Christmas Pain

It's been a very different Christmas. This year, I understand birthdays more fully than ever before. I know what my mom means when she says, "I remember what I was doing 28 years ago today." The worst pain of life, GIVING life. And I find myself remembering all the gory details of Lyla's coming. My brow crinkles just thinking of it, the pressure, the aching, and how the midwife told me to relax my face so the rest of my body would relax too.

I have a better understanding of what Mary went through, giving birth to her first child. The courage and fear that intertwine in those moments. The longing that God would intervene and make the birthing process easier, even though we both probably had clear understanding of the curse of Eve. Pain in childbearing. Thanks a lot, Eve. Ha! But I also think I have a better understanding of how God sustained Mary, so that her pain would become memory, and the joy, hope, and love her Son provides would find room.

Isn't that the same of all pain? The memory may linger, try to criple us for awhile. But then God's great Grace rushes in, filling the emptiness left by pain, by something torn from us. Be it loved one or hope, His healing finds room in us when we recount the ways He carried us through the white-hot pain.

While I'm mostly looking forward to our Elfling's first Christmas and the newness she represents every day, I'm also grateful for the looking back, not just on her birth, but on the birth of our Savior. Hope and promise almost too much for me to comprehend. He was born her Savior too!