This post is most lovingly dedicated to my friend and OB, Dr. Collette Lessard Anderson and her sweet husband, Kyle.
What? What does a birth story have to do with the "Rose Colored Gospel"?
Just keep reading, friend. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are present in every bit and piece of our lives and the Good News (gospel) that they have to declare is meant to penetrate any circumstance and event that we will allow.
My baby Seth is two months old now and is a most precious and "delightful" (that's the word his pediatrician recently used to describe him) little boy! He smiles at everything and tries so hard to talk to his dad, big brother and me. He is such a joyful addition to our family.
Now, before I get into the adventurous story of his birth, I need to give you some back stories that may seem completely off the point, but I assure you, they aren't.
As I've mentioned before on this blog, I grew up in a Southern Baptist tradition. From what I remember, although I'm not sure that it was explicitly taught this way, we had what is called a "cessationist" view on the gifts of the Holy Spirit; meaning that things like healing, speaking in tongues and the miraculous were gifts distributed to the apostles and the first century church, but they ceased to be necessary once the Holy Bible was compiled and the canon complete. The Holy Spirit's role was reduced to that of the "Great Conscience" that convicted us, or made us feel guilty about sins we had committed so that we would be led to pray for forgiveness.
In those days I had no revelation of how incredibly freeing and life-giving the Spirit is! Not only does the Spirit still work in giving these amazing gifts, but he also does everything possible to ignite constant joy in us (Romans 15:13)! The Spirit does not remind us of sins that our Father has said he's forgotten (Hebrews 8:12). Instead he takes what belongs to Jesus and reveals it to us, letting us know that it's ours too(John 16:12-15). He shows us the kindness of our Father and the grace upon grace upon grace that He has always lavished upon us(Ephesians 1:4-6). He has always intended to draw us out of hiding behind the bushes in our shame, to come confidently and boldly before His throne that we may joyfully cry, "Abba! Daddy!" (Hebrews 10:22, Romans 8:15-16).
Anyway, in my college years I attended a Vineyard church and began to discover the Holy Spirit, not necessarily in the graceful sense that I just explained to you, but more in a sense of oddity and weirdness and in a way that let me know that He was definitely real. Don't get me wrong, my precious pastors and friends tried to teach me all about the ridiculous goodness of the Lord, but my ears weren't really ready to hear that part. But I'm so thankful that they preached His goodness unapologetically, week after week. Their words and faith tilled the soil of my heart for four years, priming me to finally receive the seed of God's Word with gladness and relief. What a crazy journey the Spirit takes us on in this life all so that he can teach us to love one another because we are loved by our Father (1 John 4:19)! Even the most insignificant decisions, he uses. One of my favorite authors, Robert Capon, said that "nothing" is God's most preferred building material! He created this whole world using the building blocks of "nothing". He made new life and a whole new creation out of the "nothing" of Christ's death, and he can't be stopped from using the nothingness of our insignificant or even our worst decisions to create clean hearts within us. Or, as I prefer to see it, He reveals the clean heart that was already there by chiseling away the stone that once hardened it (Ezekiel 36:26). But, on with the story…
So, I started to see the realness of the Holy Spirit. At church as we would worship together, I saw people fall over, speak in weird languages, be overcome with laughter and even healed on the spot from different kinds of ailments. (So much for cessationism). My mind was blown and I wanted this stuff, but without having a revelation of grace and the goodness of God, my experience in "trying to get it" went sour. Fear and guilt were still my motivators, so in my mind these things weren't gifts, but were rewards that I could attain by climbing a ladder into the favor of God's heart. This, I thought, would be accomplished by "right living", many hours of prayer and "pressing in" for more, proving myself by taking big risks to show that I could be trusted, and building up my faith to believe for big things. I was a grasshopper in my own eyes and I needed to become a giant before I could enter into the land of promise (Numbers 13:33).
