The Wonder of the Incarnation

Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love Christmas so much that I have been known to bust out the Christmas music in October. My husband loves Thanksgiving, so he makes sure we don't let his favorite holiday get eclipsed by the Christmas creep. If it were up to me, we would start spreading the Christmas cheer November 1. But alas.

As I've gotten older, Christmas has become more and more meaningful to me. Maybe it's the abundance of childhood memories I can draw upon every time I decorate the Christmas tree with thirty years worth of ornaments from my mom. Maybe it's the excitement of watching (and reciting) A Charlie Brown Christmas one more time. But I think it's something even more than that. Christmas continues to move me because I've grown in my love for the Savior we celebrate. Christmas moves me because, as our pastor said last Sunday, it's about the greatest miracle that ever happened--the eternal Word became flesh. God became a man. And not just a man, but a baby.

The wonder of Christmas for me is not in the traditions, decorating, presents, or even time with family (though these are all wonderful blessings I greatly enjoy). The wonder of Christmas is in the amazing reality of the incarnation. The God who made and sustains everything humbled himself by becoming a little baby so he could rescue us from our sins.

What good news!

So as I begin this Advent season, I want to take this in and treasure it for all it is worth. I want to marvel at the kindness of God to send his Son for us. I want to worship at the feet of this Christ, who made himself nothing so we could have everything. I want to sing the familiar Christmas tunes with greater zeal because my heart has been stirred to see Christ in greater measure. And I want to long for his return again.

Christmas is truly the most wonderful time of the year.

Because Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year (in my opinion!), this is the first in a series of posts about the wonder and anticipation of Christmas. Stay tuned for more!

So, You Had a Baby?

Whenever a celebrity has a baby the media immediately begins the dreaded waiting game before the poor woman has even checked out of the hospital. You know the game. Will she or won’t she lose all that baby wait—and in what length of time? While I wanted to buck the trend, I was just as delusional in the days leading up to the arrival of my twin boys. I wanted to look like I didn’t have twins. I wanted people to look at me and say “you don’t look like you had twins at all!”

How selfish of me!

In God’s kindness, and nature’s reality, that was hardly the case for me. Instead of basking in the praises of people who couldn’t believe I had just given birth to twins, not a day went by during our five week stint at the hospital that someone didn’t ask me when it would be my turn to come deliver my baby. And this lasted long after we brought them home.

I had twins. And I looked like it.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. If eating a Big Mac every Sunday after church kept me from throwing up on the way home, then you better believe Momma was going to eat a Big Mac. The last thing I was thinking about was my ridiculous goal of being the width of a stick post-pregnancy. I just wanted to keep down dinner. And eat what sounded good.

As I’ve worked through the emotions, and come back to reality, about this whole post-baby body thing, I have grown to love what these boys did to me. Right after they were born I dealt with some serious separation issues about the fact that they weren’t with me any longer. Of course, it was made worse by the fact that they physically weren’t with me for five weeks and medically speaking they should have still been inside of me. But now that they are growing, healthy, and amazing little boys the reality of my post-baby body is a story about how they came to be.

Here’s the deal. And it’s taken a while for me to come to this conclusion. I had babies. Why shouldn’t my body bear the marks of such a wonderful feat? We live in a culture that prizes perfection and hates children. We want them, we just don’t want the changes they bring. The fact is the change is part of life.

Our bodies are never going to be perfect this side of Eden. And our endless pursuit of a perfect body, especially post-pregnancy, is very much in vain.

Your stretch marks, extra skin and pudge around the middle, and bags under your eyes are all evidence of something beautiful—the life that grew inside of you. The life that bears the image of our God.

Our society’s obsession with the perfect body and looking like we never had kids is for naught. They are trying to get perfection without the perfect One. It’s not possible. They want to go back to the glory of Eden, but reject the Christ who himself makes us whole. We know another way. We know that this life is not all there is. One day we will have perfect bodies. But it won’t be here. And it won’t be by our own efforts. No amount of running or the 30 Day Shred can remove the fact that this old body of ours is decaying. It’s not the final story.

Until that day, our imperfect bodies are reminding us that another one is coming. But they are also reminding us that with these old, decaying bodies of ours God is bringing new life into the world, life that exists to bring glory to his name. When Adam named his wife Eve, he called her the mother of all living. Out of her life would come. And as women, we get to do the same thing.

So when I try to put on my old jeans and realize that there is a little extra skin that wasn’t there before, I don’t want to begrudge it. And I don’t want to pretend like it’s not a big deal either. Out of a decaying body God has brought forth life. He is making all things new.

