Preparation for Birth

 
"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."~Jesus Christ, John 3:8


      I have endured three pregnancies. I have birthed three babies. Each one was unique, an unspeakable blessing. Each one required sacrifice and pain. In the months and hours of preparation, there was more mystery than certainty.


      I am preparing for a birth tonight. I am preparing for something new, something exciting and something that only God can design and give breath. I am getting ready, with eager anticipation. I am praying, I am hopeful. As with the births of my children, there are the familiar feelings of inadequacy, uncertainty, and even doubt. Will I be able to meet the unknown challenges? Will I grow weary and falter? Will the seeds I plant grow and bare fruit?


     I am not giving birth in the ordinary sense of the word, but is any birth ever ordinary? Certainly not to the One who brings it from idea to life. 


   With my family by my side, I am going to a foreign land to see the youngest, poorest, and sweetest faces of God. To go into the unknown, to carry God's mission into the world, to be the love of Christ to the "least of these", that is what is being born. And with it, life. There is no greater privilege than to go where the Spirit blows and to ride the wind with the message of hope and salvation. 

     Where is the Spirit taking you? Where are you being led to give life? It is not always a far away place that you must go to share God's love with the hurting and the hopeless. It is wherever you are and it is whoever God has placed in your path. There may be "labor" involved, but isn't the privilege worth the pain?