lent day 44 - new birth

I was driving past fields of new born lambs yesterday.  The sun was shining.  The grass was green. Daffodils are starting to peek out of the hedgerows.  It's beginning to look alot like springtime 🌞 The whole new birth thing can be a bit of a cliche, but it was on my mind because at the weekend I got to spend a few minutes with a newborn baby who was 5lb 11 at birth and now, two months on is still not quite 9lbs.   He is tiny.  He is still nowhere near the size my three boys were when they were born!

I felt the God thought go through my mind ' the bigger the baby the harder the birth'. 


This was most certainly true for me giving birth to my huge 9 lb 12 boys.  Sam got stuck and had to be yanked out with forceps.  I lost so much blood that I technically should have had a blood transfusion but somehow, thankfully, managed to avoid it by promising to lie still and do nothing for 24 hours.  I wasnt up to doing anything except breathe and look at my baby to be honest.  However having a big baby does have its advantages.  There's a saying in Northern Ireland that big babies come out ' half reared'   😊  My boys all slept and fed well, were robust and not prone to sniffles or wheezes or allergies or infections.  They have all grown from being huge babies to being huge young men with enormous feet and gigantic appetites. 

Im currently working for a charity which has some big dreams.   I go to a church which has big dreams.   Big dreams can be pretty tricky to bring to birth.  The bigger the dream the harder the delivery.   Sometimes it can feel as though the birthing is going to kill you and that neither you or the dream is going to make it out alive.   But God is an excellent midwife.  He hold the times and the seasons in His hands and He was the one who formed the idea and grew it from a tiny seed to something which is ready to take on a life of its own.

I remember my three pregnancies as being times of interminable waiting.  Especially the last couple of weeks.  And the waiting was tinged with both excitement and dread.  I couldn't wait to meet my babies and yet I really didn't want to go through the experience of giving birth ( especially the second time, it having been pretty gruesome the first time round).  It is tiring and boring and frustrating because there is nothing you can do to make it happen any quicker.  You don't sleep much towards the end of a pregnancy.  Sometimes everything aches, you are getting braxton hicks contractions..... its a wonder anyone ever does it more than once!!!


But of course it is all worth it in the end.   So, if you are pregnant with a dream and are waiting, if you are suffering the pain of contractions, if everything is difficult and dangerous and it feels like it is going to kill you - then maybe you are giving birth to a big baby.  A big dream.  Something bigger than you had anticipated or thought possible.  Perhaps when the dream is born it will already be ' half reared' and will need less tender nurturing that you think before it is up and running.

Easter is a time of new life.  Of the impossible becoming possible.  Of resurrection power coming to bring life where there was death and victory where there was apparent defeat.  Lets dream big and not be afraid of the birth process.  If it didn't kill Jesus it won't kill us!