This Birthing Thing? It’s Messy. Yet Beautiful.

Yesterday, I danced to Christmas music with my girls in the kitchen. (FYI – Jingle Bell Rock is super fun until someone falls and gets hurt.)

Before any (minor) injuries occurred, the moment didn’t pass without the realization of how blessed I am — how blessed we all are this Christmas. Even if you are not much for celebrating this year — sickness, missing family, hardships — know I have prayed for you to find peace this holiday.

However, even if it’s a tough Christmas this year, we do have something to celebrate.

Because God.

This week is the celebration of the birth of our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, our Prince of Peace.

Babies are born everyday. And Christmas comes every year. So sometimes, between all the shopping and decorations and baking, details are forgotten. For example, if you’ve never experienced labor and delivery, I’m here to tell you — it’s messy.

Birth is messy. There’s pain, blood and tears. But out of it comes something beautiful. 

It’s funny, how even before the first minutes of new life, there’s pain to go through. But eventually, something beautiful arrives. Very much like our everyday lives.

This time of year is a celebration. But I don’t think we can afford to forget how messy life was right before the birth of Hope. People had made the relationship with their God complicated and messier than originally intended.

And let’s not forget the details of Mary’s life. She undoubtedly dealt with pain and ridicule for being an unwed pregnant girl — messy. Then there was the actual birth in a barn — messy. (Side note: Mary, giiirrrrlll… I’m so sorry you didn’t have the luxury of modern medication. It could have been a little more enjoyable for you, had there been a stellar nurse anesthetist hanging out in the stable that night. But I guess that would take away from a big part of your story, huh? Either way… I’m sorry.)

But then, after that mess, a beautiful and very real child. A very real God.

I’m working hard to not let that significance pass unnoticed.

As I type this (one-handed), I’m holding an infant in my arms. It was messy getting her here, but now? She’s beautiful. It’s beautiful.

Though, looking at little Rockie May, it’s hard for me to imagine Heaven’s Perfect Lamb in her place — swaddled and cuddled up to His mama’s chest. The great I AM, wrapped in cloth while Mary desperately tried to keep Him warm and comfortable.

I wonder if He had head full of hair like all my little ones, and whether He preferred to be bounced or rocked? Did He scream all night long like my oldest child or was He more like my second and peacefully sleep through the night hours? What about when He grew a few years worth — did He prefer to play and wrestle with friends outdoors or to sit quietly and read or create art?

Regardless… the Lord of all creation was a child a one point. A very real human. God — God! —  made man at humanity’s weakest and most humble point — a baby. Just so you and I could be made right with our Creator again.

When I refuse to glaze past this holiday and all the commercialized hoopla around it, this blows my mind.

Friend, I pray our minds and hearts are blown this Christmas with the messy details of what Christmas really is.

And then I pray we dance in celebration.
(Maybe just not to Jingle Bell Rock. *wink*)

Merry Christmas!

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
(Isaiah 9:6)