MollyMadonna.com

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baby dear. (9)

Sweet baby boy or baby girl,

You have been growing so big and strong these past nine months. Each day, you remind me of how precious you are as you kick and move and grow in my belly. It is a privilege to carry you.

All along, I’ve thought about the many things I want to teach you and show you as you learn and grow, but already, you have taught me more than I could imagine as your mommy. Together, we are going to take on the world–one feeding, one song, one pitter-patter step at a time, until we’ve filled up all of our days with laughter and memories and simple delights. I know that when I set eyes on you for the first time, my heart will nearly stop as I marvel at your every feature…at how incredible you are. Your daddy and I can’t wait to hold you and bring you home to our family; we’ll never be “two” again, and we’re so ready and anxious to settle in with you as “three.” Our lives are already forever changed by you, little one.

You are a tremendous gift to us, and soon, you will be here to greet the world. As your mommy and daddy, we will afford you every opportunity and bit of love that we are capable of, and when we have done that, we’ll try to give you even more. We’ll introduce you to grandparents and Aunt B and Uncle T, to the rest of our family and all of our friends. For a long time, we’ll take you with us, wherever we go, not wanting you out of our sight. I know that I’ll have trouble paying attention to much else besides our little family, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

So, baby boy or girl, with all of your delicate features and developing thoughts and soft, perfect baby skin, we are here and peacefully waiting. We’re waiting to meet you and to get to know you and to introduce ourselves as we introduce this beautiful world to a son or daughter who is loved SO much. Until then, I am loving carrying you. We have become the best of friends already–you keeping me in the very best company and me, learning how to think of you before I think of myself. Thank you for shaping me in these past 39 weeks…I am so proud, so taken by you, and I haven’t even met you yet.

unconditionally,

your mommy (mm)

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belly dancing. (11)

A little over a year ago, I traveled to India with a worship team to work in Mumbai, Hyderabad and a smaller city called Vijayawada. We had more than our share of incredible opportunities in just a week and a half’s time, but the other day, I was reminded of one particular memory from our stay in the country that kept a little piece of my heart…

For several nights in a row, our team led worship at an event called the Great Gathering–a space where Indian men, women and children came together to worship, pray and hear a message from Scripture. Each evening the crowd grew larger, by the last night reaching over 50,000 in an area the size of several football fields. At the end of every service, we would move down into the crowd and offer prayer for those who wanted to receive it. And every night, the prayer requests were beautiful, the lines longer as people sought blessings from our small, unassuming team. I began to notice a trend among the people who would line up in front of me. Each time, there were dozens of small children and women with pregnant bellies or newborn babies, always requesting prayers for health, safety and covering for their young or unborn children. They wanted me to lay hands on their bellies as I prayed, and often, I’d feel a small kick or a little nudge as my translator communicated my prayer to the women and their families. I remember feeling so humbled that these women wanted me to pray for them–and not only that, but to have my hands on such a personal space, feeling the movement of their precious babies inside.

At that time, not quite fifteen months ago, I was in awe of these women; resilient, steadfast and strong, each mother wanted the very best for her family spiritually, no matter how much or how little she could physically provide for them. And today, nearing my own due date with my own belly quite full of baby, I finally understand how sincerely and selflessly each mother in India desired blessing and protection for the new life growing within.

The closer I get to the day I’ll set eyes on our little one for the first time, the more I’m in awe of the miracles of creation and pregnancy and birth. And no matter my current life circumstance, I am no different than any other mother, anywhere else in the world, who wants the very best of everything for her child. As I admire the movement in my belly tonight, I am reminded of the incredible women I met halfway around the world–their own bellies full with child and their hearts brimming with hope and expectation for what was to come.

attendees await prayer in Vijayawada, India

prayer time at the nightly gathering

one of my favorite memories...

remembering India,

mm

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christmas eve. (16)

Remember that feeling from when you were young? You could hardly stand to sleep because Christmas morning was right around the corner. Everything seemed magical, and no matter what the next day held, you couldn’t wait for it. With 16 days until baby’s due date, every night feels like Christmas Eve to me. I know that we might have a few more weeks to wait, but I also know that we could be holding our little one any day now, and that’s an amazing realization. There is no wrapped gift under the tree that could compare.

Daily now, I consider new ways that our existence is going to change and be drastically enhanced by the presence of a new life among us. It’s not just that we’ll have the responsibility of raising an impressionable and dependent child, but that we’ve been given the privilege of doing so. All that comes with it, whether trying or incredible, delightful or strange, will sharpen us and grow us and make us better in the long run–in the same way that knowing Christ and celebrating the real Christmas behind all of the presents makes us better. A little babe enters the world and we are changed. We are changed because we accept the reality and significance of what a new life means. We are changed because of the sacrifice that is required out of the gift that’s being given. We are changed because our hearts are softened and broken and reached in new and beautiful ways in the process.

Tonight feels like Christmas Eve, and tomorrow night may as well. And quite possibly the night after. I used to think in growing up that the excitement of an “eve” was wearing off as I got older, but I was terribly mistaken. There has never been a more exciting “eve” in our lives, and in a very powerful way, for a long time to come, our Christmas Eves have been refreshed and are somehow magical again.

with eyes wide open,

mm

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baseline. (31)

In the midst of everyday life and work and responsibility, there is this countdown–a ticking of the clock until the day our baby is born, and with it, my growing need to rifle through details, cross t’s and dot i’s. We’ve somehow arrived at the one month mark, not knowing what God and nature have planned for the next four or five weeks of our lives. This reality is humbling and exciting, and also sobering in a lot of ways. Suddenly, I am aware of every little thing around me in its current state, and I’m also strikingly aware of how I’d like to change it, clean it, refold it, dust it, give it away or throw it out. I know that this is part of the process, and that it’s almost endearing to see how pregnancy and hormones cause us to “nest” in the right timing, but at the moment, it’s honestly just kind of stressing me out.

