*Five Minute Friday is an initiative set up by Lisa-Jo Baker over at Surprised by Motherhood. It has now been taken over by Kate over at Heading Home. The basic premise is to take the word Kate gives and write, non-stop for 5 minutes. Then you stop and post. Read more about it here. This October, I am taking part in a series based on this called “31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes”, in which we commit to writing from the prompt as usual, but everyday rather than just on a Friday. Read more here.
And so we reach the final day – I hope you have enjoyed reading the daily posts as much as I have enjoyed writing them. 🙂
Almost
GO
Oh, fellow mums, I’m sure you know what I mean when I say I am 38 weeks pregnant and *exasperated sigh* almost there.
I know from past experience that I should appreciate this more – the calm before the storm, the time when I still get to keep and protect and feel my baby within myself, knowing full well that the times passes all too quickly and I will nostalgically miss this time oh-so-soon.
But some days, when you are pregnant with a toddler and everything hurts, it’s tough to remember this.
It’s been different, so so different, second time round. But still I feel like I can’t quite grasp what is happening. Do any other mums find that? With my first, I just couldn’t believe there was a baby in there even when she was wiggling like crazy, and even after giving birth to her I couldn’t quite make the association between the baby in me and this child in my arms.
I thought it might be different this time, that I may somehow, in my highly limited motherly wisdom, be able to understand it more. Strangely, I actually feel like I get it even less… I can see it, I can feel it – it’s almost within my understanding. And yet it’s not.
But perhaps we aren’t supposed to get it.
Some things in life, and particularly in faith, remain a mystery. There is simply no other word to describe it. I will never, no matter how many clever analogies you throw my way, never comprehend the Trinity. I believe in it, I can just about get my head around the fact that it is truth, I can hear useful anecdotes and think that I may be starting to grasp it, but even in the moments of the most clarity, I will only ever be at almost.
The Eucharist can take my breath away, it can scream out grace to me, it can shine and love and comfort me. But I will never truly understand it.
And that’s ok. In fact, I think it is better this way. Some things are just supposed to be mysteries. Partly because God is so much bigger than we are. Partly because without mystery, we would be without wonder, without awe, without praise. If we have all the answers, then we lose our childlike sense of wonder, our vision of beauty, our love of making and appreciating art.
As I write this I am being battered from the inside by a very enthusiastic baby who doesn’t have a large amount of space to explore right now. I can kind of vaguely understand that. But in just a few short weeks, that baby will be in my arms, and I will stare in awe at them and wonder: “where did you come from?”. You can explain it to me scientifically, show me diagrams and documentaries and ultrasounds, but it is very different when it is going on inside your own body.
It’s a mystery. But I’ve found that often, despite my academic way of thinking, the mysteries in life are the best part. The almost is the beauty in life. If only I wasn’t too impatient to appreciate that…
STOP
