Someone's In There

(thoughts from Feb. 25, 2012)

Tiny Beautiful is getting much stronger. And though I could hardly wait to feel her wiggling around inside of me, I was wholly unprepared for the left hook she took to my bellybutton  last night. The force of it knocked my hand from its resting place on the sweet girl in my tummy, and my mind into a realization of what she is, of who she is. 

We have made an individual- a separate squirmy little alien identity that is just now residing in my tummy, but will not do so forever. 

She has been given to me to house for now, but she will be her own one day. 

She is at the same time my sweet baby and a little woman with muscles and force and, one day, choices all her own. 

This may sound like a string of the most obvious truths about creating a new life, a new person, but the experience of it, of her tiny fist making an impression on the inside of my belly totally rocked me. There is a person in there. I will sustain her for a time. I will call her mine. But she will also be her own. 

Am I okay with that? 

Last night I felt this twinge of fear accompany that thwack to my insides. She isn’t me, but she is in me. That could be mad disorienting! I don’t want to rob this little person of her autonomy, her identity, her right to be a uniquely crafted individual with her own talents and struggles and journey. But it is strange to be given responsibility, to be given authority for a time, over a tiny being, seemingly a piece of myself, that I cannot control. Even more that I should not control! 

Ha, oh Lord how must You feel?!

If I love her, truly want her to experience my love for her, I will let her live. Lord, help me let this little girl live! Let her breathe and run and fight for her passions, and find You in her own way, in her own time. Jesus, give me the wisdom to bless this baby with the kind of love and grace that You offer each of Your children. Big love, Big grace. The kind that selflessly lets us rail against You until we get it. The kind that holds us close when we’re hurting even when our own choices have led us to the pain. Let me lay aside my desire to control (often guised in those pretty clothes “protection”), my fears for my tiny daughter, even now. Teach me. Even now Lord.