Tag: adversity

10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity

My pregnancy with Caleb was really hard. It certainly could have been worse, but in my mind there’s no denying that the crappy-ness level of it was approximately an 8.257 out of 10. At my first appointment, the Dr. found an ovarian cyst bigger than my uterus during the ultrasound. This caused concern, because if the cyst were to grow, it could have ruptured and become a life-threatening scenario for both myself and Caleb. Fortunately, with many faithful friends and family in prayer for us, the cyst completely disappeared by my next ultrasound to the shock and amazement of my doctor. Though God miraculously healed my body (praise Him!), it was still a scary situation nonetheless, and from there on out, there seemed to be a continuous stream of challenges throughout my pregnancy.

I am grateful and feel very blessed for the life God gave us, but I don’t believe in sugar coating things and the honest truth is that I was miserable throughout my entire pregnancy (though I would obviously say it was well worth it). Similar to my lack of experiential knowledge going into Caleb’s birth, I also lacked experiential knowledge going into pregnancy. Very few of my friends took the dive into parenting before me, so I really hadn’t heard many stories and wasn’t sure what to expect. Looking back, I think I had a pretty idealistic, naive, and unrealistic expectation of what pregnancy would be like. Both my mother and mother-in-law had wonderful, easy pregnancies, so I just assumed mine would be just like theirs. I guess I just pictured myself as a glowing, joyful, walking among the clouds, cute, only gaining weight in the “right” places, rubbing-my-belly-in-public-all-the-time kind of pregnant woman (you know, how all the gagingly perfect pregnant celebrities look and act). Well, it didn’t take long for my fantasy to get obliterated (I’m talking maybe one week in). 4 Words: Longest. Nine. Months. Ever.

The good thing about adversity is we can learn from it and grow as a person. The even better thing about adversity is we can (sometimes) laugh about it later. And the only thing that’s even more fun than retrospectively laughing at your own adversity, is laughing at someone else’s. That’s why I decided to do a series on our blog entitled “10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity.” In no particular order, here’s to crushing every romantic idea you ever had about pregnancy. Enjoy.

Part 1 – Constipation
Parts 2 & 3 – Appetite and Weight Gain
Part 4 – Mourning Sickness
Part 5 – Incontinence
Part 6 – Crazy Hormones
Parts 7, 8, & 9 – Pain, Pain, Pain
Part 10 – The Pinnacle, Diarrhomit

Jesus Came Out a Birth Canal Too

Unfortunately I haven’t found many videos on Christ’s birth that do it much justice, but I think this is one video that does a good job and I like that it is creative and uses poetry to get the message across.

Many people think of Christ’s birth as this lovely, peaceful, purely joyous event, when in actuality, it was not. It’s funny how we tend to romanticize Jesus’ birth when in fact there were few, if any, “romantic” things about it. For starters, even people 2,000 years ago knew how babies were made; a virgin birth was no more believable then than it would be now. In other words, the world’s first impression of Jesus was that he was an illegitimate child and his mother was promiscuous and crazy. When it came time for Jesus’ birth, Mary had to travel many miles over rough terrain, and had the joy of giving birth most likely in a cave (not a stable) with lots of dirty animals looking on (imagine feces everywhere). This would be somewhat comparable to giving birth on the floor of a public restroom. Also, if you are a woman and have given birth, I think we can all agree that there is nothing peaceful about birthing a child (amazing yes, peaceful no). It is incredibly tiring, painful, and fairly gross, and fortunately I got to ride in a car to the hospital and give birth on a nice bed. Also I’m pretty sure that Jesus cried just like every other baby…I hate the line in “Away in a Manger” that says “no crying he makes.” Yeah, right…Mary wishes.

Then the “big” announcement made about the son of God’s arrival was given to teenage shepherds, a profession that was not highly regarded (think minimum wage fast food workers). Jesus also came from the town of Nazareth which was considered the armpit of the Jewish world (think Bakersfield, no offense)…there is actually a saying in the Bible that Jewish people of the time used that said “can anything good come from Nazareth?” Not to mention the fact that Jesus’ lineage included prostitutes, murderers, and other outcasts. I could go on, but I think the pattern is becoming obvious. Jesus did not come into this world in the elegant and glorious way one would think God would. He did not come in riches and fame, but in the face of adversity and in the most humble (and almost humorous) of ways, as a helpless baby.

This is how God chose to enter our world. God did this intentionally, and this is why I think it is dangerous when we begin romanticizing the Christmas story. He didn’t want us to see him as we would a human ruler or authority figure that is untouchable, distant, elite, and doesn’t care about the “common people.” “[Jesus] though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” Phil 2:6-7

Why did he do it? Because he loves us that much. He loves us so much that He was willing to do whatever it would take to get down on our level and reach us where we are at. What an amazing God.

Let’s fall on our knees and worship the King Baby Jesus!