Chronicles of a Birth
I had the privilege of observing my pastor and his wife as they went through the process of having their first child a few years ago. My meticulous mind fed itself with observations through the months of gestation and the whole birth process. Here are some conclusions I drew.
It all started on a quiet July evening last year. I had settled down into my meditative mode (not yoga of course!) on one of the sofas in my living room ready to explore some issues beckoning for my mind’s attention when the phone rang .My first decision was to let it ring until it wanes in strength and goes back to sleep. I could always call back. What are answering machines for anyway?
It did go to sleep but only for a while before it began to ring again insistently. Someone on the other line had refused to quit.
I picked up the phone reluctantly but curiously. Wondering what couldn’t wait to travel through the wires or be left in the answering machine for later.
“Hello!” The voice of my pastor from California floated into my ears. I noticed it had a ring of excitement. It wasn’t too long before his excitement was transmitted to me.
He just got the news that his wife was pregnant and he was calling around to tell friends and family he was going to be a proud father.
The ring of excitement in his voice and the certainty of his conviction of the unseen triggered a string of thoughts within my observant mind that have strung out themselves through the past nine months.
The chronicles of births,
The same for the birth of a child,
A dream.
An idea.
An invention.
It begins with a swimming competition .The spermatozoa struggles aggressively against millions of equally aggressive competitors to reach the end of the pool - the egg. It is a race for life, second place means death. Every month millions get into the race and end up in disposal system of the body. Only one in millions will get the trophy. Only one would be promoted into the next stage of the cycle of life.
I can’t help but pause a while here and think of the winner in you and me. We have already fought the fiercest battle, ran the toughest race, won against the greatest odds.
We are winners over millions. We can yet still win and we will.
I also think of dreams and ideas, millions of them clamoring for attention hoping to be discovered. Like the sperms they strive for a fertile mind they can grow in. Often they find a prepared mind, tilled by expectation, ventilated by joy and watered by stillness. I wonder what the world would be like if all could find a heart to grow and produce.
Many come in the hour of slumber but are gone before you wake up. Can you remember the light that shone in you on your way home but was dimmed by the time you got home? How many books could have been written but instead lost in the din of business? How many songs? How many sermons? How many inventions? How many ideas does the thief of procrastination steal?
I have been a victim of this robber of ideas and I’ve learnt that carrying a little pad around to write flashes of inspiration is great wisdom. I expect it to come and it does come in the most unlikely places: on the plane, in the car, at work or in the bathroom.
My friend and his wife moved to Chicago shortly after that. Providence was giving me a closer look at the birth process.
The successful sperm has hit its target. It has been promoted to the second grade in the cycle. So small yet so promising. It is potentially strong but now still tender. If all goes well it will eventually outrun its mother or even outlive her. But before the running starts it must be gently carried, painfully born and tenderly nursed. Truly, your dream will still outrun you, grow bigger than you are and even outlive you but it must be carried tenderly and protected through the danger of gestation.
The dream carries in itself the ability to change your life and many others even those yet unborn. Every time you fly from cities to cities, drive your car, turn on the light bulb, use the microwave or even sit in your favorite seat you are experiencing someone’s manifested dreams. Those dreams that made it through the many dangers of gestation.
First is the danger of abortion. The forming life is terminated and its potentials are snuffed out. It will not get to run, live or outlive. It will not get to touch the lives it was meant to touch. It will not go to the next cycle of life.
Dreams are aborted in many ways. Many times it may have happened to you. The idea comes and you are filled with excitement. You rush off to tell the closest person of the great thing you have conceived. The fellow not seeing what you see or convinced of your certainty speaks words of impossibility or mocks your persuasions, convincing you of the absurdity and impracticality of your ideas. As a result your confidence is deflated and your excitement is curbed. You have thrown your dreams out of the security of the womb and abortion is often inevitable.
Babies in the womb must be exposed to the right substances. They inject substances from what the mother takes into her. Your dreams will be strong if you take in the right things. Walk with dreamers. Surround yourself with big thinkers, people who will cause the baby in your womb to leap for joy when you are in their presence, those who have erased ‘impossible’ from their lexicons and are not afraid of the novel and unexplored.
Know that dreamers always tread uncharted territories. That is why they lead the world. They often take lonely walks, they alone believing in their unseen convictions.
Another danger is that of premature birth. Nature has its calendars and time schedules. Time enough for the fetus to grow all it will need to survive in the harsh world outside the womb. If born earlier than nature schedules, it stands the chance of not surviving.
Dreams too have their timetables. There is a season when they must be kept within the confines your heart or only exposed to the most trusted few. An idea exposed before its time is like a child born before its time. Strengthen your dreams. Commence on their fulfillment and wait for the accurate time of their publicity.
