Preggers

No, I am NOT pregnant.  In my day (haha), we called it prego.  My younger friends call it preggers.  Both drive Dan crazy.  Cracks me up. 

Let me restate: I am NOT pregnant.  But I can remember it all too well.  From the morning sickness, to the mysterious disappearance of the belly-button, to the day you realize you can’t see your toenails, much less paint them.  To this day, Sprite and saltine crackers make me nauseous, and if I hear a Strawberry Shortcake song I throw up a little in my mouth.  (Carson watched Strawberry Shortcake movies nonstop while I spent every day in the bathroom vomiting, prego with Callie.) 

Anyone I met while pregnant I wanted to give a written disclaimer.  Something like, “Please do not hold my personality, my temperament, my mouth, my appetite (or lack thereof), my opinions (or lack thereof), or my seeming disinterest (just cuz I’m sleepy) against me.  You see, I’m pregnant.  And that means I’m not quite myself.  I’ll be back, and please hold all attempts to get to know me ‘til then.  Thank you.” 

I ran into a friend from high school this week who is eight months pregnant.  Seriously, her body looked the same as when we were on dance team together – only with a soccer-ball-sized bump protruding from the belly area.  That was NOT me.  Every part of my body that could get bigger GOT bigger when I was pregnant.  (My feet never shrank back.  I wear a size and a half bigger shoe now than I did before my first pregnancy.)

I remember being pregnant the first time, with our Camryn, and meeting our church’s new pastor and his wife.  Dan & I served the church as youth & children’s ministers, respectively, and we were beyond excited that the Lord had called a young couple to pastor us and partner with us. Since we had a thirty-minute commute (one way) from church to home, they were kind enough to invite us to spend each Sunday afternoon with them at the parsonage.  So we’d eat lunch together, and hang out at their house for a few hours before all walking back down the sidewalk for Sunday night church.  It was the beginning of a friendship we still cherish to this day.  But it would’ve been so much more if I had been actually been myself the first eight months of it.

Because for the first eight months of our friendship, I was pregnant me, not me me.  One week I’d clean my plate and ten minutes later go rummaging in their frige & pantry looking for more.  The next week I’d sit in front of a full plate of food I’m sure she spent hours preparing… It may as well have been dog food.  I couldn’t touch it – even look at it – or I knew I’d get sick.  I remember sitting on their couch on Sunday afternoons listening to my new friend talk about being a mom, about ministering to the young women in town, and about the LORD… and wanting so badly to engage and learn.  BUT drifting to sleep!   I remember going with them to a deacon family’s home for coffee, pie, and a deep conversation about theology and missions and reaching the unreached – ALL stuff I love! – but all I could think the entire time was, “Oh snap I don’t know where their bathroom is and I really need to throw up.”

I was not myself when I was pregnant.

After that night Dan & I came up with hand signals for “I need to leave NOW.”

It’s hard to get to know someone when they’re not themselves.  And I really hate that, because she’s an amazing woman I wish I’d gotten to know so much more. 

I say all that to say, a friend asked me last weekend if the months leading up to the Journey Campus launch have taken a toll on me personally.  I laughed, and then sighed, and answered, “Yes.  Yes, they have.”

I’m not here to share all the gory details of how this journey has affected me.  (Like real pregnancy, I’ll gladly share openly when I know a friend is going the same thing and needs someone to tell her she’s not going crazy.)  The people that make up the Journey Campus family are the hardest working people I’ve ever known, hands down.  In the most accurate sense, we are all HUGELY pregnant… our due date is only two days away!  The preparations made for a new life have required countless hours of work, and it’s all not completely ready yet!  Yet all that work, all these late nights, all these pains and swellings and discomforts…. PALE IN COMPARISON to the joy that new life will bring.

So if you’ve tried to get to know me since last August, you should know, I haven’t been myself.  I’ve been more like pregnant me, than me me.  Me me is much nicer, gentler, more peaceful, and has a cleaner house!  (Well, technically I’ll be a mom of a newborn, so I’m not promising much!)  One thing I spent time doing while pregnant each time I don’t regret.  I started writing to our expected baby girl, in a journal all her own, which I’ve added to over the years and look forward to sharing with each of them one day. 

This may be incredibly cheesy, but a mom has an understood right to be just as cheesy as her little heart desires.  Tweaking excerpts from the letters I wrote to our daughters before they were born, and throwing in a few new thoughts, here is my rendition of a letter to our expected one –

Dear Journey Campus,

As crazy as we are about you already, we acknowledge that you don’t belong to us – you belong to the Lord!  You were bought at a price.  Never forget, dear child.  He has great plans for you.

We don’t remember what life was like before the thought and expectation of you!

As has been the pattern in our lives so far, God’s timing, not our own, brought about your sweet arrival.  You should know, we’ve been running around like mad getting everything ready for your birth, with ten million other things going on at the same time in our lives.  But as Corrie ten Boom once said, “There is no safer place than in the center of God’s will.”  He is always right on time. 

Your name was chosen prayerfully. We have learned that a relationship with God is not a destination, but a process… a journey, in fact.  The Lord Jesus, when He called His first believers to Himself, said, “Come, follow me…”  Our goal is to reach people and lead them into the most magnificent journey of all time – a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.  We pray that for years to come, your name will be a constant reminder to stay true to who He created you to be.

Though Pastor Dan and I love you more than you’ll ever know, we know that we will not parent perfectly.  We will mess up from time to time.  We pray each and every time we do, that God grants you the grace to forgive – even forget – and draws you to know HIM as your Father. 

It amazes me that you’re real.  That this is really happening. And that I have so much to do with you’re going to be – that scares me to death, so I’m praying that the Lord will take over my role and be in complete control of your life.

Know that Pastor Dan & I pray for you every day – sometimes together and sometimes individually – but we pray that He will take your life – this precious new life that He has created and entrusted to our care – and do great and mighty things for His kingdom.

We’re really ready for you to be here!  I mean, we’re still waiting on some signs and cards to come in, and we’ll probably stay up all weekend finishing up details – but our hearts are ready.  We’re ready to see you and to hold you and to love you.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the message to be preached on the day of your arrival is called PROVIDER.  The Lord has provided in an astounding way, both through the creativity and the generosity of His people – such beautiful things!!!! The Lord has used His people to give so generously to welcome you… and He has opened doors we never dreamed to ask for!

But we want you to know that its not about all those things – It is HIM that matters.  He is a God - THE God - of second chances. That’s the only reason I could be writing this letter.

You are His.  And I am so extremely, incredibly thankful for beautiful you.  And we can’t wait to see you…

As a side note, I actually have just as many random food cravings pregnant or not, but when pregnant I admit them and demand someone (Dan) do something about them.  If I’d only thought of this correlation between expecting a new child & expecting a new church earlier, I might could’ve gotten away with it these past nine months as well!  This may be the only part of pregnancy I miss. (: