The Activity of Waiting
Sure, while still unsure
I have a bad case of ‘pregnancy brain.’ I mean this in the typical sense of feeling scattered, but also in the sense that most of my thoughts in a day relate to pregnancy. I apologize if a series of pregnancy-related analogies dominate this space for a while.
That verse in Psalm 139:13 about the Lord ‘forming us’ (and ‘knowing’ us, as alluded to in Jeremiah 1:5) in our mother’s womb struck me a few months ago. I used to pass it off as a nice sentiment, but I’d never really contemplated it until this pregnancy. It occurred to me that I, my baby’s own mother, do not even truly know him or her in the womb. I catch glimpses through science, but ultrasound ‘photos’, fetal dopplers, kicks, and blood draws can only tell me so much about my child. I remember having an ultrasound late into my last pregnancy during which I could tell that my baby had a round little nose and some fuzzy hair, but even at that stage I didn’t know his hair colour, that he was a “he”, or the total sum of his features. Would he cry a lot or be content? Would he be healthy? So, the statement that God knows us fully in our mothers’ wombs is nothing short of incredible.
We often see glimpses, but God sees the whole picture. That’s easy to appreciate with pregnancy, but it’s true of everything, to some degree. God is all-knowing, and we are not. Pregnancy adds another unique layer of that analogy as compared to awaiting meeting God face-to-face in heaven. While pregnant, moms know that their baby exists and catch glimpses of their baby’s features, but upon birth, moms know that child immediately better than anyone else in the world. We have instant instincts about their behaviour, a sudden sensitivity to their cries, and an ability to notice things about them that no one else appreciates. In this way, pregnancy reminds me of how we should wait for union with God: we should know by faith some of God’s characteristics, we should know we will exist in an eternity that we don’t fully comprehend but is nevertheless to become reality, and we should trust that once the ‘pregnancy’ of earth is over, we will experience that reality. As said in 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 (NRSVCE):
For now we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
While I don’t yet know the baby in my womb intimately, I do partially know them and fully love them to the best of my partial knowledge in the meantime. I act as if baby is real and will soon arrive. I take my prenatal vitamins, I avoid things that might harm baby, I prepare our home for baby’s coming, I pray for baby, I talk to baby and sing to baby even when I don’t expect a response, and I tell my older child about baby. I truly expect baby to come, and I live accordingly.
I don’t wish for the approximately nine months of pregnancy ‘waiting’ to be shortened, either. Our whole family needs the full nine months to ready ourselves in every way. I am, by natural flaw, a very impatient person. Still, not even I hope that this baby shows up sooner than planned or anticipated.
We hear in Luke, chapter 1, about what Mary did after hearing from the Angel Gabriel that she was to become pregnant by the Holy Spirit. She didn’t lay in her bed and wonder if what Gabriel said was true. She got up and went to her cousin Elizabeth, as Gabriel had also told her Elizabeth was also pregnant, to stay with her Elizabeth for three months until Elizabeth’s son John was born. She likely served Elizabeth and prepared alongside Elizabeth.
We hear a lot about “waiting upon God” in scripture, and it’s easy to hear the English word “wait” and assume we’re supposed to sit around until God zaps something into our laps. Mary was literally waiting upon God in her womb. So, Mary’s example of what to do while we “wait” is particularly helpful to understand how we should wait. Like Mary, we should wait actively, while we prepare for the promise we have received. Now, when I hear the word “wait” in Scripture, I’ll think of what it’s like to actively await the birth of a child, like we should actively await impending eternity.
Do we hear the message of God, like Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah (Elizabeth’s husband), and accept it and act upon it so that we can wait actively and live in view of His promises? Do we trust, when we hear promises in the Bible or through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, that they indeed reflect a glimpse of a reality which will be fully fleshed out eventually?
We are hearing the words from the vision of John expressed in The Book of Revelation at Mass now at the end of the Church year. In Revelation 3, which we heard this Tuesday, it said in verse three, “Remember then what you received and heard; obey it, and repent”, and, in verse six, “let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches”. In Luke 19:41-44, read at Mass today, we heard a similar sentiment when Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they “did not recognize the time of [their] visitation from God.” Do we repress and doubt what we ourselves have heard in Scripture and in the Holy Spirit? Or do we recognize our own ‘visitation from God’ and act on it while we wait for the Lord to come again on earth or upon our own death?
I admit I often tend towards doubt. I count myself a ‘critical thinker’. But, when ‘discerning the spirits’ (see 1 John 4:1) begins to assume the form of denying anything supernatural and trying to explain it away with human logic, I know my heart has been hardened. If I admit God’s power can manifest in supernatural ways on earth, do I live like I believe that? Mary explicitly did not wait for a further sign or confirmation after hearing from the Angel Gabriel; she immediately acted like what she had heard was true. That was the power of her faith, and no doubt why she was the chosen one to bear Jesus. Mary, please pray for us.