Before I continue, let me say that this is very cult-like thinking. Anytime you believe that you must break through certain levels to get to God or to get more of Him or more of His stuff (be it the "charismatic gifts" or a "closer relationship with Jesus"), you have officially exited Christianity and entered into a form of paganism. It may look like "godliness", but there's no power in it and you WILL burn out in a fit of depression that sometimes even ends in Atheism. The God that Jesus Christ came to reveal is the one who comes to US (John 1:14)! He offers EVERYTHING he has freely. This is grace. This is Gospel: All things are yours because he gave it (1 Corinthians 3:21-23). You didn't "earn" your natural birth and you don't "earn" your spiritual birth (1 Peter 1:3, John 1:12-13). You know that you were born naturally because you exist here on planet earth outside of your own will. Likewise, you know that you are born of the Spirit by believing it. Your belief doesn't CAUSE you to become "born again", your belief simply allows you to see and experience it. Just like you can see your natural existence with your eyes, belief is having the eyes of your heart opened to see your spiritual existence. Is that enough beating of that horse?
See, in what I had been taught growing up, the way that I grew "closer" to Jesus was through my own efforts to "do" certain things: reading the Bible, praying and living a life of "purity" and holiness so that I wouldn't build any walls between me and God by sinning. That then is the understanding that I brought over into this new world that the Spirit was showing me. But you can't pour new wine into old wineskins or you'll lose it all (Matthew 9:17)!
So in my college years, I began laying my hands on people and praying for miraculous healing. I even went with a good friend into a funeral parlor when one of our classmates passed away and we prayed over her in the casket to rise from the dead. But nothing ever seemed to happen at my hands. And I really believed it would! So I grew increasingly frustrated. I helped start a 24/7 prayer house on our campus my senior year as a last ditch effort to get God to move miraculously.
By the end of my senior year, I was done. I mean, done. I had tried everything from fasting for days to praying for hours on end and I just couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure God out. I was doing my part, but He didn't really seem to be doing his. I couldn't make myself "believe" any harder. I still believed that miracles could happen and that God wanted them to happen, but I just didn't have what it took to be disappointed, and sometimes even heartbroken, anymore.
I believe that when I finally gave up, the Father, Son and Spirit applauded! I think they thought, "Finally! Now we can actually teach her something!" I rarely read my Bible anymore, because I mostly felt condemned by it. When I prayed, it usually went like this: "Jesus. Help." And so commenced my learning of the unutterable goodness, love and grace of our Father. And this learning journey will never end…it only gets deeper and more vast. But I'm kind of getting ahead of myself...
A few years later my husband and I found out we were pregnant with our first son, Haven. I really wanted to have a natural childbirth. When people ask me why, the only explanation I have is that I wanted to see if I could do it. I guess it's like folks who want to run a marathon. I don't understand running at all and I think it sounds awful to put your body through that when you don't really have to. But I do understand the love of a challenge and I think that's the main reason I wanted to give birth without medication.
Well, I had heard of this book called "The Supernatural Childbirth". It was a woman's story of having 3 totally natural, pain-free deliveries. She was told by doctors that she would never even have children, but she and her husband believed that God would enable her to conceive and she did. She talked about preparing for nine months by praying and believing and "building faith" through meditating over certain Bible verses and promises so that by the time she delivered, she had "enough faith" for a painless birth.
It was a great story and sounded really wonderful, but no way was I going to put in the time to do my part and "build my faith". I was afraid that if it didn't work, I would be too disappointed to ever trust God again.
So instead, I checked out all of the Bradley Method books that I could find and read tons of birth stories online and learned all about the wonder of natural childbirth. My theory was that the more I knew about what to expect during labor, the easier it would be to cope with the pain. This turned out to be true. The day came for my delivery, and it was hard. I labored for about 8 difficult hours at home. When I went into the hospital, I was dilated only 3 centimeters and it was another 10 hours before Haven made his grand entrance. I made it (barely) without the epidural. But when I was around 8 centimeters they needed to give me some Pitocin because labor had stalled and I wasn't progressing. So I gave in and took a pain medication in my IV (I think it was called Fentynol - not sure how to spell it). But any woman who has had that medication during labor will tell you that it relieves nothing. It does make your head fuzzy enough to allow you to relax through the contractions though, so it did help in that way. I considered my labor a success, but my husband swore that when we had our next child, I WAS GETTING that epidural! He said that it was like watching me undergo torture and there was nothing that he could do about it.
Looking back, I can see how the Spirit was fully present with us all throughout my labor and delivery, although I wasn't aware of it at the time. My OB is a good friend of ours and she did absolutely everything in her power to protect my dream of natural childbirth! She even snapped at one of the nurses for me when it was called for, and she encouraged me all the way to the end. She was Jesus to me. The love and care that she felt and showed to our family and her passion to see my desires fulfilled was most certainly born from above!
Haven was around 7 months old when the grace of God really began shaking me awake. (You can go back and read my introductory post if you want more details on that). I started understanding that what Jesus revealed was a Father who can't be bought or manipulated. He is a Father who gives GIFTS and BLESSINGS. Neither of those words has room for earning or merit. His heart is just to give. None of the stuff I had done (or tried to do) before was bad. Reading my Bible, praying, fasting, healing, raising the dead; they're all wonderful things. But they are meant to be RESPONSES to his goodness and grace. They are responses to his gifts and promises and blessings. They aren't a means to achieve them. And they MOST DEFINITELY aren't rewards given to the "spiritually elite". We mustn't think for a second that we can twist His arm hard enough or scratch His back for long enough to make Him give us what we think we want or need.
(And, can I say with much delight, He extends to us the same courtesy? He'll never control or manipulate us into doing what He wants. This is why most of our "Hell doctrines" need to drastically change! But that's another post for another day...).
It's like this. When I know that God has ALREADY healed the whole world and reconciled all things to himself in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:18-19), I am then compelled through joy to pray for the sick. If nothing happens (that I can see), that's okay! The Truth still stands and there's nothing wrong with my prayer! There is a mystery and an incredible adventure at work here. Jesus said that when we ask, we can believe that we've received what we've asked for (Mark 11:24). That's insane! It makes no sense sometimes to what we experience, but it gives such hope. And it isn't a false hope. It is a hope that just rests in trust. It's the most wonderful and joyous way to live! I no longer live under a burden of guilt. I'm just a kid who gets to trust that what her Dad says is true. Maybe that's not enough for you. Maybe you're tempted to think "Why pray, then? Why do any of this stuff if it's all up to Him anyway?" I can tell you that my reason for doing it is because it's fun! A true joy. It is a life of participation and dependency on the One who has it all figured out and knows the end from the beginning. We can relax and ride this wave of mystery that is most unpredictable. And sometimes, we'll get to participate in miracles…maybe even in increasing frequency! Other times, we will just trust and know that our trust in Him is a most powerful river to drift on.
This finally brings me to the birth of my second son, Seth Daniel. So, part of the gospel revelation that Jesus has shown me in the last two years is that every human being has been included in the love of God, whether they've accepted it yet or not. There is no "in" and "out" group. Every human is a child that belongs to our Father (Acts 17:27-28, when Paul is speaking to idol-worshipping pagans). Every human has Christ in them even if it has not yet been revealed to them through faith (Colossians 1:25-28, verse 28 stresses EVERYONE). This is why it's becoming more natural to love complete strangers. It's because I now see, through the eyes of faith, that the deepest truth about them is love, therefore, I'm drawn and attracted to them. Hopefully, if you follow my blog, I've been able to make this clear in my writing. Christ isn't someone that we attain or "invite" to live inside of us. Rather, he is our very substance, and ignorance of that fact doesn't nullify its truth. It simply hides it. But all things that are hidden will be brought into the light…!!!!!!!!
This revelation has been an incredible part of my journey and is changing my world and my paradigm.
When Haven was about 18 months old, we found out that we were expecting our second son, Seth. I was so excited, but I was definitely dreading going through childbirth again. I was considering the epidural this time, but really didn't want to as I'm not a fan of needles. I was at work one day and told one of the ladies who came into the club that I wasn't looking forward to labor. She said, "Oh Sarah, don't expect for it to be bad. If you have bad expectations, it will be way more painful than if you have positive expectations." I knew at that moment that that was the wisdom of Christ in her speaking to me and telling me to hope. I have no idea what her beliefs are but I do know the One who believes in her. So I treasured her advice in my heart, allowing it to mingle with Jesus' words that say "Let it be according to your faith."
After that, I had three dreams and in all three of them, I had an easy and pain-free labor & delivery. Psalm 139 says, "He knows my sleeping and my waking." So I treasured those three dreams as gifts. At my next doctor appointment, I told my wonderful OB about my dreams. I think I just wanted to see her reaction. When I told her the dreams, her eyes lit up and she said, "That would be awesome!" There was no eye-rolling or any other kind of hint insinuating that it was an ignorant hope. She simply shared in my joy without giving me any cause to doubt. Again, I took this as Christ in her encouraging me in my desire.
Two of my best friends from Kentucky came to visit me one month before Seth's birth and I decided to tell them about the dreams. They said, "Sarah, we've learned not to doubt your dreams and what you hear from the Lord." It was so precious to hear that from them and I was again convinced that the Spirit was speaking to me.
A few weeks before I delivered, I was watching my husband play tennis and one of the ladies at the tennis club came and sat next to me. She told me about the births of her four children and then she looked at me, touched my arm and said, "You know that this labor will be much easier than your first one, right?" I smiled and said, "I'm beginning to think so too." Thanks Jesus.
They tell you that all pregnancies and births are different. Many women say that the second is usually easier than the first, but then others say the exact opposite. And the doctors say there's just no way to know. Sometimes the second one is easier and sometimes it's not. I throw that in there so that you won't just think that Seth's birth was easier because he was my second. You still may come away thinking that by the end of my story and that's fine. But where's the magic and romance in that? What's the fun of trusting God and having faith if we have to be suspicious of everything and try to separate the natural from the Spirit? Why can't we just believe that EVERY good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights? I think he has so infused the natural with the Spiritual that we can see all things, all the way down to our digestion of food, as glorious! Don't miss his movements and his miracles just because they're too close to your face!
One week before I delivered Seth, I went to get my haircut. I was talking with the girl cutting my hair and she told me about the birth of her daughter (women just love to share their pregnancy experiences!). She told me that when she went into labor and arrived at the hospital, she was 0 centimeters dilated, and she got to 10 centimeters in 20 minutes! Now that is incredible. I had never heard of that happening before and I was just amazed. As I was walking out the door, she said, "Good luck with your baby! It's gonna be really easy for you." She said it so matter-of-factly. She didn't say, "Well, good luck, I hope it's not too painful." No, she looked me right in the eyes and said it with certainty. Jesus revealed himself yet again during a random haircut. I tell you, he makes himself known anywhere that we decide to be aware of his presence.
Now, throughout nine months of pregnancy, I also received my fair share of negative predictions. But trying to recall now, I actually can't remember the details of any single one of those statements. We're free to reject that crap. It's called discernment. During those instances when people would speak contradiction to my expectation for good, I could hear in my heart Jesus' gentle voice saying, "They don't know what spirit they're of. (Luke 9:55)"
On Sunday, August 25, I felt some contractions around 6 a.m. They were very mild and were consistently 10 minutes apart. Two hours later, they stopped and there was no more action until Thursday, August 29. It was the same thing. I awoke at 6 a.m. to very mild contractions. We're talking mild to the point where I may not have even noticed them had they not come every 10 minutes on the mark. They remained like this the entire day. I kept thinking, "there's no way that these contractions are strong enough to be doing anything." I took a couple of naps with my 2-year-old, we went outside to play tee-ball and basketball. That's how easy these contractions were. My husband got home from work around 8 p.m. and they started to get slightly more intense and some of them were moving to 7 minute intervals, but nothing closer than that. I was still walking through them and going about our regular routine. We enjoyed a nice Chinese dinner and laid down for bed at 10 p.m. I was too excited to sleep. I knew that if the contractions hadn't stopped by now, this was probably it. But then some of them moved to 15 minute intervals, so I was unsure. I got out of bed around midnight to watch tv and try to settle my mind down so that I could get some rest. At 2 a.m…WHOOSH! A monster contraction hit with a vengeance. When it was over, I laughed because I realized that even if this wasn't going to be the completely pain-free delivery that I had hoped for, I wasn't disappointed in God or in myself! This was huge for me. I knew that I still trusted him and all of the hopeful dreams and words that he had spoken to me over the last 9 months. I was going to fully enjoy this experience with Him even if it was painful, and that made me so happy to know that my joy and trust weren't dependent on my circumstance. WHOOSH! Three minutes later, another monster contraction. I woke my husband and decided that it was time to go get that nice epidural that I'd heard so much about. He called the hospital and the nurse on duty was a friend of ours. He told her that my contractions had just moved from 7 minutes apart down to 3 minutes. She assured him that it would probably still be awhile, but that we were welcome to go ahead and come in and drop Haven off with his babysitters. I had one more monster contraction and suddenly they stopped. Hmm. I laid down on the bed because those three contractions had exhausted me. A few minutes later…WHOOSH! I had to push!! What??? I had only had three strong contractions at three minutes apart…surely it couldn't be time to push? My body said otherwise.
