The Walk

Merry Christmas!  We've made it back home, and let me say, Christmas was beautiful this year.  We spent some great time with family and remained calmed, relaxed and peaceful through it all, which is such a blessing.  I told you God would be faithful in answering my plea for peace!  But boy the transition back home has been hard.  It was like a 4 day vacation and now I have to come home and get back on top of things.  Oh, see, right now I can hear the buzzer of the washer beckoning me.  Yesterday was our first day back and it was so hard for me to be motivated to do what I needed to do.  Before Christmas, I was in a really good groove.  My pregnant body was used to doing work and I had a good routine of prayer.  It's all thrown off now!  I am 22 1/2 weeks pregnant now, and this baby is growing!  So many times I am just so uncomfortable because I know they are pressing up agianst something, usually my bladder or stomach.  For about a week I've had the mentality of "here we go, here it comes, the crazy crazy body transformation". 

Today's first reading, from John, he says "This is the way we may know we are union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked".  How did Jesus "walk"?  Well the biggest walk of his life was carrying a cross to his crucifixion, and ultimately to the Resurrectin.  So we ought to walk like that?  Yes, we ought to pick up the crosses of our lives so that they may bring us closer to God.  Today, my "cross" is a messy house.  The rest of this week, it is beginnig the big task of organizing our guest room so that it may be the baby's room.  For the next 3 1/2 months, it will be embracing the aches and pains that come with carrying my beloved child and bringing them into the world.  These all call me to go beyond myself, to choose to do what I don't want to do for the best of my husband and child (and myself, too).  I am called to sacrifice my own will.  I would much rather sit around the house lazy all day, reading books,scanning the internet and looking at baby stuff online.  I would much rather not go through physical pain and wish my baby could magically appear.  But I am called to something greater; I am called to walk as Jesus did, laying down my life for those I love.  Thank you, beloved Apostle John, for reminding me of this : )