At least there’s no donkey

I’m feeling a bit like Mary lately.

About to pack things up and head off to an unfamiliar city. Knowing that life is about to drastically change with the arrival of a baby. Unsure about how it’s all going to play out.

But at least I’m not traveling via donkey/lots of walking. (Seriously? How uncomfortable would that be?) And I know the first place I’ll be staying – although we’re still waiting to find out if there will be room in the “inn” (aka the Ronald McDonald House). And I much prefer the birthing facilities I will have. I can say that without having even seen said birthing facilities.

But the embarking on a journey at such a pivotal (and let’s be honest, hormonal) event? Yep, can definitely relate to that.

I’m 37 weeks today. Two days from moving. Two centimeters dilated. And two weeks from inducement (unless that dilation sends me into labor earlier).

This week has been spent soaking up time with Eliana and putting the house in order. I might have gone through all of our food cabinets (cleaning, purging, then putting back together again) while talking to Jesus one night from 3:30-5:30am. The rarely organized toiletry drawers in the bathroom? Emptied, purged, scrubbed and reorganized. Toilet paper, paper towels, goldfish crackers and dried mangoes? Fully stocked from a trip to Costco.

Arabella’s bag is packed full of onesies, jammies, hairbows, swaddling blankets, and hopes and prayers for use of all those things.

My bag? Well, I haven’t even figured out which bag to put the things I haven’t packed into. I lived in China for six years. I traveled about 3-4 months of every one of those years. One of my hidden super talents is packing. But packing for this “trip”? Where I will go from massively swollen and pregnant to…to who knows what state? Gone for an indeterminate number of weeks? Nursing a baby/pumping in the NICU (nursing bras, lanolin, nursing pads…) or trying to convince my body that it does not need to nurse? I remember spending an inordinate amount of time in my closet after Eliana was born trying on different shirts to find one that I actually felt confident in. I will have no such closet. And I know that the shirt I’m wearing will probably be the last thing on my mind – but I have to pack something and it would be nice if I knew that something was going to fit. So yes, this packing whiz has been stumped and is procrastinating and just realized today, my goodness I could probably use a new pair of yoga pants.

And then in the midst of all the practical concerns and figuring is the state of my heart. Can I let you in on a little secret? Go ahead, lean in close.

My dominant emotion of late has been hope.

Hope not because we’ve been given any new information. Not because I’ve been given a divine revelation. Not because I’m certain of a particular outcome.

But try as this pessimist might to suppress it, hope just inexplicably keeps rising in my chest. It burns strong and fierce as I feel the mighty – unbelievably mighty – kicks and turns of my daughter. My sassy little fighter. At church on Sunday I just suddenly had this image of standing on stage holding my Beautiful Grace and dedicating her to Jesus with tears streaming down my face and so much gratitude for those in the room that prayed it so.

Hope because I know I serve a God that can and does heal. And this is His story and His alone.

But can I let you in on the other part of the secret? That hope also terrifies me. The practical side of me (and let me tell you, that side is most often rather dominant) warns that that hope will get in the way of me being prepared to release and say goodbye should Jesus take Bella home. I worry about the crash that would inevitably come from hopes unrealized. From learning that what I so imperfectly label as good and glorifying, is not what God in His infinite wisdom has determined as good and glorifying.

And so I remain assured of one thing, and one thing only. What will transpire on this journey is already known and perfectly written. And its final outworking is good and will bring great glory to its Author.

But in the meantime, as we wait for events to unfold, and as I talk to Jesus as I scrub and purge and eventually pull out some sort of bag to fill with some assortment of my belongings, I’m going to do my best to take hope as a gift. And I’m going to continue to say many prayers of thanksgiving for YOU. You multitude who in stolen moments bring our little family before the throne, and in so doing, sustain us with a peace and a strength that defies the situation.