Fighting for my baby

I started to feel like I was going into labour.  I was surprised because I did not even know I was pregnant.  A midwife led me to a bed and scanned my tummy and told me that the baby had not survived.  I did not believe her and after a few pushes, out came a smaller-than-newborn, but good-sized baby boy.  He wasn’t moving, but I knew he was not dead.  I breathed on him and he started breathing.  Precious, surprising, awe-inspiring life. I had so much certainty that that little life was going to be.  I could feel my mother instinct-faith rising up, and there was no way anyone was going to tell me otherwise.  I was fighting for that child, and although obviously premature, that baby was going to be fine, and there was no way anyone else was going to take him away from me. 

Shortly after giving birth I was handed another baby to adopt.  I looked at the baby and did not recognize it.  I could see the boy had already had the newborn vaccines as a little band-aid covered his shoulder, and he had clearly already been cared for in the nursery.  I was asked if I would accept this baby.  I said I would.  Because who else would take it?  Because I could. Because I was willing.  But I felt no connection with this baby. If someone else had shown up at that moment and offered to take the baby, I probably would not have minded.  

That was the dream I had on Thursday morning around dawn.  

And it made me reflect on the importance of the spiritual birthing process.  

How often do I want a breakthrough without the pain? How often do I want the product without the process? 

But it is the pain of the process, the fighting, the endurance that grows our faith, gives us perspective and makes us take responsibility for the breakthrough.  The adopted baby I was offered, I knew I could love.  Logically, practically I could do it.  But I didn’t have the same feelings of ownership and responsibility for that child.  I wasn’t willing to fight for him like I was for the one I had birthed.  Even though I did not even know about him before I birthed him, and even though I was first told about him when he was supposedly already dead, I refused to let go.  I refused to accept anything but life from that body.  That baby had been given to me and I was going to take full responsibility for him.  In the dream I knew that if God had given me that child, he was going to live. 

If we don’t go through a birthing process for our breakthroughs, then maybe we are less willing to fight in prayer for them when things look bleak.  If we have no assurance that God has given us responsibility for a gift, talent, breakthrough, change in direction, etc, then when the enemy comes against us, how willing are we to fight? How much more quickly does doubt about God’s will come? How much more quickly are we willing to let things go? If the adopted baby had started looking unhealthy, I would honestly probably had felt relief a lot more quickly, not having taken on the responsibility in my heart for that child. 

And so that lead me to look at the areas where there are growing pains, birthing pains going on at the moment in my life: an overflowing, overwhelming house; my personal struggles for joy and gratitude; struggles in our team with sickness; our bank balance struggling to provide for the extra costs a growing household requires. What if we used those difficulties to alert us to that breakthrough is coming? What if we took hold of those struggles by the collar and looked at them straight and began thanking God for the life that is coming?  That we began to allow those birthing cries to be lifted up to God and call out to Him for things to come into alignment.  If we begin to trust that those pains are not indigestion but birthing pains.  That the baby is not dead, despite what others may say, but that our belief, our holding fast to the promise God has given us, will be rewarded and that the more intense the pain, the nearer the breakthrough. 

So I am asking God to show me His perspective this week.  I am asking Him to tell me about the babies we are birthing, the gifts He is releasing, the transitions He is orchestrating, the shifts that are happening, the areas where the enemy is getting nervous and acting out and kicking and screaming because he knows his time is short.  If only we will hold on.  Persevere.  Pray.  Hold on fast to Him.  If only we will stand on the Rock and trust that what He promised will be.  

So where are the struggles in your life this week? Be encouraged.  Breakthrough is coming.  If you will only hold on.  And cry out to Him. 

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
    out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
    and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
    and put their trust in him.

- Psalm 40

Don't Remember. Feel.

Two weeks ago we took a trip with a team to the jungle town of Pucallpa where Mark and I oversee several Shipibo (Peruvian indigenous people) churches and their leaders.  I was looking forward to being with the team, seeing the women and children there and seeing my own children enjoying the wonders of the jungle life which they always love.  Mark goes to Pucallpa every month, but for cost and effectiveness reasons we have decided to just go as a family once a year.   I went to look after my children and allow them to be part of the mission trip. I didn’t expect God to speak to me in the way He did... 

'No Recuerdes - Siente'

'Don’t Remember - Feel.' 

The graffiti on the wall blurred as we sped past in a motortaxi.  My mind, like the air, was muggy and dusty and I knew that that was what God was telling me I needed to do after the conversation we had had with the Shipibo leaders the day before.  He needed me to keep feeling what I felt.  To not become hardened. 

