Lulls before Labor Pains

A few days ago, I had a man approach me randomly and push my protruding belly button (which, like most large, lone buttons seems to stand out as an irresistible beacon to all mankind, screaming “PUSH ME!” -Regardless of the number of layers I am wearing over it…) --he kept his finger on it and held it in as he cheerfully exclaimed “Is it done yet??” – To which he followed with a very tactful “tick, tick, tick - DING!” :)

My husband was with me at the time, and I’m thankful for the humor he imparted as he flashed me a knowing smile, refraining from chuckling as I (as graciously as possible) blurted out one of my rehearsed ‘laugh it off’ responses that I reserve for instances such as these, and then basically ran away. I’m pretty used to these things and for the most part, have learned by now to find humor in it and not let it bother me. Though I must admit to you that after my first baby was born, I spotted a t-shirt once with a picture of the Pillsbury Dough Boy on the front, which stated underneath it in bold letters “Poke me, and die.” 
Since that day, I have been covetous of a maternity shirt like that for pretty much the entire duration of my subsequent pregnancies. It’s true… I’m not a touchy person by any means, and I find it somewhat strange that all of a sudden sharing my body with a second human being gives others the impression that I want to share it with them too. I saw another shirt a few months ago (this time maternity) that looked like it was probably created by a non-huggy mommy like me, which stated: “IF YOU DIDN’T PUT IT THERE, DON’T TOUCH IT.” Ohhh so tempting! However, as I’m trying to get over my personal space issues in an attempt to be more outwardly loving to others (appreciating other love languages that I may or may not share…) and less stand-offish, I decided that I probably shouldn’t buy that one. ;)

Anyway, regardless of whether or not I want strangers poking at the dough, it’s true that in pop-prenatal lingo terms, this bun is just about ready to come out of the oven. Yes, I’ve officially reached the illusive “full term”. At 37 weeks along, my body is technically ready to go into labor at any time… but only God knows when that time is. “Full term” is considered to be a fairly broad span of time at the end of the pregnancy, ranging from 37-42 weeks gestation. And so comes the waiting. Over the last few days, things have finally become very ‘real’ to me – I really am going to have a baby in my arms (rather than on my bladder) in only a little while. It could be a few weeks, or it could be tomorrow. But either way, this is happening. With this realization has come a flood of many multiple feelings ranging from blubbery, to ballistic, to just plain bored. I’ve been doing the typical “nesting” stuff… cleaning all those little things I don’t usually think to clean regularly, washing, organizing and reorganizing baby clothes, cleaning and installing the car seat, etc… I’ve also caught myself thinking and daydreaming about what the baby might look like (Of this much I’m certain: with the genetics he’s taking from my hubby and I he will most certainly have huge lips, a very prominent nose, and no chance of being short), rubbing my belly mindlessly, and telling him I love him. Other times I sort of feel like freaking out. (“4 babies? Can I do this?! Am I insane?”) I often think about how nice it will be to have the full capacity of my lungs back… not to mention my brain (I once could be depended on by my children to find all the random things that go missing in a household… and by my husband, to know where the keys are, etc… Well, gone are those days, along with my short term memory. Last week, after searching for my keys for about twenty minutes, I found myself looking aimlessly into the fridge (because that’s where I end up now when I can’t remember what I was doing before), and found my keys beside the jam. Sigh.) However, most of the time, I’m just really looking forward to officially welcoming him into our family and being able to see this little miracle that thus far I have only known internally.

 No matter how fast a pregnancy may or may not go by, the last few weeks of waiting always seem like an eternity. I’m not a patient person at the best of times, but waiting anxiously for a baby’s arrival is tough stuff. This is what I call the lull before the labor pains, or the calm before the storm. After months of growing – both in girth and in anticipation, everything is ready, and all I can do is wait. When I find myself in times of tested patience and waiting on the Lord for His promises to be fulfilled in my life, (for example in this case, tempted to Google “natural induction methods” in case 3 weeks pass by and baby has still not made his appearance…) I find myself gently reminded of the verse from Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
I think we need these lulls in life in order to force us to just stop, collect our thoughts, and focus back on the prize we are running toward. God knows we will need to keep that perspective when the break is over and the tribulations come. And this is what brings me to my next point – the part that always inevitably follows the “lull”.

