My eyes want to close and my body hankers to curl up, to shut out the world and indulge on ignorance.  My heart begins to raise its drawbridge.  My mind lowers its gate.  Everything within me screams, “Keep out!”

Yet in my seemingly fortified castle, there remains something inside, Someone that won’t shut up.  He goes about blaring obnoxious trumpets and declaring promises of faith and expectancy throughout my devastated corridors.  His words pierce me.  I tense up.  Come on, security.  Toughen up.

Still, this voice, I have come to both love and hate, sure knows how to get to the core of me.  As a result, I return to my hideout frustrated and intrigued, “What is this?  Who is this ravishing Intruder?  And why does He make me feel so utterly defenseless even in my attempt to lock everything down?”  Especially in my attempt to shut everything out, He remains in me like a thorn in my flesh…or perhaps, could it more accurately be like an intravenous needle in the flesh of my arm, providing me with vital fluids and medications and keeping me alive and going?

After all, He distributes food to my household, and all I can think about is how He is disrupting my peace.  He works for the sustainability of my fortification, and all I can think about is is why He would even bother.  What is His agenda?  What does He want with me?  Why won’t He just leave me and my castle alone?  And yet amidst the gossip of my doubting mind, this Renegade appears again.  He walks forward boldly.  He is cool and collected and speaks with decisive authority, delivering a message that silences all other thoughts.

“Malia, you have been missing the everyday miracle that is another day with Me.”

The miracle that through, by, and with Him, I am being built up for something great though I insist on hiding in my high tower and praying for things outside to calm down.

The truth is is that I’ve been tired of the same old words and the same old worries.  I am tired of hiding behind my dilapidated words of hope that my situation and circumstances will calm down or at least begin to make sense, and I lay them down to rest.  And stripped and bare, vulnerable and exposed, and the most honest and open I’ve been in a long time, I surrender to the Good Trespasser…the One to whom, I now remember, I actually gave the keys to a long, long time ago.

“There is an Uptown train approaching the station.”

If you’ve ever lived or spent any significant amount of time in New York, you know what I am talking about.  You know the announcer’s voice.  You also know then the relief of slipping through the turnstile, running to the platform, pressing up against a stranger, and then having to tussle your bag from the clutches of the dinging doors.  You know the feeling of your lungs crying out for oxygen while you carefully monitor your inhaling and exhaling as you pretend to not be out of breath and shape.  Oh, you know.

On the other hand, if that’s true, then you likewise know the frustration of hearing the rumble down below, barreling down the station steps, running to the turnstile, and getting knocked in the abdomen with a “Please Swipe Again” flashing up at you.  You know the irritation of pressing up against the dinging doors.  Only this time, you’re on the outside of them.  Looking right and left for the conductor, you make eye contact with him as he hangs his head out of the window.  “Please, sir,” your eyes beg.

“Too bad,” his eyes reply.  Up goes his window and out of sight goes the train.

This past week, another occurrence happened to me.  I missed the train…that was right in front of me.  I wasn’t late, not at all.  There were just too many people already packed inside.  I sashayed from one car to the next to the next to the next.  Every door was still open, but every entrance was impossible to enter.  “Too bad,” the people’s eyes seemed to tauntingly reply.  They all looked so cramped and miserable.  Still, I wanted to be on that train so badly.

The doors soon closed, and just like before and always, up went the conductor’s window and out of sight went the sardine can of a train.

There on the platform, I remained. However, before I had time to even sigh at the prospect of being late, my ears and spirit perked up at the delightful announcement, “There is an Uptown train approaching the station.”  

I let out a sigh, but this one was one of relief.  Sure enough, the next train came whizzing on by.  This one, though, was empty.  Empty!  EMP-TY.  Opening its doors with a heavenly fluorescent glow, I stepped into the subway car with an ample number of seats to choose from.  My bag even got a seat.  I eventually got off a couple stops down to transfer, and the very same thing happened to me again!  The first ridiculously crowded train sped off without me, but the second one welcomed me with open arms and empty seats.

Now, I don’t know what the voice of God sounds like.  I don’t have crazy dreams and there is certainly no divine writing on my apartment walls.  All the same, it’s in the little things, the easily looked over things of my seemingly nonsensical life, in which I am increasingly finding peace and promptings.  It’s in the little things like missing trains I thought I wanted to be on where the Good Conductor looks upon me with the hard but true kind of love.  No words come from his mouth, still I hear Him say, “I am closing these doors because this is not your train.  I am closing these doors because there is something better on its way.  I am closing these doors because I love you.”  

And so with that, I close my eyes.  I breathe deeply and oscillate between offertory I trust you’s and I want to trust you’s and standing on the platform of December 2012, I continue to wait for my train.

I kneel in the bathroom with my hair pulled back as the episodes grow more intense and more frequent.  I drop my head and let out a sigh.  My spirit drops lower.  My soul sighs deeper.  “Morning sickness,” they call it.  Frankly, it feels more like morning death.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, brush my teeth, and continue to get dressed.  I try to go on with the day as usual, but everything is harder.  I move slower.  I fatigue easily.  I don’t even desire the foods that I used to love but instead crave some really weird stuff.  Wonderful.  The thought of turning pickles and ice cream into a human being makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside.  Truly a miracle, I’d say.

I go in for my ultrasound.  The doctor reassures me of the excellent progress.  Apparently this reoccurring incident of my insides wanting to be on the outside is good thing.  Normal.  Healthy.  Riiight.  He then proceeds to give me a snapshot of my baby and directs my attention to the developing fetus.  That?  Really?  I think it looks like a legume.  Great, all this bloating and peeing and mood swinging (which feels, dangerously, like a pendulum blade)…for a bean.  This is all very encouraging.  Glad I came, Doc.  Glad I got pregnant.

I leave the office wanting to throw up, again.  I leave sore and sensitive and want to drink a can of Cheez Whiz.  All the while, this thing remains inside of me.  It weighs me down and gets in the way of everything.  I think on the present, and I become discouraged.  I can’t go on like this for much longer.

So I think on the future.

…And I begin to feel encouraged.  Hope begins to build inside of me as I imagine stroking my baby’s little cheek and giving it Eskimo kisses, as I imagine watching my baby falling off his skateboard or her balance beam for the first time, as I imagine sending my baby into the world to leave his or her mark on it.  I think on the future.  I fight to remain on it, for although the now I am feeling hurts, the later I know will be worth it.  Whatever he or she may look like or turn out to be, I declare it for and over this growing thing inside of me–worth it.

—–

Pregnancy is a fascinating phenomenon.  Now, I’ve never been through it personally (rest assured, this is all metaphorical), and I can’t say that I know what I am talking about.  I don’t claim to.  Still, I’ve had some pregnant friends in this season of life and it’s undeniably one of the most riveting acts to witness something supernatural happening inside of someone in the natural.  That goes without saying, I do not want to make light of the trials and tribulations and pain that often comes with pregnancy.  Even so, an interesting fact I learned this past week is that the first trimester is always the most difficult.  It’s when the majority of morning sickness episodes happen.  It’s also when the majority of abortions and miscarriages happen.

Therefore, as for me and this growing God-sized dream inside of me, I will not abort it.  I will work hard to take care of and foster and, well, endure it.  For though it is just the size of a bean now, I realize this is just the beginning–the sickening and stomach-churning beginning…of something beautiful.