Letting Go of the Baby Clothes

By: Angela Gillaspie, Copyright © June 2000, 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. All three of my kids wore this shirt when they were babies. Feeling no guilt, I tucked the T-shirt in my pocket.

As I touched each item, I revisited old memories...

A cute red and blue suit reminded me of when my daughter was just weeks old and we went to a company 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, "Feeeeng me!"

Holding a pair of scuffed shoes teleported me to a crisp April morning when my youngest son found a caterpiller, "Look Mommy! A cal-err-pitter!"

With a deep sigh, I gently placed the shoes back into the box and closed the lid.

My husband and I 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 reason to keep the clothes, I just wanted them because they represented my kids when they were babies and were untouched by the hurts and frustrations of growing up.

I came up with all kinds of reasons to keep the clothing, but in the end, I knew it was best to donate them.

The gentlemen from Hannah Home eventually arrived, put my memories in the back of their truck, and then drove off. I wiped off my 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 am glad I chose to pass on their old 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 that clown T-shirt!

Stay tuned for more SouthernAngel devotionals!