As the 36 week mark arrives on Saturday, I know that it’s unreasonable to consider anything as set in stone. This is true for our lives everyday, whether we’re pregnant or not, but being within 4 weeks of an actual date on the calendar feels more pressing and real. Along with myths about being able to determine gender by baby’s heart rate or how someone is carrying her “bump,” the thought that first born babies are most often late seems to be among the favorite beliefs of the majority of the Western world. Babies can definitely be “late,” it’s true. But as a general rule, I prefer to think that they’re actually on time, and somehow, we’ve miscalculated nature or the date of conception or how long our little one needs to develop before greeting us. Regardless, I’m a first born and came early–by almost two weeks. A friend delivered her first born last summer, three weeks before he was expected. What we really know about when babies are born is that they come when they’re ready, or they come when we decide that they’re ready and we help them out. The fact about the 36 week mark? Pretty much anything is fair game and would still result in a healthy, happy baby and the birth of a new family unit. And so we wait and wonder.

What I’ve decided is reasonable at this point, as I try not to bury myself in expectations or goals that are out of reach, is to establish some type of a baseline for these next few weeks. There are things that I can maintain that will help me to feel ready for whatever comes, even if our bathrooms aren’t spotless or if all of the pictures we’ve been meaning to hang aren’t quite on the walls. This weekend, the nursery will be as close to done as it can get (with the possible exception of a little artwork..and a baby to make it all worthwhile). From there, my baseline will be a manageable level of order that I think I can live with–dishes done, laundry caught up, dog hair subdued, and piles of mail and extra papers sorted, filed and/or shred. I’ll make the bed. We’ll install the car seat in the car. And when I get particularly antsy, I’ll pack my hospital bag, check and double check lists, and practice the relaxation techniques we’ve been learning for labor and delivery that are sure to help me deal with how un-relaxed I can be about all of these other things.

Hopefully, I’ll arrive in a place where baby can come into this world in a space of peace. I don’t worry about any level of joy going missing in the arrival of the little one, but I surely pray that I can communicate a sense of contentment, calm and grace to the babe as well. I wouldn’t want our precious child meeting us for the first time in any other way.

seeking a baseline, and praying that God will help me to find it–one way or another 🙂

mm

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good reminders. and sand. (32)

Tonight we met with our small group and talked about idolatry…I know, lighthearted conversation for a Tuesday evening 🙂 But in all seriousness, it feels important to remind ourselves about this kind of thing in our daily lives–especially amongst people who know us well and who will hold us accountable to the conversations we have together. We’ve been working through a study by Tim Keller called The Gospel in Life, and every other week, we focus on a different aspect of the Gospel as it applies to everyday faith.

After watching this week’s video, we talked about what idols can look like in our lives–and not just what they might be, but why they’re idols for us. We discussed things like family and children, work, finances, worry and stress, and the ways that each could be considered stumbling blocks that stand in the way of us pursuing Christ as our “overmastering, positive passion.” It’s hard to capture the meat of our conversation here in one post, but the underlying takeaway for me is that we all have things in our lives–big and small, that can get in the way of us fully embracing an overmastering, positive passion for Christ. In some cases, those things are our jobs, or our level of stress because of our jobs. In other situations, we might idolize our worries and fears about the future by letting them get in the way of an opportunity to instead pray about the future. For me, as of late, I’m finding that details about the baby, the nursery, and our impending labor and delivery have become idols in some way–things that distract me from focusing on my understanding of Christ and what He is able to do, and also from my dependency on Him to know what’s best for me, for us, and for our first days and weeks as a family of three.

I’d love to go deeper here and expound more on my thoughts after tonight’s conversation, but I’m still trying to process what God is working on in me after our time together this evening. I know that there’s a lot of freedom to be discovered in naming our idols and making a commitment to give them over to God. And when we practice this, as hard as it may be at first, God honors our willingness to truthfully relinquish the things we’ve been clinging most tightly to–and He’s able to do more with them as a result.

In rough patches over the past few years, I’ve headed out the beach in search of peace and quiet and revelation, and I’ve begun a practice that makes surrender a very tangible thing in my mind. I run my fingers through the sand, pick up a handful and cling tightly to it. After a while, my hand gets tired, and the sand gets uncomfortable there. Then I take a new handful and hold my palm open, allowing the grains to fall freely between my fingers and back to the earth; this is a blissful feeling as the wind blows sand in light streams from my fingertips. I’m no longer at all in control of how much will remain or how much will fall to the ground. As I do this, I have a little conversation with God, renewing my commitment to letting something go and leaving it in His hands to look after. The practice is so refreshing, and I’ve experienced great breakthrough (sometimes almost immediately, and other times after a season of waiting) when I’ve truly focused my heart on God instead of on the issue I’m facing. I leave my “idol” at the beach, to be sifted through and fine-tuned and buried by a loving God who longs to see me free of the burden and worry I would otherwise unnecessarily carry.

I think this is why the Gospel warns so strongly against idolatry, and also why it so regularly encourages us to “cast our cares upon Him.” Not only is God a righteously selfish God who deserves all of our undivided attention, but He is a loving God who desires to bring us to freedom in Him and in His care for us. We have choices to make daily that can align us with this freedom He’s offering, and we can miss the blessing if we don’t see the promise of the greatest alternative ever afforded us as humans; we can cling tightly to all of the things we are ultimately unable to control, or we can recognize our limitations without Christ and subsequently, pursue an overmastering, positive passion for Him that gives us more peace, more clarity and more assurance than we ever knew was possible on our own.

needing to pay the beach another visit,

mm

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNF45sgKjuQ]