-pitter!"

We decided to give away the baby clothes because we tried and prayed for years to have another baby and it didn't happen, plus the items took up valuable garage space.

I knew there wasn't a practical need for the clothes, but I had an emotional need for them because they represented my kids when they were young and innocent and untouched by the hurt and frustrations of growing up.

I argued to myself that I should keep the clothing for keepsakes when my kids had babies of their own or what if I actually got pregnant? Or I could even keep the clothes and make a quilt! Yeah, right. The kids would look at the stained and slightly ripped stuff and roll their eyes, and a quilt? The closest I got to sewing was biting loose threads off my shirts.

The gentlemen from Hannah Home eventually arrived, put part of my memories in the back of their truck and drove off. I wiped tears and remembered in chapter three of John, John said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven."

Those boxes and sacks of clothes were proof of the blessings I received from heaven; God gave me three wonderful children and I should pass the clothing on to bless others. I learned something else from this experience, too.

Giving most of our baby things to the poor was a good indicator that I would become pregnant and almost a year later, we welcomed Baby Jake to our family. This was a definite enforcement of John's words and of course Jake looked great in the clown T-shirt.

Stay tuned for more SouthernAngel devotionals!