I heard the word natural
a lot after giving birth to my children. As in, Did you have a naaaatural childbirth? I know what was meant – the
question was really, Did you take the
drugs, or did you take the pain? And in what manner did that baby get out of
your body? It felt like I was being asked, What kind of woman are you?
It felt like a litmus test – an analysis of my character, my capacity for selflessness,
my inner fortitude, the purity of my love. Sometimes it felt like they were
asking about my wedding night – as in, Did
you wear white?
I don’t like the way it sounds – natural – like there was something unnatural about being cut from my body. There was no other way for
him to be born. It was the most natural thing in the world to say to the doctor,
Just do what you have to do. My body,
for his life – it wasn’t any kind of choice.
I thought about this when I heard my daughter use the words my fault to repeat the story of Jesus’ death
on the cross. It kind of made me cringe. My
fault. I had audio for the sermon that was playing on repeat in her head –
I know it line for line. Jesus died for you – for your sin. If there was no other person on earth, and it was just you, Jesus still would have died – he loves
you that much. If all you had ever done was to tell one little white lie, Jesus
still would have had to die – your sin separates you from God. Even if by some
miracle you had never even sinned, he would still have had to die for you – you can’t stand in His presence, He’s
just that holy and you, in your very nature, are a hopeless sinner. But because
he loves you, his body was broken for you. He was stripped and flogged for you.
He bled, he was pierced, he was humiliated – he did that for you. He died because of you.
That can sound a whole big bunch like, It’s your fault.
But I think about the T-shaped scar inside me, and the straight
one stitched across my abdomen where the doctor cut my child out of me Caesar style – and I look at my
beautiful son – and I never think the words, You did this to me. I never, ever imagine, It was your fault.
That would just be ridiculous. What does blame have to do with any of it?
It wasn’t his fault
that I conceived him, that I wanted him, that I loved him and had a name for
him before he even existed in my mind. It wasn’t his fault that he grew in me upside down and backwards. It wasn’t his fault that I submitted to the will of
the Physician to do the only thing possible, the one thing necessary, to give
him life.
I chose him. I loved him. The entirety of my flesh was devoted to him. And so what, if my body was wounded to give him
life? I would have died for him. My scars are my commitment to him carved in my flesh, and I wear those scars
with joy. It was my honour. It was my responsibility. It was my job.
There’s no great mystery to it – it is not about fault.
It is simply the nature of Love.
And there is no real strangeness to it, though it is beyond all
comprehension – because of overflowing joy and absolute Love, It is God Who is the
singer of the Easter song, and God sings that song over me…
She lives!
3 comments:
Yes! Exactly.
Thank, Kimberly!
love it
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