PUSH THROUGH THE PAIN AND DELIVER!

-GALATIANS 6:9

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

I realized for the first time today, that even though I am the biological mother of two beautiful children, I have never actually experienced the pain of child birth.  Both of my pregnancies were difficult, in that I pretty much had nine months of morning sickness, and I also had Toxemia when I was pregnant with my son and Gestational Diabetes when I was pregnant with my daughter.  My son was also close to 11lbs and I am a pretty petite woman, only 5ft. tall, which made it impossible for me to deliver him naturally.  I wasn’t that radiant, glowing, beautiful pregnant woman that people are always talking about.  I was miserable, sick and cranky for the entire nine months of both of my pregnancies.  I just figured God was being merciful to me because of my awful pregnancies and cut me a little slack by allowing me to deliver my babies through Cesarean Section.

I’ve always been thankful to have missed out on that whole painful experience, the idea of pushing something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a walnut was terrifying to me.   But I’m starting to realize that in missing out on that experience, I also missed out on the opportunity to know what it feels like to push through the pain of bringing something into the world that you had been nurturing and growing inside of you for an extended period of time. 

One of the things that people who are closest to me often joke about is the fact that I’ve had soooo many different type of jobs.  They would always say that if there’s a job out there that you’re interested in, ask Cherie because she’s probably done it.  I’m not sensitive about it, I can’t be, because it’s true.  In my life I’ve been extremely blessed to have a lot of different jobs, careers and business ventures. I’ve always had a wide variety of interest and I wanted to experience them all.  I don’t regret any of them, because I always say that when you figure out what you don’t want, it takes that much closer to figuring out what you do want.  Also I never want to say that I wasn’t open or too afraid to try new or different things. 

But over the last few years looking back on all of the opportunities that God has given me, I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if I would’ve stuck with some of them longer and pushed through the discomfort when things became difficult or painful.  I realize looking back on my life that historically when things got to be hard for me or took me out of my comfort zone, I would simply quit and move on to the next thing.  If I were working a job and the boss was making my life hard I would just quit, and find another job, not always necessarily in that order.  Even in the case where I myself was the business owner,  if things got to be a little hairy and funding started to run a little scarce or if I had employee problems for example;  I couldn’t actually quit, but I sold my business and went in another direction, which essentially was the same thing.  My point being, I wonder sometimes what would’ve happened and I wish that I knew what the result would’ve been if I had kept on moving forward, pushed through the labor pains long enough to see how God could’ve worked things out for me.  Over the past few years I would often find myself reminiscing with curiosity, thinking about what miracles God might have performed on my behalf to help me deliver my blessing into fruition, if I had only endured and pushed through the pain.

But you know what “they” say; watch what you wish for, because right now, God in his infinite wisdom, is giving me the chance that I have been wishing for. He is giving me the chance to experience the pain of labor and delivery that I had previously missed out on.  I’m not actually pregnant with a child again, so I won’t be experiencing labor and delivery in the literal sense.   However, I do believe that God wants me to actively participate in process of pushing thorough the labor pains and metaphorically birth my dream into existence.    

Right now, if I had to describe my life in a couple of words I would probably hang a sign on it that says, “UNDER CONSTRUCTION”.  I feel like my life is a twisted, messed up ball of tangled yarn.  I feel like my vision is impaired by smoke, I can’t see a clear path in front of me.  I’m learning to walk completely by faith and not by sight.  This is much harder to do than it sounds, because everywhere I turn there is the threat of loss, uncertainty, and a looming forecast of pain brought about by fear.  My job is uncertain, which causes fear of financial insecurity, the dynamics with my close friends and family are changing drastically, some of them may leave my life altogether, this also causes me to feel  the fear of isolation and loneliness.  Lately I’ve been feeling like it’s just me against the world.  For the past several weeks, I’ve dreaded waking up in the morning; I’ve wanted to avoid all contact with the outside world.  It seems that I had let panic and fear become a regular part of my daily routine.  Somehow I had allowed “the enemy” to steal my peace.  And when you give him your peace, you also give him your power.  All of our creative talents live in our soul, and if your soul is not at peace, then we cannot be the creative productive individuals that God put us here to be. 

The adversary that we face every day is very cunning and he is excellent at creating illusions in order to distract us.  He will consistently whisper lies to us and distort the truth in our minds in order to create, fear, and panic and anxiety in our heads.  We become preoccupied with thoughts of worry, thereby destroying any creative thoughts that would eventually bring about productivity and success in our lives.   The bible doesn’t call him “The Arthur of Confusion” for nothing.   His job is to stir chaos in our lives, be it real or imagined.  And although he is persistent, unlike humans, he is not very creative, and most times he doesn’t have to be.   He likes using tactics that have proven to work against us in the past.  And for me, what I’ve suddenly come to realize, through the help of the Holy Spirit, is that one of the easiest ways to get me to stop working, is to get me to start worrying.   

It seems that as soon my life starts to get hard, uncomfortable or painful, if I can’t see the my way through a trial, the way around an obstacle, or figure out a solution to a problem, history shows that I’ve stopped pushing in the middle of the birthing process and subsequently aborted my dream.  But at the beginning of this year, I asked God to help me to become better and go to a higher level in every area of my life.  Remember what I said earlier about being careful about what you ask for?  Because what I’m starting to learn about God is that He rarely gives us what we ask Him for in the obvious form.  For instance, if we ask for an apple, God will give you an apple seed.  If we for money, He gives us a job, and if we ask for more patience He will put you around a person who will try your last nerve.  And for me, He knew that if I ever was going to rise to a higher level in any area of my life, if I wanted to ever see any of the dreams that I have inside of me become a reality, I was going to have to develop more character in the area of persevering through the pain.  I was going to have to learn to stick it out even when things around me are swirling around like a tornado and I feel like I’m in the eye of the storm.  I would have to learn to resolve to stay, even when I didn’t see a way out or an immediate solution.  I believe that God wanted me to decide to trust Him and follow His direction; whether it meant leaving a comfortable place that I was content to stay in or remaining in an uncomfortable situation when all I wanted to do is run away.

During the birthing process, the doctor will tell the soon to be mother to find an object in the room that represents something positive for her and focus on that during the times when she is asked to push, which is the hardest and most painful part of the delivery.  And the closer she gets to the birth, the harder it becomes.  What I have come to believe is this; God doesn’t just want us to persistently push through the pain, He also wants us to use Him, as a focal point. He wants us to focus on Him, and how big He is and not how great our circumstances are.  If we magnify Him and not our problems we won’t become distracted by the pain of our situation and give up prematurely on our dreams.

So for me, I’ve decided to strap in, bear down, take deep breathes, focus on Him, squeeze His hand and push through the pain of labor and deliver the dreams that are inside of me.