Born to be Reborn

I remember it like it was yesterday. Twenty two years ago today, I was in the hospital suffering from toxemia. I was twenty three years old. I was forty two weeks pregnant. I weighed 168 pounds. I had no clue what toxemia was or what was going to happen, so truly, I was not afraid.
Sometimes you're just to dumb to know any better.
At 10:00 A.M. the doctor decided to induce my labor with Castor oil which I immediately threw up and crawled back into bed. I continued watching Disney's Gus on TV.

Don't you just love remember when stories, especially when they are not yours. Usually when someone begins to share a remember when, I ask myself, "what does this have to do with me?" I try to see if there is something in the story that can help me. We are all on a journey. If we see someone dip or rise in the horizon, we should stop and pay close attention and learn how to follow or lead.

At 1:30 P.M. the doctor returned to my room to do another procedure which produced no results. At 3:00 P.M. he decided to break my water. I walked across the hallway to the delivery room and was told to get ready. My husband was still at work. Now, I was getting scared. By 4:00 P.M. I was strapped to the bed and it was time to push. Tony had finally arrived. Other than the pains from pushing, I was not feeling the contractions. My legs and hips hurt tremendously, however. (Some years later, I would find out about a condition I have that caused that pain). I pushed and pushed and begged and pleaded. After four hours of pushing, Hannah Grace was born weighing in at 8 pounds 13 ounces and 19 inches long. Her eyes were swollen. She looked like a little sumo wrestler. But I was overjoyed!
The nurse asked me her name. 
"Precious, she is precious," I kept repeating.
"Is that her name?" the nurse asked.
"No, No, it's Hannah Grace," was my tearful reply.

You see some months before, when I found out I was pregnant, I began praying. I asked God for a baby girl. I had had a sonogram two days earlier while in the hospital. My husband thought he saw a "turtle," so he thought we were going to have a boy. I alone knew about my prayers for a girl and was rejoicing in God that He had answered my prayers.

This was not the first time God had answered yes to a prayer of mine, but it was the first time I truly realized His love in doing so.

"My God, my Father, hears me, answers me, because He loves me, just like I love this little one I am holding," were my thoughts.

From that day on my view of our relationship was different. I had finally been allowed to join the parent club and could have true understanding of what a parent feels and how a parent loves and protects. I know longer viewed God as just the Author, Authority and Disciplinarian. He was now Wonderful, Counselor and Caregiver. I could truly feel Him presenting Himself to me as a Parent, The Parent-The Abba Father spoken of in Romans 8:15-16.

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear: but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.  The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."

Then, I began the recovery process. First, I sat on ice for twenty four hours. Then, I learned how to nurse this child. My husband and I took her home two days later. She slept during the day and stayed awake all night. The first night home, I sat with her on my lap looking at a children's book, wishing for sleep and praying for God to tell how to tend to this screaming, wiggling mess. I HAD NO CLUE! Over the next twenty two years He would teach me the joys, and pains of being a parent and a child. He blessed me with the a desire to journal it all. Looking back over those pages, I can season them with His Word and share them in the hopes that others will learn to be delivered from self and selfishness to view Him as Abba. The day my Gracie was born was the day I saw my Father's face. You might say she was born so I could be reborn.