The Cross, A Crown of Thorns and a Cup of Blood

Weeks before the birth of my second son, I sat down for a “listening prayer” session. I had been intentionally prepping for Cedar’s birth with way more mindfulness and prayer. I was reading books like Jackie Mize’s Supernatural Childbirth and even invested in a course that encouraged women that childbirth does not have to be filled with suffering, but could be “heavenly” (which to this instructor meant possibly pain-free, certainly empowered and trusting the process).

The instructor encouraged us to spend some time sitting with the Holy Spirit around our upcoming birth, asking God specifically if there’s anything God wanted to say about this birth: any scriptures, any images or words to prepare us. I love this type of prayer and regularly employ it with my clients.

I settled on my bed with my husband, took some deep breaths and got very quiet, asking God to give me a word, an image, a scripture— anything God wanted me to be prepared for with Cedar’s birth.

As clear as day I saw a crown of thorns and the eucharist, a cup of blood.

I shuddered.

Let me try that again, I thought. That’s really intense.

I asked God to confirm if that was the image God wanted for me.

Again, a cross, a crown of thorns, and a cup of blood. I think I laughed nervously. Those images did not conjure up the peaceful, empowered, mostly pain-free home birth I was envisioning. Was this really what God was telling me?

But I have said these things to you so that when their time comes, you will remember that I told you about them.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 16, Jesus goes on and on about how his disciples will suffer because of their loyalty to him. He also explains the entire Easter plot ahead of time to them. He tells them he must leave, but that he’ll send the Holy Spirit to be with them. He literally tells them “I have much more to say, but you can’t handle it now.” He tells them to not worry because, though he must leave, he will return again. And then look, he draws upon our bodies and our story as birthing women as the perfect metaphor:

19 Jesus knew they wanted to ask him, so he said, “Are you trying to find out from each other what I meant when I said, ‘Soon you won’t see me, and soon after that you will see me’? 20 I assure you that you will cry and lament, and the world will be happy. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 21 When a woman gives birth, she has pain because her time has come. But when the child is born, she no longer remembers her distress because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. 22 In the same way, you have sorrow now; but I will see you again, and you will be overjoyed. No one takes away your joy.

Finally, Jesus encourages them that he has conquered all things. He foretells that they will be hiding in their homes, afraid. Just as I wrote in our last post, he tells them they’ll leave him alone, but that he won’t really be alone because The Father is always with him.

He tells them EVERYTHING!

And yet they still doubt what they are hearing. They don’t trust that these words are true and they cannot fully understand the scope of what Jesus is telling them until they’ve lived through it.

It was the same for me with Cedar’s birth.

The Voice of God Splits the Cedars

the dim lights in our bedroom

the fall candle burning

clutching my holding cross

the contractions coming and going like waves, the downward pressure so overwhelming, causing my prayer language to bubble up and spill over with each surge

the scriptures I asked Chris to read over me

the voice of the Lord is over the waters; the glory of God thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters. the voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

I knew God's might broke the cedars. I did not know God would use Cedar to break me.

—

The Wednesday night before Cedar was born, I had one final prayer experience. I was 41 weeks and 3 days into this pregnancy, and heard:

The Bride has readied herself
Now go for the the joy set before you.

These are words spoken before Jesus faced the cross. He had to endure the cross for the joy set before him. God was setting me up for the intensity of Cedar’s birth every step of the way, and lo and behold I went into labor the following evening.

—

We labored from 7:45pm-1am in a manner I can only describe as ...heavenly. My birth playlist was leading us through worshipful songs, Chris was reading scriptures over me as the Spirit led me from one passage to another. I experienced the contractions as strong sensations, but no pain. It was such a special time together, intimate and quiet.

Over the hours, though, my labor slowed and slowed and, bizarrely, completely halted at 1 in the morning. We were so confused. With Parker's birth, labor hit after our castor oil kicked in and it was fast and furious until his arrival. I felt really disappointed and defeated. We blew out the candle, turned out the lights, and lay down to try to get some sleep.
--

30 minutes later I bolted up out of a dead sleep. We're talking drooling, mouth open sleep. I wouldn't say I heard the voice of the Lord, but I had this deep sense of communion and connection with God and this resolve:

Cedar James is going to be born tonight.

I was experiencing no labor, but I got out of bed and swayed back and forth on my birth ball. Out of nowhere, contractions starting coming 3 minutes apart! I was in active labor! Again, no pain. Intensity, yes, but no pain.

