Surviving New Life

I guess I’ve been thinking a lot about birth lately, given that my very first grand baby is on the way. And I’ve been thinking about the miracle and design of the process, how a baby passes from one world to the next. From womb to earth. Water to air. And how those painful minutes in between are the most vital of all. Because as that baby passes through the birth canal, squeezed and pressed through, physiological changes are happening within him, water is forced from his lungs, and he has a compulsion to take his first breath. Without this very process—the squeezing and pressing—he would struggle in this new world. He would find himself ill-equipped. Unprepared. And chances are he would not survive.

Yet, we question the design. Why did God make it so hard? We ask for ease and comfort.

Every farmer knows this truth even in the animals. For if you help a struggling chick out of an egg, you’ve debilitated him for life. He may not survive. Because there is a process, beyond ourselves, that we cannot see. A process designed by our Father to give us the best chance in this new world. There is a greater purpose to the pain. A triumph at the end of the struggle.

I have some new friends. A young couple breaking out of the throes of addiction, trying hard to get on their feet again. He’s been clean for a good 90 days. She has a couple weeks maybe. No more. It’s new for her, this world, and hard. She is overwhelmed by the pressures around her. She has been thrown out of her home. She has nowhere to go. No footing. No grounding. She feels lost and alone and afraid not knowing how to breathe in this new place. All the while her old life and the comforts there call her back. The ease to escape the trial. To return to the place she knows.

The struggle is real.

But there is a new spark in her eyes—a reflection of the love she is finding on this side. A place she truly belongs. And she is holding on. She is pressing through.

And since God has been teaching me about these things—lovingly giving me these truths you and I are talking about now—I had words in this precious moment in time when He allowed me to be a conduit of His love for His child. I shared with her just this—how the growing pains and the pressure and the squeezing—even that—are vital. How the process prepares us, strengthens us, and helps us to not only survive, but thrive in this new world.

That each thing she is experiencing is not in vain.

It will allow her to breathe.

To be fully alive.

And His little lamb asks why does it need to be so hard?

I don’t know all the answers. I didn’t know what I did wrong when I broke a chick out of an egg one day on the ranch and held its last breath in my hands. When I cried for its life because I had done everything I thought was right to help it survive. But in the very act of bringing it ease, I had lost it.

I don’t have all the answers, but He does. And if we’re in His hands, we trust the process because we can’t always see how it makes us strong. How the very fight equips us to survive.

This beautiful young girl looked at me then, with all the weight bearing down on her shoulders, and the glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. She whispered, “Thank you. I’m going to think about that the rest of the day.”

And the breath of the universe caught between us. I felt it.

He was right there. Right there to help her forge into new life.

And, yes, little one, we all need to think about that.

Put Your Hand to the Plow

We all know what that means, right? Work hard. Accept the task. Keep going and don’t shirk your duties. Get that hand on there and don’t quit until the job’s done. Certainly, it sounds right and in line with all the other voices we hear.

But then we have what Jesus said: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God”(Luke 9:62).

Wow. That’s rough. I can’t look back? I can’t see from where I’ve come? If I focus on the past, or the things behind me, I won’t be fit for the kingdom?

I am no theologian, so this might teeter on heresy, and I’m sure many Bible scholars have a better explanation than I do, but I love life lessons and this is what I’ve been thinking about.  

Every cowboy knows that when you’re on a horse, you don’t set your eyes on where the horse is taking you. He isn’t the leader, you are. He doesn’t direct the course, you do. So, rather than put your eyes on where the horse is going, you set them on where you want to go. If you want to go left, before you even touch the reins or the spurs, you look left. You fix your eyes on where you desire to be and somehow, miraculously, you communicate that simple direction through your hands, through your legs, through your seat—and the horse knows. He understands where he is supposed to go. You’ve become his eyes. And the path has purpose.

Now, I imagine it’s the same with the oxen, though I’m not a farmer. This idea of putting your hand to the plow and not looking back, I don’t think means never quit. Although that’s good too. But rather, don’t turn to concentrate on what’s behind. What you might have missed. What you might have forgotten, or even buried. You see, it isn’t necessarily bad to look back now and again. To remember. But when we look behind for any length of time, when we focus over our shoulder and away from the end goal, the oxen choose where to go. And, trust me, they’d end up back at the barn before you knew what happened.

Perhaps the farmer looks up to see the thunderclouds and worries about the storm. Or to the side to see his neighbor has outdone him once more. Or to the ground, to the soil and the minerals he lacks to grow the finest wheat. Maybe this is the idea. Maybe when his focus is askew and the row is set off course, a zig-zag missing its purpose, the field becomes unfit to plant. Not suitable for producing much fruit.

The direction has changed. He pulls off course and heads where he never intended to go.

And suddenly he’s lost his way.

The zig-zag can have many faces. Fame. Success. Regret. Doubt. Fear. All temptations to throw us off course. To tap us on the shoulder and turn our head so our potential for the kingdom heads to the barn.

Maybe putting our hands to the plow doesn’t mean we don’t quit, but that we lock our eyes front and center, with the purpose for which we were made:  “…that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

And maybe when our eyes are on Him, we leave a trail fit for the kingdom.