becoming a mother: carrying around the life of another

What it means to be a mother is so much of a mystery to me- and yet I am one already. I have a daughter, and although her and I are still so united you can’t see her on her own yet, she exists, she moves, her heart is beating- her reality has already begun. I have a daughter, who makes me a mother, and yet what that even means still feels so far away. I am becoming as she grows.

I’ve thought a lot about what it means to carry around the life of another inside of you, as that has become a physical reality in my body. Having had previous miscarriages, and this being my first pregnancy I will carry to term, the reality of there really being a person growing inside of me took a long time to even begin to sink in. It felt a bit like I was only carrying around hopes and dreams, a little promise for a long time. The reality of her life in me had already begun, but there were weeks that went by with hardly a sign. Some tiredness, some nausea, a lot of hoping and waiting. We saw her little heart beating on an ultrasound, and then got to hear that amazing sound a few weeks later- further evidence that you hold onto when there seems to be little else. I just chose to trust there was really someone in there.

This isn’t the first or only life I’ve carried around inside though. Yes I’ve had previous miscarriages, but there is One I have carried inside since the day I was born again. How strange that on the day I was born spiritually, I began to carry around the life of another, when our experience as mothers is that we carry around the life of another until the day they are physically born. I’ve wondered what parallels God has wanted me to see between being united with a child through pregnancy and being united with His Son through my salvation.

I really began to think about it when I felt her move. Those first few kicks were the clearest evidence that there was someone else living inside of me I had and it got me thinking about what evidence there is of Christ’s life in me. Clear, undeniable evidence. I wondered about the moments in my life when I have been able to say ‘okay that was not produced in me by me’ about God’s work just as I was able to say ‘that movement inside of me was not part of my body,’ in pregnancy.

Although many moments and experiences come to mind, the clearest evidence of the life of Christ in me has been His quiet voice speaking to me through darkness, and the love He has given me for others in moments where on my own I would turn away from people. I know He is the one who has produced hope in me in the dark times, when all I could do was multiply the darkness, and when I have had the desire to forgive someone who has hurt me and give love rather than punish them, I know deep down that that desire is not from me.

But for many years of being a Christian there seemed to be very little evidence in my life that there was someone else living inside of me. I wondered often if anything really happened when I ‘got saved’ because I felt the same, looked the same, acted the same. It’s kinda like those first few months of pregnancy. Especially after having miscarried I often wondered, is there really someone growing inside of me? Has my life really been changed forever? Am I setting myself up for disappointment?

But after many years of being united with Christ in spirit, I have changed, just as my little daughter has changed me from several months ago to today. His presence and her presence are changing me everyday. Her presence inside of me is only for a few more weeks, while His presence is promised until I leave this earth or He returns. His presence is changing me slowly, He is being formed in me more and more each day, and I hold onto theses early evidences of His presence, just as I did in the those early weeks of pregnancy- oh there He is- that’s right He is here with me, still with me. We have to ‘practice His presence’ or continually remind ourselves of the spiritual reality of His life in us throughout daily life, because we can forget so quickly that we are not alone any longer.

Sometimes I still think I’m alone. I’ll complain that I spent the afternoon at home alone, or went to bed alone and then remember, wait a moment, I am never alone. My awareness of my own pregnancy has become harder and harder to forget as I’ve progressed, and just as I awake with my first thoughts being of her, I’ve begun to wake with Jesus as one of my first thoughts over the past few years. Just as her being inside of me has changed the way I walk, the things I eat, the way I think about myself, His presence in me is changing the way I see people, the way I speak, what I believe about ‘my’ life, which isn’t really mine. Some people say becoming a mom is saying goodbye to life as you know it, a life consumed with yourself, but didn’t I already do that when I became one with Christ? I am still learning what it means that I said goodbye to ‘me’ and that all of life is ‘us’ now. It was the same when I got married. Yes, the union we experience through marriage is yet another experiential picture God gives us of our salvation, but there is something quiet new and altogether bizarre about being pregnant, and carrying around the life of this other person around with me all the time. It is bizarre, it is beautiful and it is a gift. My life is not my own in so many ways. God has made me one with His Son, one with His body (the Church), one with my husband Chris, and for this time I have been united with this child.

In so many ways, motherhood has hardly begun for me. I am becoming something I already am, and pregnancy has been the beginning of that process- but I am not who I will be in six weeks or six or sixty years from now. I am encouraged to have mostly grown out of those early days where I was so filled with wonder and doubts and questioned both the reality of the presence of my child, and the presence of Christ in me. And I am hopeful that just as I will see my daughters face soon, Christ will continue to grow in me until the day I meet Him face to face.

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Galatians 2:20

“Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:20

Photography Credit: babbonis.com