The jungle town of Pucallpa in many ways feels like a second home.  Mark and I always talk about going and living there for a time whenever we go, and know that at some point down the line it will probably happen.  I love the people there - their warmth and hugs and the way they are so hungry for a touch of God.  I love that the moths are ten times larger than the ones in my garden, that the rain comes suddenly and that the ladies and children break out into laughter when we jump at a spider or a cockroach.  I love the simplicity of the life there and the simplicity of their hearts.  

But the meeting the day before had left me shaken.  Five Shipibo church leaders and their wives (minus one who couldn’t attend) sat in our hotel lounge, because the rain had prevented us from meeting in their village.  Mark told them they could tell us or ask us anything they needed too.  

Casilda spoke up.  Shipibo women rarely speak out loud in Spanish in a group situation. They feel more comfortable letting their husbands translate from Shipibo for them. She looked at me straight:  When are you coming to teach us, the women? We need discipleship.  We need input.  We need to know how we can disciple other women.  When will you, Anna, come and teach us? 

I looked around the room for an answer.  Someone who could teach them.   

I could hear the hunger in her heart and knew she was not alone.  That she spoke on behalf of many of the women there.  

I knew that she was right.  That they needed teaching or even time, availability from other women walking what they wanted to walk.  I knew that I had to be willing.  Or at least I knew the Holy Spirit was asking me: And you? Are you willing? 

I told her: I am willing.  But I don’t know how with three young children running about. 
I told her: Pray.  I am willing, but it is just not that easy with a 1.5 year old who is picky about who he is with and who is a bundle of action and exploration. 

She came to me at the end of the meeting again.  With her beautiful smile, her extravagant but shy hugs, her friendship and her eyes which tell me of her desire to be known.  Our hearts are already connected from a previous trip when she had shared her story. 

I told her again that I would pray and think about it.  That she needed to pray. 

She must have prayed.  She must have prayed hard. 

Next week Mark and I are returning to the jungle with Kaleb, our youngest.  The eldest two are staying at home with Lili (the first time I have left them for that long), and Miriam, our German intern who is living with us (so Kaleb knows and loves!) has agreed to help us out with Kaleb so I can lead the key women.  

And I know that God wants to do something special in the hearts of those women.  He sees their desire to learn and know how to disciple others.  Are there not questions in all of us women which ask for that affirmation? Don’t we desire that equipping to move forward and have our destiny called out? 

And it was feeling her heart - seeing the potential that there is in those women that makes my heart love them and want to find a way to teach them.  Not because I feel like I have a banquet to offer - but because I know I have bread today and they are crying out for spiritual crumbs and I can’t say anything but ‘yes‘ when I look at the roll in my own hands.   

Because I don’t just remember the Shipibo women. I feel them in my heart and I want to see them beginning to walk in their destiny as beautiful daughters of God. 

Please...Pray for us... 

Addressing Spiritual ADHD with His Heartbeat

Journaling has become one of the main parts of my quiet times over the last month.  I had so many things I was seeking God about that I wanted to allow the time for Him to speak to me.  However, one of the main things He has said to me is to just lie on his chest and listen to his heartbeat.

I am a doer.  I am a disciplined doer and I don’t just do things for the sake of it (having children and limited time has ensured that!) but even in my quiet times, I find myself trying to achieve something. 

I am trying to find more intimacy with God but I find myself trying to do things to achieve that.

So, perhaps not surprisingly, first on God’s heart to share with me was not about the answers to my many questions, but about His love and desire to be with His bride.  How he desired His bride to lie on His chest and listen to Him. 

I had a dream and I saw these words written: The Lord delights in the nations who listen to Him.  I looked them up when I woke up and they are not a specific verse, but they spoke to me about God’s aching desire for the nations to not be groping around in the darkness, but knowing His voice.  God desires for His bride to listen to Him. My personal response was to pray for wise prophetic voices to be raised up and listened to in all the nations of the world.  

One of the things that has been discovered about people with ADD or ADHD (difficulties in concentration and hyperactivity) is that their internal rhythms are out of sync.  They have no internal beat to guide them.  As a result, music and rhythm therapy can be incredibly helpful.  I wonder how many Christians have spiritual ADHD? They are so busy and distracted that they find it impossible to be still before God. Or is the reason that they have spiritual ADHD because they don't make time to listen to Him? 

Three weeks ago I was that ADHD Christian- distracted and hyperactive, finding myself completely out of sync with Him and feeling totally ineffective in prayer.

God spoke to me about rhythm:

Rhythm begins before a baby can even feel it – loud, overwhelming, overtaking rhythm.  It is a constant and consumes their world – the beat to their life and it is totally reassuring.

