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The song below by Colbie Caillat voices my experience of this unconventional motherhood: of carrying a growing life with gentleness and tender intentionality, of trusting that this life grows toward a life that is all her own, of shepherding her with love and someday releasing her to the world.
Capri
She's got a baby inside
And holds her belly tight
All through the night
Just so she knows
She's sleeping so
Safely to keep
Her growing.
And oh, when she'll open her eyes
There'll be no surprise
That she'll grow to be
So beautifully,
Just like her mother
That's carrying.
Oh, Capri:
She's beauty.
Baby inside
She's loving.
Oh, Capri:
She's beauty.
There is an angel
Growing peacefully.
Oh, Capri:
Sweet baby.
Things will be hard at times
But I've learned to try
Just listening
Patiently.
Oh, Capri:
Sweet baby.
Oh, Capri:
She's beauty.
Baby inside
She's loving
Oh, Capri:
You're beauty,
Just like your mother
That's carrying.
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9 comments:
I feel so much peace in this song.
I also keep thinking that, when a woman is pregnant, she really doesn't know how the baby will change her life (even if it's not her first). She knows her life will change, but not how and when and where and why. I think that each of us know less, maybe, about what's coming, but I have that same sense of, "Something's coming and I'm not sure what it will be like." Expectant waiting, maybe.
Great insight, Sarah.
The other thought I come up against is how I can only be in charge of my part of the process. I can love this growing entity within me and create a safe space for it to grow in health and finally enter the world when she is ready. But once she is out there, she takes on a life all her own. I can't control everything that happens to her or even the "person" she ultimately becomes. And she will have growing pains and growth spurts and a childhood and period of adolescence before she can "come into her own" as an actual adult herself.
All of these are things I, as her "mother," will have to let happen. I can guide and shape and be the best mother I know how to be, but there's also a part of motherhood that involves letting go and letting the child become what it naturally is meant to become.
OOO...I like that, too, especially if what's inside you is a gift from God. In some ways, I guess it's like bearing God's child, but I don't think I want to take that too far--I'm not a heretic ;) Though I suppose anytime someone says, "May it be unto me according to your word," that person is a little like Mary.
Yes! That's exactly right! It does feel exactly like bearing something that is ultimately God's, His creation, His child. (Hey, I don't mind stepping right into those heretical waters.) It's a work He needs to bring into the world to further accomplish His purposes. He has chosen me (you, Kirsten, Christin, Stephanie, all of us) as the progenitor because of the specific gifts and personhood that are needed to birth it into being and parent it once it is in the world. But ultimately, it's His baby. Not mine.
I think this is what I really meant about experiencing birth pangs now. He is separating me from this child so that it is more fully what it is meant to be -- His, not mine. My own fingers upon it need to loosen before it can be brought in, if it's to be brought in as purely "annunciated" as it is meant to be.
I love the picture you painted here, Christianne! It's so cool to think that we each have something that fits together to make a beautiful whole. And what he's doing in you as far as separating you from it and yet bringing you into it at the same time seems so important...I'm honored to watch!
Thanks, Sarah. I'm excited, too, to see how he births his intentions through each of you, too, in your own unique journeys and what He has for your lives to mean.
i've heard that song before, but never paid much attention to the lyrics. now i will think of you, christianne, whenever i hear it (i've got the CD at my desk at work!!). :o)
i love how you carry the thought of birthing something: from conception, growth, the pains of birth (the pain of separation, of letting go of that deep & mysterious connection), then a growing child no longer attached to you -- still reliant upon you for sustenance and nourishment, but very separate too.
it's both scary and as it should be.
i can't wait to see who this little girl might grow to be. i bet she will be beautiful and gracious as the one who bore her.
;o)
love you,
k
Oh, Kirsten, your words are so sweet to me. Thanks for seeing me, and seeing this. Love you.
I was thinking about this again, somewhere in the hairy-scary of yesterday or last night or even this morning, and I was thinking of it terms of you, Christianne. I feel like this image is very much for you right now...not that it's not for the rest of us, but that, somehow, it's special to Christianne.
And then I came over here and Kirsten had put so eloquently what I was thinking so scatteredly ;)
Somehow, you're like Mary right now, like any mother, but more like her than some because you've said, "Yes, Lord," and you're letting him make it so. I think we each stand and wait in our own special ways and I love thinking about you and the ideas of your heart like this.
I'm so all-over-the-place today...I hope this makes sense and doesn't sound strange...I can't really tell. But I love you, girl.
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