Being pregnant changes things

 

Most everyone in my life knows by now that my husband and I are currently in the earliest stages of parenthood. So far, pregnancy has done little to change my appearance or even my food cravings, but it definitely has changed my perspective on a lot of things.

Pain. Adulthood. Healing, growth.

There is so much joy in the blessing of new life. At times I can’t wrap my mind around the realness of it, but then it hits me out of nowhere and I want to laugh and cry for the life my child will live, and is living already.

I don’t know all the details yet, but I know this baby has changed everything about our lives already, simply by existing. More and more, as we get closer to holding our child outside the womb, I am feeling desperate for renewal, for hope and peace, for reconciliation with God. Life’s challenges have not changed, but our approach to them must certainly change as we grow into the parents God wants us to be. That perspective is daunting, and energizing. It’s humbling.

I wrote this poem as an expression of feelings I can’t really understand, and as I wrote I realized it was partly inspired by my experience of motherhood so far. There is so much we don’t know about the future, possibly even more so now that a child is a part of the equation–but uncertainty moves us to prayer and surrender.

Birth of a Prayer
A prayer begins gestation
a bit like a poem,
as a coalescing of thoughts, of tears
held back for some reason,
the warmth they bring to your cheeks
almost like a hug
but just a little more desperate.
Desperation feeds prayer like it does poetry;
it struggles for release
into the open air of a still room
to break the silence of a breaking heart
to scream in a rejection of futility
to say
I am un-whole and
somehow the truth of that is necessary.
Help finds me here–
how, I do not know,
but there is power in the not-knowing,
power in the rawness of tears and gasping breaths,
a nose pressed into the carpet
in the naked hours of the night.
You can’t write these things on paper.
They are more fragile, more eternal
than ink. They bleed
into the walls,
they pursue the light of the moon,
and something brighter.
Prayers are poems without tethers;
unencumbered by interpretation
or preparation,
they are pure thought
needing no direction but outward.

My cats in haiku

I really like writing haiku–it’s a low-pressure, high-observation kind of poetry. Sometimes it’s nice to write something with a little structure, like doing a puzzle or following a recipe. Also, isn’t it interesting how the lines arrange themselves visually? You’d think that the middle line would always look longer, since it has the most syllables, but sometimes it’s the opposite.

Generally I can’t stop at just one haiku. I love poetry but I also love stories, and groups of haiku together can do more than one by itself is meant to.

Haiku are more complicated than they look. I guess you could say the same for cats.

Pippin, our “first-born”

Precious Lady Pip
Anything you have
becomes Pippin’s, too–even
the air while you sleep

None can resist her
Dainty and dignified, she
will command your love

She made herself Queen
simply by believing it
The sink is her throne

Bombadil, our oldest and most giant (as of now)

Bombadil-o
This Bombadil boy
will reject all your kisses
(secretly he purrs)

Stretchy like taffy
half licorice, but half cream
to dull the sharpness

He is a cat who
will bring you to the kitchen
just to watch him eat

Zuko, our feisty youngest

Zuko Baby
Zippity Zuko
came in from the streets, ready
to bug everyone

One minute cuddly,
next ten all spiky nibbles
Too much energy

He will be your friend
if you sit quietly and
let him bite your face

Check your privilege

This one is for you, Facebook Christian.

If you’re a Christian and you’ve made a habit of calling down God’s wrath and judgement on sinners and non-believers, you need to check your privilege.

Who are you that God is so pleased with your behavior? Were you not, before salvation, a wretched sinner just like that abortionist you’ve condemned to Hell, just like that pedophile you’d love to see castrated, just like that racist homophobe you think should be beaten and branded, just like that robber you gleefully warn about the loaded firearms you keep next to your bed, which you would use to kill them without hesitation?

Who were you, before Christ? Nobody. A depraved, lost and wayward soul. And what did you do do earn his grace and compassion? Absolutely nothing.

Nothing. You have been freely given the grace and forgiveness of God, through Jesus, and you did nothing to earn it, nothing to deserve it, except be unfairly and unjustly and unconditionally loved by the one whose name you now use to speak evil against those who don’t know him. You are saved through no fault of your own.

Praise God that he is merciful and provided a way for us to know him–that while we were still sinners, he died for us. Praise God that we didn’t have to earn it, because God knows we never could. Praise God for the freedom from the burden of sin that we’ve been so graciously given, and the new life we have in him.

And shame on you, Christian, for denying that reconciliation to others, for condemning and judging, for doing anything but hope against hope, as Jesus does, that all who now walk along the path of destruction might find redemption in this life, and one day share the golden-paved streets of Heaven with you. Shame on you for self-righteously anticipating the Day of Judgement, when your enemies will finally get their comeuppance, rather than praying fervently that the ones you should hate will be saved before Jesus returns in glory.

It is ungodly to rejoice in the punishment of sinners. We should be grieved to our core at the idea of someone coming face to face with God without the atoning blood of Christ to cover their sins. We should be grieved, not only because Christ is grieved, but because that could have been us. It could’ve been you. But you came face to face with the love and mercy and grace of God here on Earth, and you were saved, a privilege many will not claim.

Now is the time, Christian, for us to love boldly, unfairly, unwisely. Now is the time to proclaim the mercy of God to all who so desperately need it. Now is the time to remind ourselves exactly who we were and who we’ve become–and to make the heart of Christ our own.

Judgement will come. Do you await that day with gleeful, selfish anticipation, or do you use it as motivation to love more, to shout the name of the Lord from the mountaintops, so that the forgotten of this world will hear and be changed?

I’ve been guilty of selfish thinking lately, too. Many days I’ve found myself overwhelmed by the world, praying that Jesus would simply return and make it all go away. But every moment we have here on Earth, every evil we must endure, is a mercy for all those who have yet to find salvation. So this is my prayer this morning: Lord Jesus, delay just one more day so that more might come to know you.

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. -2 Peter 3:8-9