 See, with all the waiting and anticipating, I often forget until very close to the time of labor about one quite horrifying little aspect of this whole ‘having a baby’ thing.

 Pain.

 Yeah… that thing we experience during labor… the absolute dread that strikes us after that first horrific contraction hits – realizing in sincere terror that there are more coming, like waves that will only build in intensity, and there’s no way out of it… that writhing, inconceivable pain that we could never possibly imagine or describe to anyone else, regardless of how many babies we’ve birthed… that pain that we endure with weeping and gnashing of teeth, swearing that if we survive it, we will never again be crazy enough to go through it again…

 At least, that’s how it was for me. During the labor of my first baby especially, I remember assuring myself over and over again that I would be able to get through the pain without dying – at least to the point of giving birth - hanging on to the fact that this baby was a gift and a blessing from God, and to the promises and confirmations that He had given me personally surrounding her birth. 

I had gone into what the doctors had told me was preterm labor at 33 weeks, got the steroid shot, and was told she would be born within 24 hours. I started reading my Bible and came to the verse in Malachi 3 where He promises “You will not cast your fruit before it’s time”. Anyone who knows Christ realizes that scripture is living and active, and at that moment, this verse just jumped out on the page for me to grab hold of. In context, it was speaking about how he had rebuked the devourer, and given a promise of completion and harvest to those who had been faithful to the Lord in their tithe and in offering him their ‘first fruits’. I believed I had done this with this child – knowing from the beginning that I was to lift this baby up to God as she belonged to Him, not me – and put the whole pregnancy and birth in His hands as well. Within a day or two, a couple from our church came to visit me in the hospital and shared that very same verse with me as a confirmation of this promise. Long story short, there was a lot of prayer involved and by the grace of God she stayed in there until her time. (And I therefore knew she had ‘a time’, that she would be my ‘harvest’ or my ‘fruit’ that was promised, and that God would be faithful to keep his promises. I had to stay hospitalized for another week and was then put on bedrest until she was full term, but the scripture He had given to me held true, and I knew I could rely on His word and His promises to bring this birth to completion. Being on bedrest was certainly one of those "lulls" in life that was hard to wait through, but it was a necessary lull that I was thankful to have as I waited for the proper time for this new baby to be born. When her time did come, I was very ready for the birth to happen, and far less ready for the pain - though of course, one cannot come without the other, and so I looked forward to the pain (through obvious, natural fear) with a strange joy, seeing it as a prerequisite to the promise that followed.

 During the labor, I focused on Christ. I thought ahead to the promise of this new life ready to be birthed, and I had what I can only really describe as “tunnel vision” – blocking everything and everyone else out of my mind and my sight, pushing through the pain and striving toward that promise. I remember acknowledging the intensity of the pain during all of this and feeling bewildered as to how my body was still in one piece, because it felt as if it were splitting in two – or would do so at any moment. I did say out loud at one point “Everyone says that women forget how much this hurts afterwards, so don’t any of you dare let me forget it, because I don’t want to do this again!!” But just when I cried out to God (out loud) thinking that I couldn’t make it any longer without some kind of drug or medication to ease the pain, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, and the flood of overwhelming joy and thanksgiving that filled up my heart was enough to eliminate all fear and all memory of that pain I felt just minutes before. As she was being birthed, I remember crying out so loudly with joy that I couldn’t even contain it, calling through tears “Thank you God! Thank you God!” like a siren horn, over and over. I don’t know what the practitioners assisting the birth thought of it at the time, but I didn’t care. In my mind, this was His victory, not mine. The promise I’d held on to, He had brought to completion. The miracle I’d known as just a secret pledge inside me was now visible, tangible, and touchable, and all the pain in the world would not have been enough to stop me from doing it all over again, knowing the fruit that had come of it with this new life I now treasured in my arms.

