It was rather anticlimactic, to cross that “due date” calendar square out and still be pregnant. Especially since I’d really thought (for the 5th time) that I was in labor the night before. We had even taken the kids to my parent’s house for the night thinking “this was it.” Though it’s certainly common, I’ve never had false alarms like this, certainly not so many, and never gone past my due date. I also had really been praying for an early arrival, as I was hoping to attend a family camping trip and family wedding with Jeff in the coming weeks. As the days slipped by, I could feel the disappointment rising, and yesterday the fatigue and disappointment swelled up something fierce. It sounds so silly to an outsider, but anyone who’s waited for a baby knows that feeling, especially when you have a series of ups and downs: “This is it! Oh, this is not it.”
Lack of sleep doesn’t help either.
BUT.
Yesterday was so good. It was kind of freeing to feel like all my expectations were out the window, and I might as well just move on with LIFE and loving and serving and REJOICING, rather than focusing all my energy on waiting for Justice.
And I realized … there’s a lesson there for me.
The Bible (and the world!) is full of folks awaiting Justice. Folks legitimately suffering. Sure, I feel pretty uncomfortable. This baby is unlike the others I’ve carried, and he makes his presence known somethin’ fierce. I could barely walk yesterday morning. I’m really sick of sleeping on my side, my back hurts so bad, and this heartburn business is getting old. But these are the TINIEST irritations. I have legs. I have a bed. I have a husband who gives me back massages every night. I had the luxury of lounging in a swimming pool yesterday for crying out loud!
But as I mention in Sacred Mundane, these irritations, inconveniences, and small disappointments serve as “mundane sufferings” — that is, opportunities to put into practice what the Scriptures command about greater sufferings.
They are practice.
Every night that I’m kept awake with “false” labor, I tell myself: More opportunities to practice. To practice breathing, practice relaxing, practice all the things I’ve been reading about, that are critically important to remember when “real” labor comes.
This morning I just happened to be in Philippians 4 in my Bible reading. Paul writes:
What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me–PRACTICE these things, and the God of peace will be with you (4:9).
Do we take this seriously? That we need to PRACTICE patience, PRACTICE joy, PRACTICE steadfastness, PRACTICE kindness.
Just as slow-breathing and relaxation does not automatically happen when seized with a contraction, so virtue does not automatically happen when seized with life’s inevitable sorrows.
We must practice. How?
Philippians 4 tells us:
Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS, again I will say, REJOICE…do not be anxious about ANYTHING, but in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is honorable, whatever is JUST, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is anything worthy of praise, THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS.” (V. 4-8)
It’s a discipline of the mind. It’s a choice. Yesterday it was so good to get over myself and get busy loving others, doing some specific things to serve my mom, making a big delicious dinner for my family and parents, intentionally reading what Dutch is reading so I can enter his world more fully and discuss what’s on his mind.
And while this is always helpful, I realized this morning a significant key to it all. It seems obvious, but sometimes pregnancy-brain can make us a bit cray-cray. The truth is: Justice IS coming. I’m not going to be pregnant forever. It might still be a ways off, but Justice is coming.
The certainty frees me up to wait joyfully.
The same is true for you, friend. And ALL who wait and ache and long. I do not mean to trivialize true suffering by comparing it to pregnancy, please hear my heart, BUT it is true that for all who ache for justice, for healing, for all that is busted up and broken and just plain WRONG in this world … there is hope in the waiting, there is JOY in the waiting. Why?
Because Justice IS coming. Guaranteed.
The certainty frees us up to wait joyfully.
From the smallest trial to the most significant: Like the faithful martyrs in Revelation 6:10 who
“cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
They wait for justice.
And it will come.
Honestly, the hardest part of yesterday wasn’t not having a baby, it was sitting with my mom and seeing the effects of the most cruel and merciless disease that has stolen so much of her life. It was feeling my heart break all over again, sitting there feeling hopeless seeing how virtually everything has been stripped away from her. It was seeing her struggle to speak, this woman who has one of the greatest minds I’ve ever known. It was that righteous anger that THIS was not how God created her to be. It was longing for the time when all things will be made new and JUSTICE will be served and everything evil will be undone.
Justice will come.
The certainty frees us up to wait joyfully.
Friends, I don’t know what significant suffering you are facing. I don’t know what wrong has been done that you ache to see made right. But whatever it is, I know God’s Word is true and sure. It is certain. And I pray you know the joy of this hope, even as you wait. Justice IS coming.
{Thanks for reading.}