I have been thinking about Christmas today. I know, it's September, but I have been thinking about it for 2 reasons. The first being that we will be going home before Christmas and the count down has begun.
With 2 months left, we are in the process of thinking about what it means to "finish well" and what we need to bring closure to this time in our life. The last year, as adventurous as it may have appeared to be, has not been without its blessings but equally has not been without its challenges. I wouldn't say that this has been the ideal situation, especially with amoebas, allergies, chronic diarrhea for the baby (which we are pretty sure now is a wheat allergy) and tachycardia for me.
This brings me to the second reason why I have been thinking about Christmas today. I have been pondering how unideal the situation was for Mary to give birth to Jesus.
Seven and a half years ago, when I gave birth for the first time, I was ready to go! I had my "birth plan" all laid out on a piece of pretty pink paper (we were having a girl). I had taken classes. I had my mother, who was a certified childbirth educator and dulah, my mother-in-law, who used to work as a nurse in labor and delivery, a doctor who had appeared 3 times on reality TV shows like A Baby Story, my husband, my friend Jill, and, at the last 30mins, my sister in law Beth. Besides the fact that my labor was 23 hours, I have to say it was the ideal situation.
Mary didn't have any of these things, except maybe the fact that her husband was there. Of course, I am not sure if he even stayed in the stable or not for the delivery. I am thinking maybe not. The bible says that they had never been together in an intimate way before that, and if I was Mary, I don't think that I could handle it if my husband saw all of my "glory" for the first time as the baby crowned and I screamed. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Who knows though.
I have no idea what her attitude was. Maybe she complained about riding 9 months pregnant on a donkey, I know I would have. When I was only 8 months pregnant with Luke, I saw a Christmas nativity here in Egypt where a woman, clad with a pillow under her costume, rode in on a real donkey (they are, after all, readily available here:)). I looked down at my gigantous belly before me and thought,
Poor mary! Poor, poor, Mary! Maybe she looked at the stable and thought,
'you have got to be kidding me...can't we just try one more Inn?' I do know that en epidural was way out of the question, as well as a hospital, gowns that tied in the back and a well schooled doctor. Really, think about it...Poor Mary!
Looking back at the story, I do know, as "unideal" the situation was, it was the absolute perfect way for Jesus to enter the world. It fact, it was written years earlier that this is exactly how it would happen. Mary simply walked through it.
As I think about our time here, I know in my heart everything that has happened has all been part of the absolute perfect "unideal" plan that God has had for us.
We don't know what the next step will be. We don't know if we will ever come back to call Egypt our home. Maybe we will end up somewhere else entirely. This I can be sure of, as unsure as the future seems to us right now, God still has the perfect, "unideal" plan for us, because that is when the amazing things happen.
