This time of waiting.

Mary waiting for her time to come –

for the Maker  of Life to join in our life,

for Hope to emerge from her body.

Waiting nervously to experience the curse of women: pain in childbirth.

The Prince of Peace—Son of God

bringing redemption to humankind enters the world with a reminder of our curse.

You don’t have to be a grown up woman for long to begin hearing accounts of the pains of childbirth.

All mothers have a story. “We rushed out the door – 12 hours of labour – in a water bath – ended in a C-section – the cord was wrapped around his neck!”

But these may be among the most painless of the pains of childbirth.

What about the “we’ve tried for 7 years” sorts of stories or the “we can’t find any sort of heart beat… I’m sorry” sorts of pains of childbirth…

What about the stories like, “I’ve dreamed of babies since I was a girl but I never found the right person.” Or the one that goes something like,”we took a taxi from the hospital because the baby’s father wouldn’t even bother himself to give us a ride home.” Or “I wasn’t capable of controlling my addictions and they never even let me hold my baby.”

There is so much pain that comes with childbirth.

But out bursts baby Jesus – with the help of brave Mary’s painful labouring.

And when that happened something changed.

It all suddenly mattered and didn’t matter.

Someone cared about our suffering but our suffering didn’t define us.

The most living, vibrant, vulnerable form of God’s love burst right into the messy, chaotic, bloody world and gave us an answer to our curse.

The Creator of the Universe loves us and wants us and the perfect blend of mercy and justice that will make things right and so very good is coming.

It’s just a time of waiting.

So, in these little times of waiting,

waiting for my miscarriage to start…

waiting for it to end…

There is Hope. Emmanuel.

God is with us.