How to Help Your Infertile Friend: Take Her to God

When I thought about the myriad of ways to best help an infertile person one thing kept running through my mind over and over.

Take her to God.

The pain of infertility, like the journey of the Christian life, can be so cyclical. One day you feel amazing and hopeful. The other you want to curl up in a ball on the floor and cry until there are no tears left.

But taking the infertile person to God can often be a tricky thing. What the infertile woman needs, like I have already said, is not more over-generalizations about her circumstances. And reciting theology to her can come across as that way--even though a healthy theology is necessary for dealing with the sorrow of infertility. But good theology must come before the trial, so you have a sure footing when everything else around you is shifting sand. In the midst of the trial it can sound like pithy one-liners to sensitive ears.

In my miscarriage series, I said that one of the best ways to help your friend in her loss is to know her--really know her. This will give you the opportunity to know when to speak and when to listen. This will give you insight into her soul and help you know what she needs in any given moment. Sometimes the infertile person needs to know that God loves them. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But when your womb is empty, the absence of a dearly longed for baby can feel like the very nature of hatred from God. Assure her that it isn't. Maybe she needs to know that God always keeps his promises. The Bible is full of examples of God keeping his promises to his weary saints. Remind her of that wonderful truth. Maybe she needs to know that infertility doesn't have the final word in her life. Yes, her body (or her husband's body) is broken. Yes, it feels like evil is prevailing over her right now. But it won't be that way forever. The cross is the promise that the evil that seems to be winning right now will one day be eradicated and we will be given new bodies in the new heavens and the new earth.

The reality is that none of these things will take the pain away ultimately. And these aren't concrete answers for every situation. They are merely examples of the varying ways a woman needs to know that God is for her, not against her in her infertility. But what I hope you take away from this short series on helping your infertile friend is that what suffering people need more than anything is God. They need to know that you love them and that God loves them. They need to know that you won't leave them and that God will never leave them. They need to know that you are with them for the long-haul. And so is God.

Infertility is full of complexities. And every case is different. As you seek to help your infertile friend in whatever stage of the trial she is in, ask God to give you the grace to love her well. As I already said, God delights in giving good things to his children. And by his grace, may you be that good thing for your suffering friend.

How To Help Your Infertile Friend: Treat Her Like a Normal Person

One of the most helpful things you can do for your infertile friend is to treat her like a normal person. Infertility has a way of making you feel like a freak of nature. What an infertile person needs to know is that infertility does not define them. They are not less than human because they cannot conceive. Their womanhood is not determined by a pregnant belly or a house full of children. They need to know that they are just as normal as the next woman.

When everyone around them is sharing news of another pregnancy, this truth can be hard to hold on to because the reality is that their body (or their husband's body) is not functioning like it was made to. They often feel this acutely. But what they need help seeing is that their biological failure is not a personhood failure. Their identity as God's child is not tied to what their broken body can or cannot do. This is why they need you to come along side them and treat them like their life is just as valuable and exciting even in the midst of a profound suffering.You can have a tremendous impact on our hurting friend by treating them like they are as human as you are.

So how do you do that?

Obviously, this varies from person to person, but one way I felt "normal" with my friends is that they expressed interest in the things that interested me. It might seem really small, but infertility can be an all consuming experience. From doctor's visits to charts and tests, it can often feel like your life is one big experiment. My friends helped me get outside of that experience by caring about the other things that I really loved.

Another thing is that they didn't shy away from was sharing their lives with me. It can be hard to share exciting baby news or the details of your potty training experiences with a friend who desperately wants a child of her own, but nothing makes an infertile person feel more abnormal than when he or she knows someone is intentionally holding back about their own children. Like I said in my last post, carefully composed words require knowing your friend, but so does knowing when to share your life with them. An infertile person can feel very alone at times and refraining from sharing your life with her for fear of making her pain worse can only make her feel more alone. Infertile people are very aware of the myriad of babies that are always seeming to pop up right in front of them, so you probably won't be sharing anything with her that she isn't already acutely aware of.

As you walk this road with your hurting friend she will be greatly served by you remembering that there is really very little that separates you from her. While you may be able to conceive with ease, you both bear the image of Christ and find your identity in him alone. Standing on this truth will help you see her as a normal person in need of eyes of faith to see her Savior in the midst of her pain.