When a baby is born, often only a return to that beat will calm the child’s inner needs.  The baby can only fully relax, breathe and sleep deep when warmed and comforted by close skin-on-skin – melted back into one with the mother. The heartbeat calms, reassures and relaxes, lulling them like no other lullaby into the security to let go and be.

A toddler runs off and explores, discovery on top of frustration, on top of fatigue, running straight into a mother’s arms.  Laying against her chest, a calm ensues, a quiet listening.  A connection that soothes, recharges and refreshes, until later the busy toddler climbs down ready to run again.

A lover resting on her lover’s chest – time disappears.  A sudden mellowing in her body – a relaxation so deep that she realizes the many burdens she has been carrying – just how many stresses had been loaded upon her and stuck to her during the day.  Lying silently upon her lover, there is a calming deep within – an embrace of worth that answers that question: am I wanted? Am I loved? Am I?

How much more when you choose to rest your head upon the chest of the Divine Lover? God murmurs “shhhh” as all of your problems and anxieties melt into Him.  He holds you until you calm your spirit and you start listening to His heartbeat.  The warmth of His smile, the softness of His embrace, the joy of His Presence saturates your soul and enlivens your dulled spirit.  And you listen.  To begin with, the heartbeat seems intrusive and loud, until you calm right down and go with it.  Your breathing becomes deeper.  Your muscles relax and the rhythm begins to calm – a constant only you are aware of. 

Be still and Know that I am God, I will be exalted amongst the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

– Psalm 46:10

How can the desire of the Divine Lover be known amongst the nations, unless His people today will still themselves to spend time with their Lover?

Practical sidenote:

I actually found a relaxation app which plays a constant heartbeat sound very useful in calming my spirit to listen to His Spirit.  I used it as I focused on God in my quiet times and it enabled me to  still myself before Him and enjoy His presence.  

Connected blogposts: 

Journaling as a tool for Hearing God's Voice
Be Still 

Restoring what the locusts had eaten

Today was a beautiful day.  It was a day where my spirit could not help but praise God.  It was a day of redemption.

Monday morning I dreamt of a huge insect sitting in a devastated field.  My son Joel (God has such a good sense of humour…) woke me and immediately I asked God what the insect was and the word ‘locust’ came to mind.  We spent Monday morning prayer time asking God to restore to us the things in our lives that the locusts had eaten.  (Joel 2)

Last week, God did a deep work of forgiveness in me as I blogged about then, and today I know why and just how deep it was. 

I was awoken at 2.15am by our friends, who were in labour with their first child.  Because the baby was breech-transverse and with a cord around the neck, there was no option but C-section and we raced through amber lights to the emergency of a small hospital in Lima centre.  My friend’s personal doctor was unable to attend the birth, and neither were any of her staff, so I had the privilege of being able to enter the operating room instead of her doctor (her doctor was going to have a non-medical role!!).  I was able to film the whole thing and support her and her husband during the different stages of the birth and post-natal bonding.

God set it up.

Judah (who lives up to his meaning ‘praise’) was programmed in to be born tomorrow.  Everything was set, and my friends’ doctor would be back in town.  But just over 24 hours early, right on his due date, Judah/God decided it was time. 

And I am humbled that I found favour with Him to be able to be part of the birth and support them through it all. 

And reflecting this evening, I saw just how much God had restored today.  He allowed my nearly identical but unprepared c-section experience in that same hospital just 14 months ago to pave the way for my friends’ preparation and my ability to help guide during the day.  And He also allowed me to see how much my attitude towards the medical staff had changed.  The fruit of the work of forgiveness in me. 

If today had happened before that forgiveness process I would have been in battle mode – trying to push my friends’ preferences on the doctors – trying to fight for them.  But instead, we prayed, I spoke up respectfully and kindly to the medical staff and God melted their hearts towards us and opened doors.  His peace surrounded the day. 

And God began to help me see my c-section birth in a different light too.  And snuggled up at bedtime tonight to my big 14-month old baby who is becoming a little boy, sensitive and calm and joyful, my heart began to be overwhelmed with thanks for everything God did for me during his birth.  Everything that I was too fearful, or angry or confused to be able to acknowledge at the time.  

And to see my dear friends at peace because God prepared them so well, and remembering Kaleb’s birth and the sacrifice that a c-section was for me at the time, makes me realize once again, that God’s perspective is so much greater. I am so glad that He knows best and that I submitted to Him in it all. 

‘I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten –
    the great locust and the young locust,
    the other locusts and the locust swarm–
my great army that I sent among you.
You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
    and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
    who has worked wonders for you;

Joel 2:25-26

And today – I am full.