Eight months pregnant, which means thirty-six weeks down, and four (maybe) to go. I’m at the clumsy stage, and I don’t mean cute-clumsy – I mean, I am JarJar Binks playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey after drinking three shots of espresso spiked with whiskey. I can barely put on socks without help, and attempting to put shoes or pants on while standing up is now prohibited.
We’re also at the stage where the general public feels free to let loose with comments like, “Wow, you have got to be overdue by now” and “It doesn’t look like you could possibly get any bigger” and other thoughtful, sensitive, encouraging insights. But that’s okay, because it coincided with me losing my filter around the same time, and I don’t mind responding like an old woman who has lost all sense of manners, tact, and decorum…and let’s be honest, those already aren’t my strong suits. Sometimes the snark flies fast and furious.
Example: “Wow, this is your eighth child!! Don’t you know how that happens?”
Well, yes – 21 years of a (mostly) rocking marriage. Do you have any idea how many times we haven’t gotten pregnant? Thousands. Bless your heart…
But it’s a season of speeding up when it seems like things ought to be slowing down. We ought to be resting, nesting, and preparing before Kavanagh comes, but his birth coincides with the holidays and book launches and accelerating ministry. And none of those things are negotiables that fall into the “everything is permissible for me, but not all things are beneficial” category – they’re all good and necessary right now.
Everyone was much too tired to speak or eat. The Horses, without waiting to be unsaddled, lay down at once. So did Aravis and Shasta.
About ten minutes later the careful Hwin said, “But we mustn’t go to sleep. We’ve got to keep ahead of that Rabadash.”
‘No,” said Bree very slowly. “Mustn’t go to sleep. Just a little rest.”
– C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy
This is my favorite of the Narnia books; I don’t know how many times I’ve read it or how many times I’ve quoted it in posts, chapters, and teachings. This is the story that speaks to me about His Presence in all of our seasons. And here, the two Humans and the two Horses are running ahead of an evil army, to bring warning in time to a kingdom that doesn’t know it is under attack.
“P-please,” said Hwin, very shyly, “I feel just like Bree that I can’t go on. But when Horses have humans (with spurs and things) on their backs, aren’t they often made to go on when they’re feeling like this? And then they find they can. I m-mean – oughtn’t we to be able to do more even, now that we’re free? It’s all for Narnia.”
And here, God is working on my expectations and shifting my paradigms of what ought to be, as things continue to ramp up even when we’d normally take it all down several notches.
….In reality she was quite right, and if Bree had had a Tarkaan on his back at that moment to make him go on, he would have found that he was good for several hours’ hard going. But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.
We often think that even the presence of pressure is wrong. My train of thought usually runs something like this: If I feel pressure, that means I’m stressed, and if I’m stressed, it means I’m not calm, and if I’m not calm, I’m not trusting God, and if I’m not trusting God, I must be fearful. It eventually equates pressure with fear or sin. But what if that’s not always the truth?
“I hope we’re in time,” murmured Hwin.
Then they began going up, slowly and zigzagging a good deal, for the hills were steep….
“Hullo!” he said suddenly. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” said Bree, turning round. Hwin and Aravis did the same.
“That,” said Shasta, pointing. “It looks like smoke. Is it a fire?”
“Sand-storm, I should say,” said Bree.
“Not much wind to raise it,” said Aravis.
“Oh!” exclaimed Hwin. “Look! There are things flashing in it. Look! They’re helmets – and armor. And it’s moving: moving this way.”
“By Tash!” said Aravis. “It’s the army. It’s Rabadash.”
“Of course it is,” said Hwin. “Just what I was afraid of. Quick! We must get to Anvard before it.”
We tend to interpret pressure as a lack of faith, or poor planning – and sometimes it is those things, but not always. Not right now in this season we’re in. Because sometimes the pressure is there to provide safety and margin so we can relax and rest later, so that having done all, we can stand.
This race was very grueling for the Horses. As they topped each ridge they found another valley and another ridge beyond it; and though they knew they were going in more or less the right direction, no one knew how far it was to Anvard….
“Quick! Quick!” shouted Aravis. “We might as well not have come at all if we don’t reach Anvard in time. Gallop, Bree, gallop. Remember you’re a war horse.”
….And certainly both Horses were doing, if not all they could, all they thought they could; which is not quite the same thing.
We experience pressure in labor so we can deliver our babies. We go through pressure in labor to deliver anything else, also.
He’s teaching me to abide hard amid the increase in activity. To take every component and event and non-negotiable to Him, one thing at a time, and ask Him about it – keeping short accounts to continually communicate and hear His will in what to do.
At that moment everyone’s feelings were completely altered by a sound from behind. It was not the sound they had been expecting to hear – the noise of hoofs and jingling armor, mixed, perhaps, with Calormene battle-cries. Yet Shasta knew it at once. It was the same snarling roar he had heard that moonlit night when they first met Aravis and Hwin. Bree knew it too…And Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast – not quite as fast – as he could.
Seasons of pressure are no time to take things for granted, and we’re learning (again) to depend on Him and abide at a deeper level than we otherwise would if it was a more comfortable, slow time. It’s not that we’re not resting. But we’re not resting as much as we normally would.
“It’s not fair,” thought Shasta. “I did think we’d be safe from lions here!”
He looked over his shoulder. Everything was only too clear. A huge tawny creature, its body low to the ground…was behind them. And it was nearer every second and half second.
In our house, in this season, we are writing, formatting, and finalizing the Companion Journal to Oh My Soul, and praying, discipling, and ministering. We are finishing a term of homeschool and pushing through a few last deadlines before December, when early labor will probably start in earnest. And amid All The Things, we’ll get a Christmas tree and lights up, spend days and evenings with friends, and nest the house into a frenzy as we prepare for a homebirth here at the Lighthouse.
And in your house, you’re doing All The Things, too. The trick is not to get out of as many things as possible, or to do as many things as possible, but to do everything He calls us to in His perfect time…which is often different from what we expect. Sometimes, harder than we expect. And sometimes, faster than we expect.
The Lion chases them and spurs them faster to safety; without His pressure they never would have made it in time.
He is the same Lion who chases us. Every time we’ve run with Him, we’ve been right on time. He’s leading us to birth and new life so we can rout and vanquish the enemy.
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Related: How do we deal with the pressure and still find margin, creating a sustainable culture of rest and refilling? The November newsletter is all about this and it comes out next week. Subscribe here if you need to.