How to Help Your Infertile Friend: Part 1

It's been over a year since God opened my womb and gave us these twin boys, which means it's been over a year since I've felt the daily sting of infertility. All throughout our struggle to get pregnant, and in the months following our pregnancy, I have wanted to write something that would help others know how to help their friends in this difficult trial. I have written about how to help after miscarriage and I have written to the infertile woman, but I have never written to an outsider looking in on the infertile couple. There are a number of reasons for that. In the midst of our journey I never felt like I could really pinpoint the most helpful things. We were truly upheld by so many dear people, but in the moment I never wanted to come out swinging against the ones who maybe didn't know exactly how to help. During infertility was not the best time for me personally to write about it. I felt like God had more work to do on my own heart before I could write about it.

But as I am now farther removed from it, my prayer is that I can help those who earnestly desire to encourage their weary friends as they walk this hard road of infertility. Here is part one.

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Choose Your Words Carefully

This can apply to many situations that have nothing to do with infertility, which is why I mention it first. As believers, we know that our words matter. We know that our words have value for another. And we know that our words can either bring life or bring death to a person's soul.

Nowhere is this more important to recognize than when you are dealing with a suffering person. And infertility is a form of suffering. For the infertile, there are days where the reality that she cannot get pregnant is right on her shoulder, screaming lies into her head. Lies like "you aren't really a woman." "This defines you." "You have no purpose because you can't bring life into the world." Carefully composed words can be a healing balm to a discouraged and fainthearted saint.

But another more common temptation when you are helping your infertile friends is the urge to generalize their situation and lump it into every other instance of infertility that you are aware of. I still struggle with this, and I have gone through it! The truth is there are a myriad of reasons why a couple might be infertile. And as their friend, you might want to help find out that reason. While some may know why they can’t get pregnant, some don’t. Some situations require simple procedures to fix the problem. Some require years of treatment that only amount to drained bank accounts and broken hearts. What an infertile couple needs most is not a story about how a friend of a friend got pregnant with the same treatment. That might be true. But for every story of success there is another of failure. This doesn’t mean you never offer advice or insight. Just be careful what you say and when you say it. Sometimes silence is the best policy.

 

And I understand how hard this can be. When I don’t know what to say, I often say too much. I just want to say something, anything, to alleviate the pain. But sometimes removing the pain is not what your friend needs. She might just need empathy. She might just need you to sit with her and cry. But here is one thing I can almost promise you, if you have thought of a reason for why she is infertile, she has probably thought of fifteen more. The infertile woman knows her body (usually) more than she ever wanted to know it. And she understands conception usually better than most.

 

So if your desire is to help your friend, and I trust that it is, understand that a carefully composed word goes a long way. This doesn't mean you have to walk on eggshells around your friend (we will talk about that in another post), but it does mean you think about what you say before you say it. Words, if chosen wisely, can go a long way to helping your suffering friend.

Life With Twins: 8 Months Later

Tomorrow these sweet boys will be 8 months old. I can hardly believe it. Sometimes it feels like yesterday that I saw their precious faces for the first time. And then other times it feels like they have always been part of our lives. We love them so stinking much!

So what is life like with these twinsies? One part crazy. One part totally fun. And equal parts overwhelming joy. I will say, the first 5 or 6 months were really intense. With the first 5 weeks being all things NICU, coupled with the fact that they were pretty much like newborns for the first 4 months of their life, it was exhausting. Then you add the fact that we have never been parents before, and you have a recipe for a little bit of chaos.

Would I do it again? Absolutely.

Around 4 months we realized Luke had some issues with neck rotation and it was confirmed by an occupational therapist and his pediatrician. That explained his flat head (he only slept on one side). He was diagnosed with torticollis, which started us on a busy few months of therapy evaluations, head scans, and doctor visits. He will be in physical therapy until he reaches his important developmental milestones for the first year, and he will be in the helmet about as long, too. Thankfully, we have gotten into a good routine with sitters for Zach, occasionally taking them both to therapy (Luke does better with brother there sometimes), and doing home exercises. At first, I was really sad and overwhelmed with the prospect of more doctor visits for our family. Our life has been doctor visits for the last year or so and I just wanted some normalcy--whatever that means, right?

So what are the twins like?

They are so much fun! They are really happy babies for the most part. They have their usual crabby moments, but who doesn't? They love attention and people. And they especially love women and little girls. They have really started to notice each other and "talk" to each other. I love it and can't wait to see them interact more and more! Luke is much more vocal than Zach, though they both like to talk. Luke often talks himself to sleep at night time and talks himself awake in the morning. They smile all of the time. My favorite moment with them is when I go get them from naps or in the morning. They go crazy in their cribs with excitement!