I once read an illustration about the chicken and the egg. After laying the egg, the chicken sits on it often to properly incubate it. It provides the right condition for the chick in the egg to go through the natural formation process. After the period of time scheduled by nature, the chick within the egg begins to peck on the eggshell from inside. The mother offers it no help though .It instinctively knows that the strength the chick needs to survive in the new world it will be entering into is being developed with every peck.
In the same way, there are dreams that are glimpses into your future but not for now. They come only for you to adequately prepare, to gather information and be knowledgeable. An great idea born at the right time equals success but a great idea introduced at the wrong time will generate unnecessary resistance it would not have otherwise generated. Let this incubation period of your dream fulfill its process and then you will be ready for the next stage, which is the real birth of the dream.
Nine months swiftly passed to me as an observer but not to Mayo, my friend’s wife who carried the weight of the child within her through this period. Often times, especially at the tail end of the pregnancy period I heard her comment aloud on her strong desire for the child to be born soon.
Dreams create a sense of urgency and sometimes impatience can be our reaction to it. The business must start now and become a worldwide venture instantly. The book must be written and you must become a best-selling author overnight. This pressure can mount so high that we tend to lose appreciation for the consistent progress we are making even though they might be little. The baby might not have been born but it is growing and getting prepared for exposure.
Someone told a popular preacher once that he was an overnight success. He replied with wit that if his success was overnight it must be the longest night in history. There is nothing like overnight success. Success is planned, worked out through a process and it takes time. It takes patience, diligence and the ability to delay gratifications.
Anyway, the day came for the child to come. My pastor’s wife was in labor. The contraction pains went through her body in rivulets. She was about to give birth to her joy but she has to go through the pains of labor. This gateway of pain will lead her to her gain- her joy.
Your dreams will bring great gains to you but you must go through the pains of giving birth to them first. Publishers may reject your best books. Recording companies may find fault with your finest song. Conflicts will arise on the way to fulfilling your dreams. Just remember this when it gets really tough. It is toughest when its about to end. After the labor room is the nursery. After the tears, then the celebration comes.
I was privileged to see her when she arrived at her home from the hospital. We gathered around the beautiful baby to pray and then she burst into tears. Tears of joy at the miracle she had brought forth. She unconsciously provided a good ending to this piece.
Someday from now, if you will go though the process of protecting and nurturing your dreams you will look at what has been brought forth and shed tears of joy and appreciation for the faithfulness of God.
It all started on a quiet July evening last year. I had settled down into my meditative mode (not yoga of course!) on one of the sofas in my living room ready to explore some issues beckoning for my mind’s attention when the phone rang .My first decision was to let it ring until it wanes in strength and goes back to sleep. I could always call back. What are answering machines for anyway?
It did go to sleep but only for a while before it began to ring again insistently. Someone on the other line had refused to quit.
I picked up the phone reluctantly but curiously. Wondering what couldn’t wait to travel through the wires or be left in the answering machine for later.
“Hello!” The voice of my pastor from California floated into my ears. I noticed it had a ring of excitement. It wasn’t too long before his excitement was transmitted to me.
He just got the news that his wife was pregnant and he was calling around to tell friends and family he was going to be a proud father.
The ring of excitement in his voice and the certainty of his conviction of the unseen triggered a string of thoughts within my observant mind that have strung out themselves through the past nine months.
The chronicles of births,
The same for the birth of a child,
A dream.
An idea.
An invention.
It begins with a swimming competition .The spermatozoa struggles aggressively against millions of equally aggressive competitors to reach the end of the pool - the egg. It is a race for life, second place means death. Every month millions get into the race and end up in disposal system of the body. Only one in millions will get the trophy. Only one would be promoted into the next stage of the cycle of life.
I can’t help but pause a while here and think of the winner in you and me. We have already fought the fiercest battle, ran the toughest race, won against the greatest odds.
We are winners over millions. We can yet still win and we will.
I also think of dreams and ideas, millions of them clamoring for attention hoping to be discovered. Like the sperms they strive for a fertile mind they can grow in. Often they find a prepared mind, tilled by expectation, ventilated by joy and watered by stillness. I wonder what the world would be like if all could find a heart to grow and produce.
Many come in the hour of slumber but are gone before you wake up. Can you remember the light that shone in you on your way home but was dimmed by the time you got home? How many books could have been written but instead lost in the din of business? How many songs? How many sermons? How many inventions? How many ideas does the thief of procrastination steal?
I have been a victim of this robber of ideas and I’ve learnt that carrying a little pad around to write flashes of inspiration is great wisdom. I expect it to come and it does come in the most unlikely places: on the plane, in the car, at work or in the bathroom.
