By Sarah D. Park

Boxes of baby clothes that will span the first full year of my son’s life, donated by friends and friends of friends.

A ride-or-die bestie who flew in from another city to sleep train my baby so that I could rest.

Enough friends and family to fill 3 months as they rotated staying in our guest room, helping out as I healed from giving birth.

Food I did not have to cook myself. Praise God.

An OBGYN friend who answered my frantic phone call when I didn’t understand why the diaper’s contents looked so orange.

Friends who packed boxes for me while my husband was sick with COVID and I was nursing a newborn.

A subsidized home with windows that let sunlight in and room for our family to grow.

A steady flow of Huggies because Costco delivers and Grandmother has a membership card.

A financial safety net to allow me time to find a job that’s conducive to my thriving.

It is perhaps easiest to see God’s Kingdom at work in the context of motherhood because there is so little infrastructure and value for supporting mothers in the United States. There is little choice but to get creative, ask for help, and become resourceful. Even if I had all the money in the world, the cost is absurd: of childcare, the need for childcare at all, the unsustainable waste generated from what it takes to raise a child and more.

But I cannot say that I received many of these provisions “for free”. These gifts are the fruit of trust being built over meals and mundane hours together. They are time invested in people made tangible. In a season when I had no way of making money, I found myself overwhelmed by the abundance of God’s kingdom. Its economy feels as consistent and logical as the law of gravity. And at the same time, it has a mystery of providing beyond what I can ask for or imagine.

Sarah D. Park is a freelance writer whose work focuses on the cultivation of cross-racial dialogue with a Christian faith orientation. She is also a story producer for Inheritance Magazine and manages communications for several organizations. She currently calls the Bay Area her home but is an Angeleno through and through.