Alleluia! He is risen!
Happy Easter, sisters! May the hope, joy, and glory of the risen Jesus Christ fill your heart, mind, body, and soul. May you know deeply the extent to which you are loved, the lengths to which your God will go to save you, the invitation you have to unite with Him and participate in that Paschal Mystery.
Last week I posted this on Instagram:
You have an invitation to a very real *bodily* participation in the saving work of Christ. Saint Paul was clear that the Body of Christ was invited to participate in His work. Those called to physical motherhood can do so in a profound way.
If you are in the depths of pregnancy, birth, postpartum, or even loss, may you experience the grace of recognizing the beauty and worth of your sacrifice.
These sacrifices are powerful, redemptive, sanctifying, and they can transform the world. As Jesus thought of each one of us during that agony and Passion, we too can think of specific people or intentions for whom we want to offer our work for, uniting it with His. Those prayers are POWERFUL, sisters. Don’t waste the opportunity.
We should remember the cross every day but in a special way this week we ponder the reality of Christ's sacrifice. We don't whitewash it, gloss over it, or think the details don't matter "as long as we're saved". We enter into it, humble ourselves before it, surrender ourselves to it. Pregnancy and birth are beautiful practice for that, even mysterious participations in it.
It can be so hard to remember in the midst of our own Calvary that we are headed toward something glorious. We hopefully get a taste of that glory on earth as our baby enters the world but imagine how much more magnificent will these glories be in the light of eternity.
May you experience a blessed and profound Holy Week, a blessed and profound birth.
This invitation we have as women to replicate in our bodies our own calvary, our own unique paschal mystery is real. Just as planning the type of birth we would like on a physical level is highly valuable, we can also apply that concept to having a “spiritual birth plan.” Taking time to pray and discern how the Lord is inviting you to grow and be moved spiritually through this pregnancy and birth is a beautiful way to enter into this time more intentionally.
To help you with that, we’ve created a new resource for our app subscribers and site members – a Spiritual Birth Plan Guide and Template! This simple guide gives you some ideas of ways that you can more intentionally enter into the time of birth in a spiritual way. It offers suggestions and prompts for imagining how you can tap into the incredible grace available during the profound and poignant moments of labor and birth. While we can have a vague idea of what we would like to have happen during labor, both from a practical standpoint and a spiritual one, those moments can be intense, require a lot of focus, and we often need reminders of what we said wanted lest we forget, only to wish later that someone had reminded us in the moment!
The template can be on hand to help your birth team understand what some of your desires are from a spiritual perspective and they can then help facilitate that for you as best as possible in the circumstances. Or it can simply serve to help you flesh out your ideas of what spiritual practices resonate with you that you’d like to incorporate into your birth experience.
The template also includes a specific page for keeping track of any intentions for which you would like to offer your labor and birth. Again, this is something that we can really want to do but then so many women forget to when the time actually comes! We can of course give ourselves the freedom to adjust what we need during labor because of circumstances or because it’s just not what we want or need at the time but thinking these things through beforehand and imagining what might be helpful and fruitful and planning for that is wise and makes sense!
The Spiritual Birth Plan and Guide is available now for site members here and it will be available directly on the app once we do our next HUGE update, hopefully within the next month!
If you are an app subscriber and would like access to this resource now, please contact us here, let us know you have subscribed on the app, and we’ll email it right to you!
We're also offering 10% off in the shop for any of our affirmation packs or the Made for This book! Use code EASTERWEEK at checkout. Click here to get to the shop.
May you have a wonderful and powerful celebration of His Resurrection this week and may that joy of new life be replicated in your body, mind, heart, and soul through your labor and birth.