When I think of a worshipful time, I think of sitting on a wooden porch, gazing at golden sunbeams shooting through stretched thin clouds over mountains. Acoustic hymns are singing softly behind me, melodies gentle and inspiring. I think of a living portrait right before my eyes and ears, too beautiful to comprehend like my Lord.
I do not think of childbirth.
When I think of romance, I think of walking down the aisle with a smile reaching further than it was made to because of who I walk towards. I think of an embrace that catches me off guard, feeling those little tingles raging through my body making me warm and electric. Sweet words and treasured date nights eating and recalling favorite memories.
I do not think of having a baby.
Yet as I look down at my new baby's dancing eyes and remember the birth, the two words I cannot escape are worshipful and romantic.
My water broke the late morning of April seventeenth, just a slow trickle of fluid. I called the midwife on duty and began to make preparations for leaving home, and more significant, leaving my thirteenth month old son. I should have known it would be game day. The night before brought massive thunderstorms that had my belly dancing with the vibrations. Just like with my first birth, I had yet to feel any real contractions. So after being checked at our birth center we left to walk the mall. By the second hour of walking, my contractions were five minutes apart and difficult to stand through. Heading back to the birth center had me full of remembrance of what I was going to have to do. Oh no. Here comes another one.
We slow danced in our birthing suite, which looked much like a comfortable bedroom with heavy floral design. The birthing ball proved useful for a time, and then I met my sweet relief: the hot tub. I put on a bikini and lay in the tub, the room dark but graced with candlelight. We played my favorite Pandora radio station: Sovereign Grace Music. I lay for what may have well been two hours, focusing through each rushing contraction.
Each song playing on the radio had been sovereign indeed. Lyrics naming the attributes of God and melodies I knew well but had never heard with these laboring ears filled the room. I found myself approaching a new contraction feeling defeat, only to remember the victory I have in Christ. I felt exhaustion and the deep desire to quit, then being sweetly reminded of new life and redemption promised. The gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel. It was the pulse of the room, the beat I contracted with. I found myself engaged in full worship of a faithful God.
I remember thinking of how strange this was, being so worshipful throughout so much pain. He was giving me a precious gift, full experience of what childbirth can be. Full experience of his beautiful design.
And then He gave me more. My husband sitting next to the tub. Just sitting, not really doing much at all. But with each contraction I gripped his hand tight and would moan deep, then grip tighter. I would meet his eyes, then back to the colorful tile lining the walls. It passed. I released my grip and allowed sleep to take me until the next rush. And with each one, his hand, the candlelight, the moans deeper still, his eyes, all over again and again.
I felt sexy laying there in my bikini with swollen body and legs painted with stretch marks. It was me and my husband, embarking on this adventure that like it or not, we had to get through. It was me and my husband and my God, embracing, not running, from this great challenge. And I loved them both. Never have I felt such romance. God was present, and he had fashioned this man for me and to be the earthly father for this baby. I felt loved and that love was a lifeline. I clung to it and reaped confidence. I could do this, I thought. I am loved, I knew.
Finally, when the urge to push began to overtake me, I bid farewell to the hot tub and lay on my left side, leg high. I so wanted to stay in the atmosphere of worship and romance, music and candlelight. But this baby needed out and I fought the fear of pushing. My midwife told me that I'll probably have to push a little, after I told her I didn't want to. The deep, low, productive moans that had been my ally in the tub morphed into high, ugly, screeches as I pushed. I hated the sound and wasted breath and fought even harder to bring back the cow like moans.
My husband's hand, the nurse and midwife's instructions and encouragements, and my baby. I wanted to see my baby. I saw and felt the little head full of hair almost born. A second bag of waters splashed over everyone, bringing a more intense pushing sensation. I talked to the little life, asking for teamwork. I thought, surely by now the baby should be out. A few more pushes and my husband pulled the already screaming baby out. Just as I saw her for the first time, the music sang a climactic chorus of hallelujahs, as if an ordained score written for the blessed event.
Are you sure it's a girl?, I asked the midwife. I'm pretty sure that's what a girl looks like, she answered. How could she be a girl when I was so certain of a boy? What a fun surprise.
I wept. Wept for the joy of a girl, for being done, for the pain I felt between my shaking, tired legs. Wept for the gifts I had received. The gifts of motherhood crying on my chest. The gifts of womanhood, surging with hard earned pride and empowerment. The gifts given by my Father, of meeting him in surrendered worship. And loving Him and the man he gifted me in a remarkable night of romance.
Psalm 145:6 (The Message)
Your marvelous doings are headline news; I could write a book full of the details of your greatness.
