What They Don't Tell You About Love

Do you ever feel like you're stuck on a carnival ride? I do. And it's the spinning teacup one.

By this, I mean quite literally that I feel like I'm constantly about to lose whatever small meal I have just managed to consume. I don't always lose it but the feeling is still there. This is not a metaphor for helpless drowning in a sea of deadlines (those days are behind me), nor is it a clever way of saying that I'm going through a post-graduation crisis. This is, in fact, my current life as an expectant mother still stuck in that dreaded first trimester. Saltines, my bed, and netflix are my most loyal friends. Yep, I'm pregnant.

I did not resurrect this blog or start this post to whine about my physical ailments, so I'll spare you some of the more gruesome details and skip to the point. I have never, ever felt like this in my life, and I'm not just talking about the sickness (though the feeling holds true for that as well). Technically, I have never before been so utterly depended on and so needed, yet in actuality, I have never felt more useless. Let's see if I can sort through those contradictions for you.

When I dreamed of having children, somehow, as we do in most dreams, I skipped over the less savory bits. Pregnancy was probably just an exciting nine months where you guessed your baby's gender, delighted in his or her every kick, felt slightly uncomfortable at the end, and voila: Motherhood. This new "occupation" would of course bring with it a sense of worth, a feeling of importance. I mean, you made a baby. Yeah, it would be difficult at times, but in the end, it was a real vocation, something you were created for, a path to heaven.

Well, my view of the end-goal hasn't changed much, but my understanding of the journey has and I'm pretty sure it's only the beginning. As I've been confined to my bed or a chair at the kitchen table most days for sheer fear of vomiting, my extroverted personality has teamed up with my sense of worth for a series of revolts.

"If you don't get out of this house today, you are useless," 

"How are you going to make friends if you don't get a job?"

"Well, there goes another day of writing thank you notes at the kitchen table. Remember when you had a real life?"

At first I was tempted to believe these statements. It's true, I haven't gotten out much since the sickness set in. I haven't made many friends. I haven't gotten a job. I haven't even really finished setting up our new house. But everything changed when we had our first ultrasound last week. At the technician's cheerful pronouncement, "Yep, there's a baby in there!" all worries of self became background noise. There, on the screen in black and white was a little human with tiny arms and legs waving and a strong heartbeat that I could see pulsing away.

Yeah, remember when my "real life" consisted of writing papers that one person would read and grade only to be forgotten in my file folder forever? Remember when I could go shopping for clothes with friends? Remember when I worked at a cash register all day, taking people's money for plastic merchandise? Those were the days.

The days before there was a life inside of me.

I have since realized that the reason I felt so useless is because outwardly I am not doing much. Inwardly, however, God is doing miracles and I get to be His vessel. Is that a waste of my life? I think not.

It hit me tonight that, like it or not, I am being taught how to love selflessly. There is no physical part of me that is profiting from this baby, nor can I really control anything in this situation beyond my attitude. Yet, as my body is being offered up for me, so can my heart also learn to sacrifice. Sometimes, it turns out, we are drawn into something bigger than ourselves, and apparently that's when we truly learn to love.

My own efforts at love are feeble, limited by my humanity, but when united with God, they can help to create and nourish life itself. Though it took my present condition to see it, I don't think this is only a pregnancy thing either. We all have the capacity to be an instrument in creating beauty on this earth. It's simply a matter of forgetting ourselves and submitting our wills to a higher purpose. His purpose.

See what they don't tell you about love is sometimes there are situations beyond your control, when you don't feel like you can do much of anything. But that's generally when God is doing the most.