Know-Love-Obey God

The mother knows it as labor and childbirth, but the child in the womb only knows that the surrounding pressures are suddenly much more than the gentle, preparatory squeezes we call Braxton-Hicks. For the first time, this child lives something alarmingly different than the usual swaying in a calm womb. What has more determination than uterine muscles that know the work they must do? They flex and contract to pull open the cervix, and no force is strong enough to stop them. Open a way for that baby. Get that baby out.

The child cannot stay in the womb, his comfort zone. Transition happens—must happen—or birth and new life (much less growth) will never occur. The mother truly labors, and it is hard work. She does not tense against the contractions but cooperates with them, knowing they have their work to do. Open a way for that baby. She closes her eyes in the dim room, relaxes her jaw, moans low.

Baby’s coming. He makes his passage through the birth canal. He has never known anything like this, and it is a hard journey. In his emergence he feels cold air on his skin and in his lungs. Rooting, he immediately seeks comfort at mother’s breast. Then, he rests. He is a newborn, and he doesn’t do much more than eat and sleep. He has had the pressures of birth, and now he spends much of his life sleeping. Resting.

Sometimes in marriage, we experience deeply challenging and refining times. God reveals core issues and shows us changes that we must make. What comes out is like a new marriage—a new birth. Then, like the newborn who must rest after enduring the intense pressures and changes of birth, I have felt subdued, calm, and reeling (in a good way) from what the Lord has done in our marriage. And I want to rest deeply for a while.

We will grow and learn again, experiencing long periods of increasing strength and calm nourishment, like a child in the womb. And because birth must happen, God will bring another refining time, pointing out sore spots and weak areas in need of refining. In time we will have another tranisition, travailing again through conviction, confession, humility, submission, and change. We will not resist God but cooperate with Him, for we know the work He must do. In this marriage, He is making us more like Himself. He is determined in His love for us, and no force is strong enough to stop Him.

We come out renewed and more deeply in love. In this way we will continue, until death do us part.

(This is not your typical starry-eyed love story, but refining times are part of the deep love of a lasting, growing marriage. We have come out of the refining. We have come out good as gold.)

For the High Calling Blogs community, we are sharing our love stories. See Ann Kroeker’s post.