We still had a 25 minute drive to get to the hospital. Somehow, my husband managed to get me and our son in the van and as soon as we pulled out of the driveway, my water broke. "Should I be speeding?" He asked me. I was doing everything I possibly could to fight my body so that I wouldn't push him out! "Speed!" I shouted. "Straight to the hospital!"
I kept wondering if I should maybe ask him to pull over so that I could just deliver him there in the van, but gosh! I didn't want to do that! We made it to the hospital at 3:10 a.m. Amazingly, the receptionist from the labor and delivery floor just so happened to come outside for a smoke break right when we pulled up. She got me a wheelchair and offered to push me upstairs while my husband parked the van. She was trying to make pleasant conversation until she realized I was pushing. I felt a much welcomed wind on my face as she run-wheeled me to the elevators. We got to the third floor and there was our nurse friend. "Oh hey, Sarah!" She said nonchalantly. "Oh hey, Steph! I'm pushing!!"
Again, I was run-wheeled to the delivery room and plopped onto a bed. No time to even put on a hospital gown or get an IV or strap on the fetal monitor. The on-call resident barely even had time to check for dilation and I looked at the overseeing physician and said, "Can I please push now?" He said, "Do you feel like you need to?"
I laughed. My body was already doing it for me. My husband and son barely made it up to the room. I can't remember if it was two or three pushes, but Seth Daniel arrived at 3:29 a.m. on August 30 (one minute shy of 20 minutes after arriving at the hospital. Just like the lady that cut my hair!). The first words out of my mouth were, "Oh my gosh! He's so cute!" He was given a perfect bill of health.
My husband told me that it didn't even look like I was trying to push. The overseeing physician said, "Wow. You made that look incredibly easy." All three nurses said, "That was amazing!" The whole day, post-pardom nurses were coming into my room saying, "We heard about your awesome delivery!" That morning, one of the surgeons came in to get us to sign off on Seth's circumcision. I asked him when it would be and he said, "Well, when was he born? Yesterday?" I said "No, he was just born four and a half hours ago."
His eyes got huge and he said, "What? You don't even look tired!"
My conclusion? He gave me the desires of my heart. I got an easy, COMPLETELY natural childbirth. Zero interventions whatsoever. That's nearly unheard of when you have a hospital delivery. Had I not felt ANY pain, I would not have known to go into the hospital. He also gave us an adventure that we'll never forget with a story to tell for years to come.
The great thing is that I didn't have to "work up" faith. I didn't have to meditate every day or spend hours in prayer trying to get a "breakthrough". It was all a gift. From beginning to end. But, had it gone differently…all would still be well. He is still good. He is still love. But it's fun to expect big things. It's a joy to know that each breath we take is miraculous and is sustained by a Father who only wills good toward us. I realize that this testimony I've given may not seem as exciting or important as seeing cancer healed or a dead person raised to life. But the power for any of those things comes from the same source. The One who cares about each sparrow that falls to the ground and knows every hair on our heads hasn't limited His interests to the more serious things. Raising a person from the dead might bring him a lot of fame and glory…but he doesn't seem interested in doing things just so he can be famous. He is most interested in being known as the lover of our souls and convincing us that he is ALWAYS with us. He also seems very content to remain mysterious. Yes, we can know Him. We can know Him so intimately. But we will never figure him out in a way that we can predict his behavior. Except to trust that his behavior will never violate or abuse us and will always do good, loving things to us, for us and in us.
Thank you for sticking with me through this long post. I hope you're encouraged and will begin to hear the Spirit and see Him everywhere.
