Stretch Marks

I glance sight of them when I lift my arms to brush my hair in front of the mirror.  My shirt lifts around the midline - and there they are - stretch marks.  I think about how the skin at one time was stretched, pulled to it's maximum capacity swollen with baby and just when it felt like it may rip right open, the skin stretches again, this time with scars we call "stretch marks". 

I hesitate.

Isn't our spirit the same way? 

We pull and plead, tug and stretch until we feel so far out of our own ability, and in the midst we nearly rip right open feeling the wound of transparency as our spirit-skin grows tight and finally scars.  Those wounds, etched into our spirit skin that eventually give birth to new life.

I thought maybe I would be the one who has four kids and no stretch marks, but I am not.  A roadmap might be easier to read than my stomach.  My spiritual life hasn't escaped them either.  And sometimes I want to argue with God to tell him that this growing hurts, that I am stretched as far as I can go and any more will split me wide open, a gaping wound to show the world.  But He stretches more, and the painless scar shows, and gives witness that I have borne the hope of something new.

There's a new journey ahead He is birthing in me, and I am sure my spiritual stretchmarks will spread wide and burn when patience is required, and I have none to give.  When love is tired, and courage is weak. When days are long and I fail one. more. time.  Yet my hope swells with anticipation of the new birth and I wonder how long this gestation might be until it is born and I am embracing the new - this grace-filled, gift-filled life.