What legacy are you leaving?

I am so glad you are here! We are talking about legacy and how that relates to pregnancy, childbirth and young motherhood this week.

Before we get started I would like to pray with our time together:

Lord, Thank you for the gift of children and for the privilege of being mothers. We are weak and make mistakes all the time and just need more of you and less of us in our homes, marriages and families. Would you please guide our steps, our words, our thoughts, and our service to glorify you? Jesus, we desire to raise sons and daughters who love you above all else, and love the things you love. We desire for our legacies, what we leave here {our children} to be a reflection of your handiwork in our lives and hearts. We want our children to seek you in all things, big and small, to take all decisions before you in this life. Help us to model that for them Lord. And lastly, Lord, I pray you would help me to write to your glory. Amen.

Yesterday I posed the question {you can view this post here}:
What do you your children believe or think about pregnancy and childbirth?

Today I want to clarify what the point of discussion is on this topic: LEGACY

1. Law. a gift of property, especially personal property, as money, by will; a bequest.
2. anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor: the legacy of ancient Rome.
{as defined by dictionary.com}
Websters, 1828 dictionary says, “Good counsel is the best legacy a father can leave to his child.”

When you don’t have a baby coming… you can still teach them to love on babies.

While a legacy is anything one can leave {everything from faith to land}, the legacy I want to talk about today is with regard to what we are teaching or modeling for our children in the season of childbearing and what they see our view as being towards pregnancy and birth.

Let me clarify, I am not talking about methods of labor, or even where to have ones baby. Opinions aside on things non eternal, I am talking about our attitudes, responses/reactions to circumstances, and even how we deal with the uncomfortabilities of pregnancy or the unfortunate emergency situations.

I’m talking about our judgement of others. Do your children see it, hear it, do they judge also? You see, our legacies are far more than just an opinion or passionate conviction about how something should or shouldn’t be done. I am not saying convictions are bad. As long as they leave room for love and grace.

Imagine for a moment a young girl who is raised by a woman who has had all home births and has a deep conviction it is the only way things should be done. Now imagine this young girl years later, married, and either in a situation where her life is in danger and in need of medical care or maybe she is married to a man who wasn’t raised with the same conviction of having babies at home. I wonder how the emotional stress of this young lady could weigh on her. The tension in her relationship with her mother, perhaps. Conflicted desire and opinions with her Husband. She may struggle with crucifying an idol (birth plan, location, natural/cesearean) that grew her heart. This is not the legacy we would knowingly want to leave is it?

Now imagine another scenario, a mother has her babies in the hospital and raises her daughter with that conviction… that home births are not safe and that one needs to always choose a “controlled” environment (though no man has control- only God does). Imagine this daughter, desiring something different for her births, but not wanting it to cause issues with her family.

There are many different scenarios I could play out for you… I think you get the point. The legacies we leave need not be the ones of mere man’s opinion. Because what might have been “best” for you, might not be “God’s Plan” for your daughter or daughter-in-love.The message I want to challenge us all on, including myself {For crying out loud I just wrote a book on childbirth- imagine the pressure my daughters or daughters-in-love “could” feel if I didn’t examine this}, is this: What heart attitudes, judgements, idols, sins, scars, hurts, worries, fears, doubts, and pains are we personally struggling with that could potentially be impacting the legacy we are leaving?

For the sweet sister in the Lord, who has experienced a traumatic birth, is your past experience tainting your opinions?

Has it made you vocal about birth in a non-godly way that discourages women against having courage or faith that they were created by God to do this worshipful work of bringing forth life? Do you struggle with jealousy?

Have you been unable to revell in what God has done in your sister’s life because of pains from your experiences that you have not dealt with? The reality is that we should all be able to rejoice together for the good that God has done in our lives. We should rejoice when a mother has a beautiful home birth with her loved ones around and we should rejoice when the doctors answer the call to save a baby or mother’s life successfully.

This is such a sensitive subject and honestly, I have been a bit nervous to write it, but ladies, sisters, I appeal to you! We have to experience healing in Christ and seek Him, not a method or place.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:33-34, ESV

This is the legacy we want to leave isn’t it?! A legacy of seeking first His Kingdom, seeking God on a personal level and surrendering our wills, our fears, our opinions under the headship of Christ. Can we do this without abandoning personal convictions? Yes, I believe we can. I believe we can choose to believe in God’s design of our bodies because it is truth and God glorifying. I believe He wants some of us to surrender idols in our lives, and some of those idols might be our convictions. But that does not mean they have to be abandoned. If something is good at it’s core, but has been made into an idol, we don’t abandon all of the good because our human nature has made it into something ugly. No, instead we need to purge ourselves, our hearts of the sin that corrupts what is good.

The solution: Abide & Seek first His Kingdom. The more of Christ we have in our hearts, the more grace will flow from our tongues. We simply need to soak our convictions in grace.

I have to tell you that what I am sharing with you today has been on my heart a very long time. About a month into writing Redeeming Childbirth: Experiencing His Presence in Pregnancy, Labor, Childbirth and Beyond I had to pause and go through this process myself. I had to examine my own heart in light of God’s word and in light of Grace. I journaled and prayed and realized that we all have these issues, don’t we?

This is the legacy I want to leave: Being real with myself and the sin in my own heart, being willing to stop and let God shine His light on those not so pretty areas. I want my children to learn by my example and by helping them practice what it means to be truly introspective and honest with one’s self, one’s brother or sister, and God. A legacy of conviction soaked in grace that brings glory to the Father only.

Discussion Guidelines:

~ Choose to see the best in others comments and ask God to give you grace for where”others” may be in their spiritual walk
~ If something I have said is truly upsetting to you, and you have biblical reason to confront me, please email me rather than leaving a comment. You can find my email here.
~ Let’s use this time to reflect on our own heart intentions and attitudes, not judging others… that is NOT our place of authority.