For decades, arguably centuries, women have been told their fertility is a liability, their bodies broken, pregnancy a disease, and birth a threatening emergency out to kill us.
The lies and fear have been pushed on women from every side, at every stage, often from the youngest ages. Man pitted against woman, woman pitted against body, mother pitted against baby, all of it deviating far from the Maker's original plan.
The sacred union of husband and wife designed by God has been torn apart. The sacred mother-baby dyad designed by God has been torn apart, sometimes quite literally. In body, in mind, in heart, in soul, women are fed lies by family, culture, doctors, media, partners, the evil one himself. The man is your competition. The child growing within is the enemy. In pregnancy and in birth, her body, her baby she is told, is a ticking time bomb, not to be loved, not to be trusted.
Can we even say that, more often than not, any force attempting to intentionally divide what God designed to be in communion - husband/wife, unitive/procreative, mother/child, soul/body - is, wittingly or not and of course to varying degrees, contributing to a culture of death?
It's time to start recognizing how God originally created marriage, family, sex, fertility, pregnancy, and birth to be. They are all interconnected, they are all affected by the Fall. And they are ALL called to be redeemed. We are called to honor that original design of the Creator as best we can in all those things and make choices accordingly.
Let's recognize that the same industries and systems responsible for unattainable standards of beauty, for contraception, for abortion, for eugenics on the unborn, for harvesting of ours and our children's body parts for profit or sordid science or false charity...they are the same twisted and depraved ones so many women somehow still trust and take advice from for their births. Let's recognize that they all prey upon our deepest fears. Let's recognize that the evil one would love nothing more than to twist our views of all those things - marriage, gender, sex, family, fertility, pregnancy, birth, motherhood - and his lies try to infiltrate our choices about them.
It will ruin your life.
It will ruin your body.
We’ll take care of it.
You aren't strong enough.
You can't handle it.
Why would you do that to yourself?
We can make it go away.
Don’t be a hero.
What about your degree?
Looks like something might be wrong.
Too young.
Too old.
Too fat.
Too many.
Too soon.
Too early.
Too late.
Too poor.
Too sick.
Too slow.
Too big.
Too small.
Too weak.
Too much.
But the genius is written inside of us, body and soul, impossible to erase, though often we might try. God did not make a mistake.
The love of husband and wife is designed to be so incarnate that it becomes another living being. That new fruit becomes part of us as mothers. Destroying them destroys us. Destroying us destroys them. You cannot force the two apart without harming both. What you do to one profoundly affects the other.
Deep down in our bones we know that pregnancy is a sign of health. Our fertility is not a liability or disease. And our births are meant to be sacred rites of passage. Being able to cycle, conceive, carry that growing baby in our womb, and birth that baby - it is all gift. It is an indescribable power, a privilege all at once sobering, exhilarating, humbling, and mind-blowing.
And make no mistake:
•There are billions of dollars made convincing women their bodies are broken.
•There are entire industries dependent on women believing they are not strong enough or beautiful enough.
•There are entire systems built on fear of her body, fear of her child.
•There are earthly powers gained telling women that it is our husbands and children who are the enemy.
•There are principalities and entities that tremble at the thought of the power given to women recognized and unleashed.
•There are forces - worldly and other-worldly - that seek to crush that power precisely because they know just how world-changing it would be to recognize and honor it.
But more and more women around the world are ready to reject the systems hurting us, the ones sacrificing our children and our bodies before, during, and after birth.
•Our bodies are not broken.
•Our fertility is not a disease.
•Our children are not the enemy.
•Our births are sacred.
•Our motherhood is a priceless treasure and gift.
We are temples of the Divine and by the grace and gift and will of God, we are strong, powerful, capable, and confident. Like that greatest Mother, we will accept the gift, accept the responsibility, and accept our motherhood. We will glorify God, the Father who loves us more than we can imagine, through these feminine bodies. Mother by mother, we can choose to be His vessels of life, reclaiming and redeeming His original design for our bodies, our pregnancies, and our births.