"I would like to beg you, dear friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

Rainer Maria RIlke, Letters to a Young Poet, pp. 34-35

Meditation:

The biggest step of discipleship from my vantage point is acknowledging that we do not have all the answers. Ironically, it is also very good training for motherhood. Early in the relationship between mother and child (or God and disciple), the answers come so easily. Yet, eventually, we find ourselves groping for answers that seem out of our reach. There are not answers, but one Answer, Who is pulling us close to His Heart for all eternity. Let the mystery of God speak to you in your questions. Meditate this week on the things in this world that trouble you. Consider how the child within might lead you to an inner peace with all that you do not understand.

Bible Verses for Additional Meditation

Matthew 13:1-23    Isaiah 11:1-9

Prayer:

Jesus my Lord, grow within my heart and give me the courage to keep asking the questions. Lead me on to that blessed place where there are no more questions, but only You, my merciful and blessed Answer, Amen.

“Mary becomes Mother because of her assent, in which she lets the word spoken by the angel come alive in her through the Holy Spirit. In her assent itself, grace was visible as God’s question which she might answer. Now that she is a mother, her pregnancy has become a sign and pledge of the grace developing in her as God’s answer. Between the two—God’s question and his answer—there lies no long evolution. Just as the Mother does not reflect and asks for no time to consider, so God’s answer is also an immediate one…God’s assent cannot be inferred from man’s assent alone, and yet the assent of man is only thinkable within the perfect Yes of divine grace.”

--Adrienne von Speyr, Handmaid of the Lord, p. 34.

You cannot see this baby, but you can feel the symptoms of pregnancy. The miracle of your baby’s conception was God’s grace to you and the father of the child. With every little discomfort this week—excess saliva, nausea or vomiting, moodiness, extreme fatigue—let the wonder of God’s divine grace intercede. These symptoms make the power of God’s grace visible, right now in your life. Consider the many ways in which God’s perfect Yes of divine grace may have helped you endure physical or spiritual difficulties in the past. Let your meditation conclude by asking God for help in making His grace visible in your life.

Journaling Questions:
What physical symptoms are causing me the worst suffering today? Are there also symptoms of discomfort in my relationship with the Lord?
What questions do you feel God is placing before you during this pregnancy? How do you envision His answers appearing?

Bible Verses for Additional Meditation
Psalm 139           John 9:1-41

Prayer:
Creator of my life and my unborn child, I thank you for including me in Your plan of creation. Let your joy over the child within permeate my life, so that everyone I encounter will see the goodness of your world. Amen.

"There may be times when we appear to be wasting our precious life and burying our talents. Our lives are utterly wasted if we use only the light of reason. Our life has no meaning unless we look at Christ in his poverty. Today when everything is questioned and changed, let us go back to Nazareth. Jesus had come to redeem the world-- to teach us that love of His Father. How strange that He should spend thirty years just doing nothing, wasting His time! Not giving a chance to his personality or to his gifts, for we know that at the age of twelve, He silenced the learned priests of the Temple, who knew so much and so well. But when his parents found him, He went down to Nazareth and was subject to them."

-- Mother Teresa, quoted in Prayertimes with Mother Teresa, by Eileen Egan and Kathleen Egan, O.S.B. (NY: Image Books, 1989)

Being an adult can be weary work. Often, obedience to a higher authority is required, be it the government, our parents, our job security, even rules of personal hygiene. Make a list this week of your daily, weekly, monthly and even annual "submissions." Meditate over this list, then, and play around with categorizing the tasks. (For example, fun vs. drudgery, religious vs. secular, things you do well vs. things you do not do well, and so on.)

Journaling Questions:
How might these categories shift with the new baby?
Whose expectations cause such shifts?
Does this affect your submission to God as Lord and Savior?

Bible Verses for Additional Meditation:
Psalm 40                     John 13:1-17

Prayer:
Lord, lift my eyes and help me see Your hands offering to me Your divine Help. Remind me that I have never been truly alone, that you are always by my side. Where I have submitted myself to You unknowingly, where I have deliberately rejected Your help, where I have yearned for Your help but been unable to ask, have mercy on me and restore to me the grace of Your wisdom. Give me the humility to discern your will for my life. Amen.

(from a letter to a priest who complained of feeling empty and drained) "You have said, "Yes" to Jesus and He has taken you at your word. The word of God became man-poor; your word to God became Jesus-poor. And so this terrible emptiness you experience. God cannot fill what is full--He can only fill emptiness--deep poverty-- and your "yes" is the beginning of being or becoming empty. It is not how much we really have to give-- but how empty we are--so that we can receive Him fully in our lives and let Him live His life in us.."

-- Mother Teresa, quoted in Prayertimes with Mother Teresa, by Eileen Egan and Kathleen Egan, O.S.B. (NY: Image Books, 1989)

The temptation for expectant mothers is to fill the months of waiting for baby's birth with preparations for baby's physical needs. The fullness of your womb should not hinder your spiritual development. Rather, the baby is a challenge. At the same time that your womb is full of new life, you are called to empty yourself spiritually in order to be filled with a new life as a mother. God cannot fill what is full. At the same time that we make room for the baby within our homes, we must make room for Jesus in our hearts. Only then can he fill us with life everlasting.

Bible Verses for Additional Meditation:
Phillippians 3:7-11                    John 20:11-18

Prayer:
Lord of my life, help me to trust the empty places in my life as the ground where you are growing Love. Make room for Yourself in the same way the baby expands in my womb. Embolden me to trust you enough to discard from my life the desires and habits that keep me from You love. Lead me to the mouth of Your empty tomb and show me your resurrected glory. Amen.