 

Some of us are blessed with children in this lifetime, and those who are know the joy I have just described – the joy of suffering what is arguably the greatest pain imaginable to the human brain in order to gain what is the greatest earthly gift we could ever fathom. It helped me during my previous labor experiences to remember that God had built my female body with the purpose of giving birth to children in mind… therefore, even if my logical mind couldn’t fathom getting through it, I knew deep within me that the workmanship behind my body could be trusted. Granted, thanks to the consequences of sin, the pain I must endure in order to see this new life birthed is now inexpressibly dreadful and difficult. If there were a way to give birth naturally with no pain, I’d take it. In fact, many who have given birth can probably attest to at some point crying out for someone to take away the pain – whether through medical intervention, or (in my case) through a desperate call to God to take this excruciating burden away.

 Does this sound familiar?

 Whether it sounds familiar to you or not, I know someone who can not only relate to these feelings, but bring me to my knees in humility as I contemplate the magnitude of His story in contrast to mine. His story is one of the greatest victory ever accomplished – a story of the most miraculous life ever given to mankind. His story is also my story, because He has brought this new life to me, and I am now alive because of it. But as with any new life born, there are birth pains. Pains that make me re-examine the wording I used in the previous paragraph when I described the burden of my labor pain as “excruciating”. Do I even realize the meaning behind that word? One thing I know – He certainly does. This word “excruciating” originates from the Latin excruciatus, past participle of excruciare, which literally means “to crucify”. The word cruc is from crux, which means “cross”. So excruciating pain describes a torturous, agonizing pain synonymous with the physical horrors that Christ would have undergone during his crucifixion as his wrists and ankles were literally nailed to a wooden cross, shattering bone and piercing through flesh, and then enduring on that cross as it was erected vertically – his body hanging from it as his limbs were stretched and pulled out of joint by the weight of it. Before he was crucified, Jesus was beaten and marred to the point where he was almost unrecognizable (Isaiah 52:13-15), with scars all over his body. He was stripped of all dignity, naked and taunted by his accusers as they spat on him, ridiculed him, and formed a wreath of sharp thorns into a crown for his head, which they cruelly pressed into his temples as they mocked the notion of his kingship and authority.

The night before all this happened, Jesus found himself in the garden of Gethsemane, praying on his knees to the Father for Him to take this burden away from Him. Although to his disciples, it appeared that this was a time of peace – a lull, if you will – Jesus was very aware of the pain he was about to undergo for the sake of his mission. No one could have anticipated what he was about to endure, but He, being the Spirit of God within the body of a man, knew exactly what He was in for. He was perfect – He was good. Truly good – unlike me, and unlike any person ever born – Having never sinned even once in his entire life – being just and gentle, honorable and kind, wise, forgiving, and blameless in every way – with love for humanity that is completely without merit, and surpasses all understanding… because we had made ourselves His enemies. Despite all this, this Lord of Heaven -whom angels worship and winds and waters obey - came humbly to this earth and became like one of His own weak creations, to take that curse we had laid upon ourselves and put it instead upon Himself. He came to die as a consequence for our sin in order to save us from our fate and bring us new life. He knew even before He came that because of the curse of this sin, the ‘labor pains’ he would endure for the sake of salvation and new birth would be humanly unfathomable. Yet despite all He knew as God in the flesh, all He had chosen to do, all He desired and looked forward to with joy, and all He was about to accomplish through the sacrifice He would willingly make, He still had a weak, human body just like you and I - and He was unquestionably afraid. More than afraid, really. The Bible says that He was filled with so much anxiety and dread of what was to come that He actually sweat blood, which is a phenomenon that only happens in the most extreme cases of physical stress known to humanity. (See this article for more info) Yes, Jesus had to undergo this pain for us as a man, not in the form of all-powerful, invincible God – but as a human vessel – to serve once and for all as a sacrifice for all mankind. He literally came to be crushed for our iniquities, in order to spare us from the fate that we, as people who live in (and are therefore slaves to) sin – were doomed to under the law of Moses (the ten commandments) – knowing that we no longer have the ability to save ourselves through works, because no one is ‘good’. We are all flawed, and we are all enemies of God, whether we know it or not, because of our hearts which are bent toward rebellion against Him. Jesus came to change all this. He is the Light of the world. Without Him, we are blind – we are dead in sin. This is why He tells us “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He came humbly to the earth, not as a triumphant king but as a tiny miracle inside a young, scared, flawed woman’s virgin womb.
And He was born not like ‘Superbaby’, but just like all of us are born – naked, hungry, and dependent. In fact, even his birth showed the nature of his humility, born in a barn full of smelly animals, to two scared young parents who had no experience with even conceiving a baby yet – let alone delivering one – birthed on a bed made of hay. (How’s that for ‘unassisted?’ He didn’t even get a home-birth or a midwife!) Jesus had a body just like you and I do, and though this was his sole purpose in growing up as a human being and living on this earth as a man, in no way did he desire to undergo the pain and tribulation that was set before him. As he prayed for hours of intense anxiety in that garden, He even cried out to God “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” (Sound familiar?) But he followed it immediately with “Yet not my will, but your will be done.”

