Almost every day it happens. Sometimes I am doing dishes, or sometimes reading. My two year old grins and says “Mommy, wanna see your belly”. He began doing this about 8 months ago. He begs, pleads and cuddles to convince me…
My belly. Hmmm. We are not on speaking terms, mostly I just ignore ‘her’. I dislike her so much I give her her own separate pronoun. She has grown three babies in 4 years and she has seen better days. Basically I do everything I can just not to look at her, because in my eyes, she has betrayed me by her deflated-balloon-ness.
But Xander Looooovvveeess her. Not just looking, he wants to touch, pat, and ask me about every freckle and mark. After about 2 minutes of this he always wraps up his ‘tummy time’ up with this last gesture. As I lay on the floor or couch, he kneels next to me, pulls up his shirt and gives me a big belly-to-belly sideways hug, his smiles and giggles are infectious, he is just so happy to be touching bellies. He lays there so content for a minute, like he has never been happier, then gets up and walks away.
He does this almost every day. It makes me...uncomfortable.
It took me till like the tenth time to actually start liking it, that’s how deep my own-belly-hate goes. But Alex, Alexander, my little Alyosha, my Xander, is like a little cherub, chipping away at my hard edges, my vanity, my self-centered concept of beauty.
My kids are always doing this. Redefining everything, exposing my sin, my vanity, my self-centeredness. In this particular situation,
Xander not only exposed my sin,
he literally COVERS it with his love,
and transforms my shame into gladness .
My child-bearing is saving me.
I have been suspecting this for a while. I am Saved by the grace of God, but I am being saved through Child-bearing.
This sounds a little scary, a little heretical, except, it’s actually IN the Bible. Right smack at the end of our oft-used handbook for Godly womanhood Paul writes: “She will be saved through child-bearing”.
Well that’s awkward. That doesn't fit inside any of my preconceived notions of ‘salvation’. But there it is, said by Paul, isn't he supposed to be the logical one? I’m a little offended even, as a 21st century woman and all.
Yes, it’s the same root as ‘Saved by grace through faith”.
Saved through
σωθήσεται διὰ
Biblical Greek does this thing with conjunctions: ‘BY grace’, ‘IN Christ’, ‘THROUGH faith’, It leaves us spinning and saying “conjunction, junction, what’ you function?” as we pull our hair out trying to figure out what “though childbearing” means.
I know one thing. It does not mean “by”. Or he would have just said ‘BY’ (as we are saved BY grace.) We also know we are not saved ‘by works’ and if childbearing isn’t work, I don’t know what is.
Yes, BY Grace, but certainly through childbearing, just like through faith. jeez louise, what does that even mean?
When I think of the word “through”, I think of the word “kroz” because I am learning Serbian, and ‘though’ is ‘kroz’ in Serbian, also ‘through’ in my mind is linked to tunnels, because my 4 year old is obsessed with tunnels and it is the word that is most linked with “through’ or “kroz” in common speech.
I say this because it is a great mental image for me. I am saved through the tunnel of childbearing, like a tunnel it is the only way forward, and some days it is long and dark.
But also, bearing children is the gracious process through which I am being saved.
or I continuously 'work out my salvation, because of God’s work within me’ through the daily walk of being a mother. It’s pretty much the most miraculous thing that has ever happened. Not just the growing the babies, or the having the babies, or feeding the babies with my own body, but the transformative work God is going in my THROUGH my kids. The sin He exposes, the repentance it brings, the redemption, the grace.
There is another weird verse that uses this σωθήσεται διὰ this 'saved through', Maybe I should not mention it, because it is also obscure, and it makes my head hurt...
There is another weird verse that uses this σωθήσεται διὰ this 'saved through', Maybe I should not mention it, because it is also obscure, and it makes my head hurt...
When talking about people who build worthless crap on the foundation of Jesus, Paul writes in Corinthians 3, that all the worthless crap will be burned up, but the people themselves will be saved through this fire.
“for the day will show it because it is [to be] revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. 14If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will received reward. 15If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”
Barn’s Commentary says this:
“so on the great Day everything that is erroneous and imperfect in Christiana shall be removed, and that which is true and genuine shall be preserved as if it had passed through fire. Their whole character and opinions shall be investigated; and that which is good shall be approved; and that which is false and erroneous be removed.”
What a great image for what motherhood does. The fire that tests us, in which we ‘will suffer loss’. This fire that refines us, that takes away everything that is not Jesus.
(like our pride in our bikini-belly-bodies, our clean house, our sanity, our intellect, you name it)
He reveals us to our core, our ugly, then he covers us up with his wings of grace, He hugs us with belly-to-belly hugs, then he leads us forward with nail pierced hands.
Every Morning, God sets my life on fire. Not in a fun way. In a three screaming kids wanting breakfast and I need to pee kind of way. He burns up the “me” and when I can’t stand it anymore, he reveals, he reminds me that my ‘me’s foundation” is Christ.
It is a fire that saves.
"She will be saved through childbearing"
Yes she certainly will be.
