Old Updates: The One with Pregnancy Brain

In what seems to be true "final month of pregnancy" fashion, I wrote this letter and had it all ready to go at the end of September...
And forgot to send it.

It really is hard for me to believe that we are looking at the beginning of October right now. I feel like I start a lot of our update letters with phrases like, “Time is flying,” and “It’s busy,” but I don’t know that I have ever meant it truly until now.

Not only are we trying to figure out how you even prepare for your first child, but we are also both working ahead to be sure both communications and discipleship are covered in our absence during maternity leave.

And in this especially busy season, God has been challenging me that I absolutely have to find ways to slow down and be with Him because that is the only way anything will actually happen anyway.  

I think Daniel and I stole the idea of the “already and the not yet” from The Bible Project; this concept about the Kingdom of Heaven that with Jesus’ death on the cross he has already defeated death and the Kingdom is present right here and now, wherever we are. But at the same time, it hasn’t come fully just yet and we feel that tension acutely.  

As we prepare for the birth of this child with excitement and apprehension, in so many ways it feels like the “already and the not yet” of the Kingdom of God. I’m trying to figure out how to slow time down right now and cherish and experience things before everything changes. But I know that there are better things to come, even if my brain is afraid of this unknown. How do we both prepare for what is to come while also cherishing this time now? 

I don’t have it figured out. But I’m thankful that God is using this unique time of waiting to continue to teach me more about Him and His ways.