To Be a Womb

My precious baby is an active little one. I love feeling the movements and growing closer to him or her each day through that connection. My love deepens every day and I'm so grateful to be carrying this child beneath my heart.

But physically it's hard some days. I'm short of breath, I still feel sick at times. My energy level is just less, especially keeping up with a growing toddler on the move who still doesn't sleep well and loves to be held by her mommy. This week has been exhausting with a different appointment each day for one of us. My house shows it, with three piles of folded laundry still on top the washer and dryer, with dirty dishes along the countertops, with toys strewn along the floor amidst some last boxes of Christmas decorations.

It's hard for me to ignore it all, but no matter how hard I work, it's never finished...and sometimes I just have to sit down.

So I did. And despite my internal resistance, I prayed. I read my Advent devotional. And you know what it was about?

How we choose performance over recollection. We feel the need to do instead of be, even (or especially?) during the holiday season. Yet God calls us to the opposite.

Jesus observed, 'Without me, you can do nothing' (John 15:5). Yet we act, for the most part, as though without us God can do nothing. We think we have to make Christmas come, which is to say we think we have to bring about the redemption of the universe on our own. When all God needs is a willing womb, a place of safety, nourishment, and love. [...]we crowd Christ out with our fretful fears.

We are afraid to be still. We are afraid to be unproductive. We are afraid of "doing nothing," when the truth is often God is only able to do anything in our lives when we stop and allow Him the space through prayer, silence, and contemplation. 

My own body is teaching me this. My natural drive is to do and accomplish and it's so hard for me to sit when there are things to be done all around me. But in order to grow my child within, I have to stop and rest. Even when I'm doing nothing, so many amazing things are going on in my body to grow this little babe.

In the same way, in order to allow the Christ-child to grow within me, I need to pause and be still and give Him room. I need to be a womb for Him-- trusting the beautiful reality that by me 'doing' nothing, He is doing something.