They really want to move. Just this week they both have started getting on their knees and elbows and started rocking. They roll everywhere (especially Zach) and they can scoot backwards and with their legs (while their head is down), but they often get frustrated when they can't move. They both sit up well and love being able to see the world. Luke's physical therapist told me yesterday that some babies have little interest in moving, but that is not him at all, nor is it true of his brother. They cannot wait to move, though mommy is fine with them waiting a little longer! Honestly, their drive to move doesn't surprise me at all. Luke was very active when I was pregnant with them. I don't think he ever stopped moving. Zach was active, too, but nothing like Luke was.

They also aren't as cuddly anymore because they want to move. The other day they wanted to cuddle before naps and I ate up every minute of it because it rarely happens anymore. I miss it!

Growth wise they are catching up nicely. The doctor said they are doing exactly what they should be doing. Zach is still bigger than Luke, but they both are ahead of the curve, which is what we want. They love eating solids! That is a huge prayer answer for me because bottle feeding has been a bit of a challenge at times and I was terrified to introduce something new. I think they like solids better than bottles! And Zach has a tooth coming through, so that explains his fussiness the last few weeks! I am sure Luke is not far behind.

People often asking me what the hardest part of having twins is, and while I have nothing to compare it to, I think the fact that I can't hold them both at the same time is the most challenging. Having two kids is not unique to many moms, but having two infants is. And the fact that they both need to be transported by my arms poses a challenge sometimes, especially when there are over 35 pounds of baby between the two of them. I suppose it is good that I am learning how to share my love and attention early on because that is just part of being a mom, but it does kill me sometimes that I can't pay attention to both of them at the same time. If I could multiply my arms and my affection I would be golden!

So that is where we are at with these boys of ours. Most days my eyes well up with tears thinking about God's kindness to us. I remember vividly the many months and years of begging God for a child, just one child to call my own. And in his kindness he gave me two precious, precious boys. I try to remember that especially when I feel like I am losing my mind with exhaustion and sinful lack of patience. I cannot imagine any other life than the one I have right in this moment. I love these boys with every fiber of my being. They are such a gift to Daniel and me. And we can't believe how far they have come!

Finding Joy Again

Many of us can remember a time in our life when we experienced great joy in the Lord. Perhaps it was at the time of your conversion, or in the months after. Your eyes are suddenly opened to the truth of God's word. You see Christ as supremely valuable. And you can't get enough of learning about the glories of Christ. Joy is abounding.

We have all been around new believers and seen their excitement. In many ways, the zeal they have for the Lord reminds us of young lovers. It's new. It's endless. And they want nothing more than to spend every waking moment with the One who purchased them and made them a new creation. New love is the same way. Weddings have a way of reminding us of the love we have for our own spouse. Why? Because weddings are full of joy, anticipation, and fresh encounters with love. It's infectious.

But we all can relate to feeling dry and brittle towards the Lord, too. If we were truly honest, we often look longingly at our early days as a believer and long for the fresh zeal and wonder that captured our hearts. Like a wife who is losing affection for her husband, we know acutely what it feels like to go to God's word and feel nothing. The early days of anticipation and abundant emotions are fading fast.

The psalmist, David, understood this human predicament well. Whether our dryness is owing to sin, circumstances, or a combination of it all, there are many days where we need God to restore to us the joy of our own salvation (Psalm 51:12). We come to him in prayer and in his word and we cry out for something, anything, that will resemble the joy we know is possible.

But here is the promise. God will do it. Maybe not in the moment. Maybe not even in the month. But he will give us joy. With each passing day of slowly plugging along, we must not give up hope. The dryness of today will give way to the unending joy of tomorrow if we simply trust that the God who gave us joy once will surely give it again. Even more than that, in the driest of moments he is sustaining us. David knew that he didn't just need God to restore his joy, but he also needed grace for each passing day. Sometimes God acts immediately, making our hearts alive to him again. And sometimes, he holds back. But he never leaves us alone. His grace is sustaining us even in the darkness.

So if you find yourself asking God for a renewed sense of wonder at all he has done for you in Christ, and you come up shorter than you had hoped, take heart, dear Christian. The coldness of today is not the end of the story. Faithfulness is key. And God will act. In the same way that he gave you a new heart and joy in his salvation the first time, he will do it still.