Forty

Starling just finished up her fortieth day of mortal life. 40. The number that, in scripture, represents a lengthy period of time — often full of trial, testing and cleansing.

There has certainly been no real length to this particular span of forty. (In fact, the second Starling was born a fierce wind came whipping up from behind and, despite all our desperate grasping onto every stable thing, pushed and rushed and tumbled us forward to today. And it’s blowing still.) 

But, it may be that there has been some degree of testing and trial in this forty.

Labor, it recently occurred to me, has never been simply the start of bringing a new child here, but a reminder of what all of life has been and all of what it will continue to be as I add a new soul to our journey: Periods between contractions when all feels calm, and right, and well, and I can’t recall what any prior fuss was about. And then the contractions themselves . . . when everything feels hard and painful and every bit of my focus is needed to continue forward — trusting in an eventual, perfect delivery.

Despite (or perhaps more accurately because of) those periods of intense contractions in all this rather demanding business of mothering ten children, I've been realizing, a bit to my surprise, that I haven't -- as mothers so often tend to worry -- in any way lost myself. Despite limited time to pursue other opportunities or to develop certain talents, it is in tying myself to and raising these specific children that God has worked some of His most personal work in the process of my becoming. Here, in the space of raising these children, has existed perhaps my most-significant, divinely-appointed training on the path to who I am meant to eternally be. 

Matthew 16:25 -- For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 

And so . . . bring on all the 40s I guess! And hurrah for this most recent one!