 In this lifetime, whether we are male or female, single or married, parents or not, we will experience lulls before labor pains – periods of time where life seems stagnant, and waiting on God feels like a torturous eternity of monotony. We can feel dry and discouraged if we lose our focus – which is Christ – and focus on ourselves, with such limited human vision. We can look at our lives with frustration at circumstances that seem unchanging, dreams conceived but still not born, and work that seems to be fruitless. This is the time that we are called to submit to His leadership and rest in Him… to be still, and know that HE is God.

 What inevitably follows these lulls in life tends to be something that no one wants to talk about – and that is pain. No one wants to wait, and no one wants to deal with hardships, but nowhere in the Bible does it tells us we can get through this life without those difficult trials if we want to grow and experience true life in Christ. In fact, He actually promises us that we will suffer trials and tribulations because of the curse of sin in this world we live in. 
But He also promises us that we will overcome, because He has overcome the world. 

 And so, in this ‘race’ we run here on this earth, we look to Christ as our prize and our victory. We already know the outcome of our labor – and that is life. Everlasting, abundant, beautiful, perfect life through Jesus who overcame sin and death for our sake. If He is your Lord and your Savior, you (though once dead because of sin) have died with Him in all His suffering. These trials and tribulations, this sin in our bodies that we struggle against, and these enemies we face in life have all been dealt with by Christ Himself, and with Him, we will come out victorious. Don’t forget that He not only died for us – He rose again, conquering death. We (not our physical bodies, which will pass away like everything else, but WE) have been resurrected with Him, given new life. The old has passed away, and we are new, pure, blameless creations in Christ! We are born again and living in freedom, grace, and amazing love – not because of anything we have achieved or endured, but because of the labor that HE endured to bring us to life in Him, bringing joy to our Father in Heaven.

 In John 16:21-22, we see Jesus speaking to his disciples and foreshadowing the time of mourning they would experience during his death and burial, as they awaited his resurrection. He had just informed them that he would be leaving them, though they did not know all the details. He told them they would see him again, but they didn’t know where he was going, or for how long. They were greatly disturbed about losing Jesus and walking through life without Him. But He explains “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy." Jesus knew the joy that was before Him, and He also knew the pain that was before Him. Yet, He was able to keep His perspective, just as He instructs us to do as we follow Him.

 Hebrews 12:1-3 says “Let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

 Labor pains will almost always come before the most incredible life-giving miracles and God-given transformations we will ever experience. But we can look ahead to Christ as the founder and perfecter of our faith, who gives us the power and ability to endure all things – because He endured all things for us. And so, whether you are in a lull, or walking through a time of tribulation and pain, or whether you have just experienced the joy of new birth in your life circumstances, I hope you will keep your eyes fixed on the one who is the way, the truth, and the life we all seek – He is the prize we are running for.

 So, I’ll share the mantra I’ll be repeating to myself in a matter of time when this lull ends and my labor pain begins: Keep breathing, keep pushing, and keep focused!

 Love and blessings! xo