push and pray, push and pray, let life come forth!

Ruth Sloman finds echoes of God’s kingdom as she cares for a woman in labour

I am often amazed by the parallels between pregnancy, childbirth, God’s kingdom, and his ways. What I find so beautiful and mysterious is that with all our knowledge and scientific discoveries, we humans are still none the wiser about the exact mechanism that causes a woman to start her labour, although there are, of course, many theories. As a midwife, I like the idea that the physiology of pregnancy and childbirth is a wonderfully complex, symbiotic relationship between maternal and fetal factors.

A few weeks ago, I was looking after a woman in labour. She was quite exhausted after having a longer than normal labour for her (she already had children). She got to the expulsive stage of the labour, and we were with her, giving encouragement. After a while, she turned to me and asked that I pray while she was pushing. I noticed that when I prayed, she was able to push, and she had a second wind of energy. Her pushing got stronger and stronger. It was a wonderful birth, and she was elated when she had the baby in her arms!

Being in Burundi, where maternal and child health is generally very poor, I am often reminded of Romans 8:22-27. Sometimes, the difference between what we see in front of our eyes and what we want to see when we pray, ‘…may Your kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven…’ can seem so vast as to be almost unreconcilable. However, these verses that Paul writes encourage me. Like a woman in the process of bringing forth new life, we can struggle with the process and the road may not be easy. Yet, we are NEVER alone in this; God’s Spirit is with us and it is only by his Spirit that we can do anything and really bring forth what he has put in each one of us. Giving birth is not the result of one person’s effort; it requires the mother and baby to work together. In the same way, God wants to bring his kingdom through us and with us; it is incredible and beautiful.

I pray that as you read this, whatever situations you are in, may you be strengthened by the Holy Spirit, who is alongside you and interceding for you, along with the saints.

As they say in Kirundi (the official language of Burundi), ‘shishikara’, which means ‘persevere!’

Ruth Sloman is a midwife in Burundi