"Anytime"

Childbirth is one of the most glorious, delicate, mysterious events that takes place in the earth. It is an opportunity of surrender like no other. I am currently welcoming my third birth experience, “anytime”. This is my third experience where my child and I have gone full term and I have surrendered to the divine timing of God to bring forth my child. This is counter-culture, less common, and challenges my personality in the most purposeful ways. By God’s grace-within my frame, during this wait, I practice being a functional human being, wife, mother, friend, and daughter while everyone continues around me. Ever pondering in my heart and mind the inevitable, momentary shift where labor begins, without turning back. Only to soon dispense an event that will change my life forever. I see childbirth as something created with divine momentum. It makes me think of God’s commitment and complete heart for us. Without hesitation or forsaking, Jesus completely gave of Himself for our atonement, enabling us to be reconciled to the Father and be eternally forgiven. He didn’t turn back. He completed the task. I see childbirth as requiring complete surrender from an individual to allow it to accomplish itself. It wasn’t meant to turn back, it was meant to accomplish itself in full. And…I wholeheartedly thank God for every form of intervention that man is capable of when hardship occurs and attempts to interrupt childbirth’s completion.

When the beginning of childbirth is unscheduled its arrival can be fully expected and fully surprising. This requires my soul to dance and sing. I can’t remain stiff, forceful, or rigid. I have to cast off doubt, fear, and anxiety. Herein lies the art of my role in the beautiful surrender. Every woman’s birth experience is unique and as such my sharing may be familiar to a single stream of mothers. That’s okay. My experiences are mine, unashamedly, just like yours are yours.  My husband and my desire and prayer has been that God would be glorified through our birth stories. One of the ways we have practiced letting Him write the stories, so He could be found within them is seeking Him in prayer to receive direction before and during each childbirth.  We haven’t tethered ourselves to the details of a birth plan but to a commitment of heart. We have gone in with written vision that honors the spirit, soul, and body of me and my baby in order to have firm sight, while staying accommodating of the unexpected.  

My first and second birth experiences were very different, both blessed. Nothing has required more willingness or surrender in my life than being a birthing vessel. My strength has failed, my strategies have ran out, my humor has silenced, my tenacity has dried up, my optimism has depleted, my courage has vanished, but miraculously my willingness has remained and God’s grace has prevailed over me, my children, and my childbirths. This song, sung from the position of Mary, Jesus’ mother, expresses well my mother’s heart.  “I am not brave, I’ll never be, the only thing my heart can offer is a vacancy. I’m just a girl nothing more. But I am willing, I am Yours. Be born in me.” -Be Born in Me, Francesca Battistelli. As I practice the discipline of willingness God does the more in me. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. Ephesians 3:20.

My third experience is my first, bringing a daughter into the earth. She has already changed my life forever. I have cherished carrying her in my womb. Using the word of God and words of life to awaken her, to establish mine and her love, and to nurture expectation of beauty, love, and life into every fiber of her being. Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the mind and healing to the body. Proverbs 16:24.

I am destined to fight for the love, acceptance, and security of others. I am destined to convince others, amidst all the noise and lies that they were purposefully created by the Creator, and despite what choices people make in regard to them that they are completely loved, completely known, and completely valuable. They are a reward and a gift from the beginning to the end. Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. Psalm 127:3.

So now, to my daughter…
I will fight for your security, I will fight for your purity, I will fight for your mind, I will fight for your dreams, I will fight for your perspective, I will fight for your honor, I will fight for your protection, I will fight for your fulfillment, I will fight for your revelation. I will fight for you to become everything God knit you to be. My conviction to fight for you, is just a glimpse of how God feels about you baby girl. May the best of me for you, always lead you to Him. You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you. Song of Songs 4:7