My friend and his wife moved to Chicago shortly after that. Providence was giving me a closer look at the birth process.
The successful sperm has hit its target. It has been promoted to the second grade in the cycle. So small yet so promising. It is potentially strong but now still tender. If all goes well it will eventually outrun its mother or even outlive her. But before the running starts it must be gently carried, painfully born and tenderly nursed. Truly, your dream will still outrun you, grow bigger than you are and even outlive you but it must be carried tenderly and protected through the danger of gestation.
The dream carries in itself the ability to change your life and many others even those yet unborn. Every time you fly from cities to cities, drive your car, turn on the light bulb, use the microwave or even sit in your favorite seat you are experiencing someone’s manifested dreams. Those dreams that made it through the many dangers of gestation.
First is the danger of abortion. The forming life is terminated and its potentials are snuffed out. It will not get to run, live or outlive. It will not get to touch the lives it was meant to touch. It will not go to the next cycle of life.
Dreams are aborted in many ways. Many times it may have happened to you. The idea comes and you are filled with excitement. You rush off to tell the closest person of the great thing you have conceived. The fellow not seeing what you see or convinced of your certainty speaks words of impossibility or mocks your persuasions, convincing you of the absurdity and impracticality of your ideas. As a result your confidence is deflated and your excitement is curbed. You have thrown your dreams out of the security of the womb and abortion is often inevitable.
Babies in the womb must be exposed to the right substances. They inject substances from what the mother takes into her. Your dreams will be strong if you take in the right things. Walk with dreamers. Surround yourself with big thinkers, people who will cause the baby in your womb to leap for joy when you are in their presence, those who have erased ‘impossible’ from their lexicons and are not afraid of the novel and unexplored.
Know that dreamers always tread uncharted territories. That is why they lead the world. They often take lonely walks, they alone believing in their unseen convictions.
Another danger is that of premature birth. Nature has its calendars and time schedules. Time enough for the fetus to grow all it will need to survive in the harsh world outside the womb. If born earlier than nature schedules, it stands the chance of not surviving.
Dreams too have their timetables. There is a season when they must be kept within the confines your heart or only exposed to the most trusted few. An idea exposed before its time is like a child born before its time. Strengthen your dreams. Commence on their fulfillment and wait for the accurate time of their publicity.
I once read an illustration about the chicken and the egg. After laying the egg, the chicken sits on it often to properly incubate it. It provides the right condition for the chick in the egg to go through the natural formation process. After the period of time scheduled by nature, the chick within the egg begins to peck on the eggshell from inside. The mother offers it no help though .It instinctively knows that the strength the chick needs to survive in the new world it will be entering into is being developed with every peck.
In the same way, there are dreams that are glimpses into your future but not for now. They come only for you to adequately prepare, to gather information and be knowledgeable. An great idea born at the right time equals success but a great idea introduced at the wrong time will generate unnecessary resistance it would not have otherwise generated. Let this incubation period of your dream fulfill its process and then you will be ready for the next stage, which is the real birth of the dream.
Nine months swiftly passed to me as an observer but not to Mayo, my friend’s wife who carried the weight of the child within her through this period. Often times, especially at the tail end of the pregnancy period I heard her comment aloud on her strong desire for the child to be born soon.
Dreams create a sense of urgency and sometimes impatience can be our reaction to it. The business must start now and become a worldwide venture instantly. The book must be written and you must become a best-selling author overnight. This pressure can mount so high that we tend to lose appreciation for the consistent progress we are making even though they might be little. The baby might not have been born but it is growing and getting prepared for exposure.
Someone told a popular preacher once that he was an overnight success. He replied with wit that if his success was overnight it must be the longest night in history. There is nothing like overnight success. Success is planned, worked out through a process and it takes time. It takes patience, diligence and the ability to delay gratifications.
Anyway, the day came for the child to come. My pastor’s wife was in labor. The contraction pains went through her body in rivulets. She was about to give birth to her joy but she has to go through the pains of labor. This gateway of pain will lead her to her gain- her joy.
Your dreams will bring great gains to you but you must go through the pains of giving birth to them first. Publishers may reject your best books. Recording companies may find fault with your finest song. Conflicts will arise on the way to fulfilling your dreams. Just remember this when it gets really tough. It is toughest when its about to end. After the labor room is the nursery. After the tears, then the celebration comes.
I was privileged to see her when she arrived at her home from the hospital. We gathered around the beautiful baby to pray and then she burst into tears. Tears of joy at the miracle she had brought forth. She unconsciously provided a good ending to this piece.
Someday from now, if you will go though the process of protecting and nurturing your dreams you will look at what has been brought forth and shed tears of joy and appreciation for the faithfulness of God.
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