Believe it or not, Rahab’s pregnancy was actually pretty smooth after our very rocky start. Don’t read “very smooth” as “very easy.” We still had at least one doctor appointment a week (two a week at the beginning, only one a week in the middle of the pregnancy, and then 2 a week again at the end of the pregnancy), 3 fetal echocardiograms, 31 ultrasounds, weekly (and large) injections of a drug that helps women with a history of preterm labor carry to term, at least 14 blood sugar checks a day, lots and lots of vomiting, lots of low blood sugar from the vomiting, many glucagon injections to treat low blood sugar because…. did I mention I was vomiting all of my carbs? 😉

But we praised God for all of those things. Because all of those things are normal. Those things are being pregnant. And that was awesome. That was a mercy to us from our kind Father who loves giving good gifts to His children.

Rahab did really well inside of me. She never gave us any more super big scares. We were un able to see one of her heart chambers at each of her 3 echocardiograms (all at 3 different hospitals), which was a little disconcerting. But every person who got a chance to see her heart was pretty certain that the reason they could not see everything that they needed to was because of her size. You see, we were all always aware that Rahab would not be tiny. 😉 We really had a peace about that uncertainty, and we were told that they would do another echocardiogram on our-out-of-the-womb-Rahab the same day she was born. (Which [[spoiler warning]] they did, and praise the Lord, all was well!)

Those last few weeks of her pregnancy were pretty achey and sore and I was huge and bruised and still throwing up. But I was so excited at the potential of making it to term, and I was praying for her to stay inside of me until 39 weeks. I thought of every day of my discomfort as one less day she would potentially have to spend in the NICU. Oh how I prayed for a couple more days of nausea, a few more injections of progesterone, a little bit more soreness and a little bit longer before my aching ribs were given relief. I so wanted a full term baby. A baby ready to meet the world. Fully developed lungs. Fully developed everything.

You see, I believe that the God of the Bible has called me to a life of dying to myself, …a life of choosing the interests of others above my own interests. I believe that love means laying my own comforts down for the sake of another’s comforts. This is hard. This is not my nature. This is swimming up stream. I think if it was supposed to be easy The Holy Spirit would have inspired another phrase other than “dying to yourself.” Death isn’t easy or pretty or comfortable.

Jesus, in obedience to God the Father, loved me this way, though. Though He was in fact God, he humbled himself to my human form, endured every day inconveniences, neediness, weariness, discomfort, aches, agonizing pain, and death, … even death on a cross.

Jesus is so much more than just an example. But He is certainly not less than an example. I do want to be like Him. The Gospel has changed me and now the compelling model of Jesus is how I want to live. It’s because of Him that I now want to put to death selfishness and do all things without grumbling and complaining.

These are things I am always still seeing in myself and constantly fighting to put off. These things about myself I sometimes get too comfortable with and sometimes I fail to go to war with them as I should. These things about myself are hands down the hardest part of parenting. It is my own selfishness and impatience and grumbling that is making my day hard, not the selfishness and impatience of my kids.

The Christian life is a life lived selflessly. Parenting is the most frequent platform I have right now for dying to myself. And the fight for me to learn to love Rahab that way began even before she was “just a dash on the screen.”

To be continued…