As I come nearer and nearer to my baby’s due date, it’s all feeling overwhelmingly real.
I’m really going to have a child, in like, the next few days or weeks.
I bounce between panic and joy and everything in between. Everyone wants to know how I’m feeling, and to be honest, I don’t even really know. But I know that this is happening, and I know that God is good.
I still don’t feel ready to be a mother, but I know I never will. Instead, I focus on that sweet moment when I finally get to hold this boy in my arms and look into his little eyes (which I hope are the same beautiful blue-green hazel as my husband’s!). I focus on the joy that I’m sure he is going to bring us despite all the sleepless nights that lie ahead. I focus on God and the fact that this is His plan, so He will see it through.
So we wait in anticipation for our little miracle to arrive, and meanwhile I carry on about my day with growing fatigue and discomfort, but also a growing joy. I know, deep in my heart, that this is all worth it. All the pain and fear and discomfort is going to make way for pure joy.
When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
John 16:21
I’m reminded that this is always the way–anything worth having requires great sacrifice and often suffering. We must go through the “pregnant” period, the season of growth and laboring until there is deliverance. This pregnancy has made that very tangible.
This is only the beginning. Once our sweet boy has arrived there will be a new set of challenges, some of which may feel insurmountable, and I know I will have days where I feel like giving up. It’s easy to listen to all the lies the enemy whispers to me in the night that I don’t have what it takes and that it will all be too much. I know I will be brought to the end of myself over and over again…but that’s a good thing. That’s the only way to truly know God. It’s only at the end of myself that I will meet Him, and He will meet me. My life is not my own–what better way to live in that reality than to raise a child?
I only speak of what I know now–I’m sure my perspective will be very different soon. For now I’m working on surrendering my own life (and my child’s) to a God who loves us both more than we can ever understand.
rhythms of grace 