I had this stunning spiritual experience of Mary on my left and Elizabeth on my right midwifing me through my labor. Call me crazy, but it was this unbelievable gift from God to be in the presence and legacy of two women who birthed two men who changed the course of human history. And in my mind's eye, they were smiling at me and cheering me on.

It was at this point that Chris asked me if I needed support.

I remember being embarrassed because I was not experiencing pain, so I assumed I was not in active labor. I thought we had called them prematurely. My midwives laugh because to them it was incredibly clear that baby would be with us soon. Already this labor was much longer than Parker's- 8 or 9 hours. Still incredibly short in the scheme of things, but I was done. I wanted this baby out of me.

We transitioned to the tub, and those hours felt agonizingly long. It didn't feel like my labor was progressing, I couldn't find a comfortable position, and as I started to feel the urge to push, baby's heart rate was dropping. The midwives were asking me to switch positions with every contraction to see if we could settle into a happy position for mom and for baby, but that totally threw me off my game. With Parker's birth we were totally ignorant to what was going on in utero, and I just birthed my baby. With Cedar's birth, I was so grateful to have the proper team in place, but I felt ungrounded.

Ultimately, I began to panic and shifted into what I can only call "rugby mode" (I played in college), and began prematurely pushing HARD. I was pushing on an anterior cervical lip, not fully dilated. But l was done. I wanted him OUT.

Cedar's final pushes came in a position that felt very vulnerable to me. I birthed his head, and then had no time to pause and push slowly. He literally shot out of my body.

I thought I was dying. The pain was excruciating. This was completely different from the intensity when Parker came out of me. I was shrieking and couldn’t catch my breath. I didn’t feel grounded, I felt like a wild animal out of control.

The next hours are a blur in my memory, with an agonizing hour-long repair on my bed, clutching my newborn and whimpering with each stitch.

The Pascal Mystery

Cedar was birthed on a Friday. I cried out at the peak of my suffering, like Jesus did on the cross. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.

All day Saturday I felt disillusioned and confused. What just happened to me? Did I just fail at birth? I did all of that preparation for a peaceful, empowered experience and I was miserable, exhausted and truly suffering. I couldn’t locate God on Saturday. I felt a dull, gray scrim between me and the Divine.

By the third day, Sunday, I woke up with my fleshly newborn next to me and peace filled my bedroom. I remember the sun streaming the through the windows as I tossed over all that had transpired in my head.

Truly, by the third day, I felt a resurrection hope rising in me. God gently reminded me of all the words he had given me leading up to Cedar’s birth. He had told me these things. I didn’t trust what I was hearing, and I could not have comprehended how those words were going to play out in real time, but God was preparing me.

Resurrection

I wrote these words in an iPhone note on the Sunday after Cedar was born, three days later:

The voice of the lord splits the cedars
But Cedar and the voice of the Lord split me

And I wondered if I had been forsaken

But I think the answer is no, that tests and trials and sufferings are building in us full maturity
I believe we can experience birth without suffering - I think those are foretastes of the coming kingdom
I also think that sometimes birth looks more like the cross: we are broken open and we bleed and we walk through the pain to see new life on the other side
I am finally able to look through the birth photos with joy and not pain, fear or shame
The spirit hovered over the waters

Now, 18 months after living those days I can see so much more clearly how Cedar’s birth was marking a distinctive season in our lives. Cedar was born in September of 2018, and 2019 was one of the hardest years of my life so far, filled to the brim with suffering on every level: my mental health fell apart, my extended family went through some of our darkest days, I experienced professional conflict and alienation to an extent I hadn’t yet known. It is through those painful experiences that I came to cling to the birth-death-resurrection cycle that I write of so often here. And it is through those experiences that birth work as a doula found me and brought me so much healing and life.

I was seeking God more closely than ever in the weeks leading up to Cedar’s birth, and it led me to the cross.

I used to think of the cross as purely transactional: Jesus had to die to free us from our sins.

I now see the cross differently. I see a God who suffers. A God who also cries out fearing abandonment, yet trusts that meaning will be made out of his suffering. And I see a God who comes back to life, re-charting the direction of all of our suffering towards total redemption.

I haven’t known how to explain Easter to Parker, my 3 and a half year old, this year. I just keep saying over and over “Baby, God makes everything new. Everything that has been bad is going to be made better.”

Everything bad is being made better.

Happy Easter, friends.