He Is Alive in Me

Be born in me today Jesus please. There is no place in my heart and life for you to be born if I am filled with self or anger. Two things can't occupy the same space.  Am I going to send you elsewhere like the innkeeper?

Don't go away, please.  I'll make room! 

Spiritually Pregnant Always

A new day and a new life which introduces a new world. Life is forever different .  He has come. Jesus is here.  He is in my world eating and drinking like I do, struggling to keep warm or cool.  Sometimes angry and sometimes crying. Jesus became Iike me.
I pray to become more like him and spiritually pregnant everyday.

Happy birthday Jesus! 

Last Day of The Pregnancy

When the Angel Gabriel left Mary she must have wondered if it really happened. She was stunned. But by today she knew not only was it real but the birth was imminent .  Today is the last day of that pregnancy.  Mary couldn't wait to see the person she'd been carrying inside herself for 9 months.  What will Jesus look like? Who will he look like?  Will I be able to take care of the baby Messiah?

Expectancy.

Do people look at me and expect to meet Jesus?

Spiritually Pregnant and the Word Becoming Flesh

It doesn't just happen on 12/25 you know.  The Word became flesh when a woman returned a wrapped package under the parish giving tree despite the fact that her hours at work were cut.   And when....

• my sister took my mom into her home to live with her even tho mom has Alz and my sister is on disability

• my friend, her husband and their 4 kids drove 2 1/2 hours to get to Staten Island with supplies for victims of Superstorm Sandy
• someone I know intervened in a domestic violence situation in order to help the victim
• our parish decided to visit the 300+ individual senior citizens in our community who are 80 or more years old
• my neighbor filled my deflated tire with air and mows the lawn and helps to shovel the snow
• a co-worker gracefully endures complaints coming from a client or another co-worker

add your own examples

suffering while spiritually pregnant

People wonder where God is in their pain.  One of my favorite books addresses that question really well but for now just one quote from The Shack.  "Your pain was blinding your vision of Me." Mary was about 14 and unmarried, a horror in those days to an innocent girl and her parents.  Her fiance threatens to leave her but changes his mind in the end.  They have to travel on a donkey to Bethlehem while she is 9 months pregnant and she leaves her mom and everyone she knows behind.  Could she be thinking: 

Where are you God?

Why aren't you helping me? 

Is this the way you want it to be?

This is how the Savior is to be born?

Is this the way you want your Son's life to begin?

After travelling like that her labor begins and Joseph knows he needs to find a home for them.  Defeated, all he ends up with is an animal stable.  How emasculated he must feel!  What kind of a provider is that?  He knows from an angel's message that his wife is about to give birth to the Son of God and all he can provide for them is a stable.   Joseph could complain:

Where is God?

Couldn't he have found something better for us?

If this baby is the Son of God why didn't he help me find a decent home?

Why does God allow this?

Jesus is born and he sleeps in a manger.  No throne.  No home.  Just a poor, innocent infant who is heir to a kingdom.  This is what God chose for our sakes.  Jesus doesn't deserve this or anything that follows in The Story.  God chose this so that we could identify with him and he with us.   Jesus' was a life of struggle like many of our lives.  Staying close to the Father helped Mary, Joseph and Jesus thru it all. 

God, help us please.  Show us how to trust when things are tough.  Your own precious earthly family endured trials and challenges too.  If they had to, then why wouldn't we?  Teach us how to endure trials and remain faithful.

SPIRITUALLY pregnant and 10 days left

  God, I just realized I'm putting too much thought into the being pregnant part and not the being spiritual part.   I have NO idea what it's like to carry another life inside me so that was becoming a challenge that wasn't working well.  I'd love to be able to do that tho - to physically feel that connected to your Son, my Lord.  WOW. 

But I don't want Advent to be over without getting to the real exercise.  That is to bring Jesus to others simply because he is so much a part of me (your grace, not my doing).  Like a pregnant woman carries her baby everywhere she goes and could never even for a moment forget that, so shall I bring Jesus to others (humph. easy for you to say). 

I will carry his spirit when I talk on the phone or on the computer to others.  He's with me in the car when I deal with other drivers and they will in some way be affected.  I might pray for everyone on the road with me right now or for everyone i my line to pay the Parkway tolls.  Maybe I'll pray for the construction workers doing road repairs.  I could let an over anxious driver pass me and smile (!) as s/he drives by.  When a complaining person begins to approach me I may stifle my inward groan and remind myself I'm a Jesus-carrier.  When that person walks away from me will s/he be better in some unknown way?  Will my face exude gentleness, my words offer kindness, my body language be patience?  

With your help Father God, I will try.  We're 13 days into Advent with 10 days left. 

No One Knows I'm (Spiritually) Pregnant

Almost no one in my real life knows I'm spiritually pregnant.  It's like I'm carrying around this most marvelous secret.  Mary did, too, after Gabriel's visit.  Pregnant and unmarried, expecting Joseph to divorce her because how could even he believe this story?  "Conceived by the Holy Spirit".  My mind, my soul, my heart, even my body is smiling at my special secret.  Life is so different when you know you really carry Jesus with you everywhere you go. 

Spiritually Pregnant week 1

December 8th ,2012
It's amazing how I find the kindness when I want to retaliate and the patience when I 'd like to be the opposite just because I remember I'm carrying Jesus.  I feel like I want to give him good example and I want only goodness to surround him as he ( spiritually ) grows within me.
It strikes me, of course, because I carryJesus in my heart and soul every day but without constant awareness of it.  I've been happy and peaceful these past few days because I know Jesus is within me.  But the joke is on me because he is always within me! So I can overcome my daily bad habits!  As long as i'm aware  of Christ's presence within me I can behave differently for him. I'm no longer doing the right thing because I believe it's the right thing to do and I should be doing it. I'm doing it for Jesus who is within me. It's a gift for him because I love him. 

Spiritually Pregnant in Advent 2012

I'm Pregnant!!!! No, not really.  Mary's pregnancy with the infant Jesus is my focus this year.  
{see blog date 12/2/11}    But I've never been pregnant.  I have to imagine what it's like not only to be pregnant, but pregnant by the Holy Spirit after an angel appears to me.  Way out of my comfort zone!  I'll put a rubber band on my wrist and keep it there until 12/25 as a physical reminder that I'm  spiritually pregnant.   Advent this year is a time of expectancy which is a step beyond just waiting.  Something IS going to happen at the end of this Advent. 

While imagining that I'm pregnant with Jesus I realize that everywhere I go he goes.  Sure, he's just a tiny fetus (I know it's a boy!) but he is with me every single moment.  What I eat, he gets.  When I speak he feels the vibrations of my vocal cords.    He feels movements when I reach for something. 

I imagine the same kind of experience when I receive Holy Communion but this feels different and, sadly, more real.  Maybe because being pregnant is all day every day and my rubber band reminder that I'm spiritually pregnant never leaves my wrist.  After receiving the Body of Christ in Holy Communion and accepting his Presence within me, I somehow lose the experience by the time I get to the parking lot. 

The Baby is present when I'm impatient with someone.  If someone shows me a kindness he sees it too. We are a team, He and I.  We're are a pair-  two for one.  Inseparable every moment of every day.