Leaning Into Your Husband

I have been extremely blessed to have many experiences within the realm of childbirth. My own experiences have been unusually numerous by themselves, but I have also attended and assisted several other mothers during their childbirth experiences. Each and all of these experiences have taught me so much that I could write several posts on several different topics—drawing upon the lessons I learned from them. This one is forcefully at the forefront of my thoughts this morning.

It has been remarkable to me that I have never witnessed a single laboring mother blame her husband for what she was presently going through. That stereotypical (but, bitter) “you-did-this-to-me” attitude? Yeah, I’ve never seen it. Not to say that it doesn’t happen. I just find it interesting that I haven’t seen it. But, then, I haven’t had many experiences in which the husband and wife weren’t at least fairly committed to each other, either. That’s important.

What I have seen, instead, is laboring mothers lean into their husbands as contractions come upon them, and, to be honest, I have found it beautifully fascinating that they do. The truth is that their husbands did “do this to them.” Not without consent, of course. The pleasurable sexual act that results in pregnancy is often a lot more enticing and appealing than the distant and painful experience of childbirth, and women who want to be mothers are willing to endure that suffering later for the blessing of having a baby. But it still—at some level—requires the woman to have a certain degree of trust in her husband to engage in that preliminary act, and it requires at least that degree of trust to rely upon him through the experience of childbirth and beyond. 

I find it so beautiful that, while in labor and as waves of increasing pain come, a mother looks for, and turns to, the person who brought about her painful condition in the first place. She knows that no one else is as invested in what is happening to her at that moment than her husband is. She knows that no one cares more for her, or for the new life on its way, as he does. Even when there isn’t much her husband can do to alleviate the pain, the mother will reach for him to come closer and to support her. And he does. In her weakened condition, the mother will lean into her husband, and her husband will fully support her. His strength becomes her strength because of the relationship that has been built between them.

There is a reason why the husband-wife relationship is used as a metaphor for the Lord’s relationship with us. There are many, actually.

We shouldn’t expect our relationship with him to be a blissful bed of roses. Just as a sexual union leads to pregnancy and childbirth, so does our union with him lead to experiences full of suffering and affliction. We should understand that those experiences are a natural consequence of our relationship with him. We should expect them. We should anticipate them. We should see them as moments when we can lean into him, and feel his strength, and make it our own. And then we should rejoice with him when they are over.

In our suffering, why do we not rely upon the Lord as much as a laboring mother relies upon her husband? Is he not much more worthy of our trust? He is. He knows where our relationship with him will take us. He knows what we will endure when we bind ourselves to him. In his love for us, he has been made strong, and his strength is greater than our weakness. We have every reason to lean into him. 

Wilderness

I don’t really like posting thoughts that are unorganized in my brain. I have a hard enough time putting the thoughts that are organized into words. However, this topic has many applications for different people in different circumstances, and so I feel the need to ramble just a bit and hopefully any specific application can be determined by the reader.

There are many stories in the scriptures that mention a “wilderness”—they have their setting in the wilderness, or someone who comes from the wilderness, or someone who goes into the wilderness, or the concept of a wilderness. It is a fascinating theme.

In Hebrew, the word for “wilderness” is “מדבר” (meed-bar), and someone once told me that it means “the place from which God speaks.” That made sense to me because I knew that “לדבר” means “to speak” and the prefix “מ” means “from.” I suppose, in this sense, it might be more correct to say that it means “the place of speaking” and that it is implied that the greatest “speaking” you can engage in is with God. But it can also mean “that which comes from speaking,” or the place to which you go after speaking with God—the result of a conversation with God, and you can find numerous examples of both uses in the scriptures.

It is interesting to me that the idea of a “wilderness” calls to our minds a place that is uninhabited and untamed. It might appear to be disordered, but it is actually a place where you can more easily see the natural order of things. It is not a place that is desired by people who think that “civilization” is better. Only a determined few see the benefit of it and feel a pull to march into it. What is distasteful to one because it is lonely and barren is what is enticing to another because it is what connects us to the divine.

Coming closer to God doesn’t mean that you have fewer wilderness experiences. There are many times when God commands people (as a result of their close association with him) to flee into the wilderness. That’s such a funny thing, too, if you think about it. When we talk about “fleeing,” we imply that there is some danger that we will encounter if we don’t “flee.” And yet, under “normal” circumstances, who thinks that running into the wilderness is a great idea? When we don’t perceive a danger as eminent, we have time to fool ourselves into thinking that what is immediately upon us isn’t as bad as it is or that it isn’t there at all. The wilderness can look so unappealing compared to what you currently perceive that you would be willing to turn around and walk away from it, even though you know that what you would return to would eventually destroy you (like the children of Israel wanting to return to the fleshpots of Egypt.) But those who are wise understand that the wilderness is the exact place to which you must flee.

Because the wilderness can better connect us to God, it is often where one goes to receive God’s promises. The strength that you gain in braving the wilderness enables you to encounter greater trials, and many times his promises to you will strengthen you to temporarily set aside your now-prized wilderness experience to go back and endure more trials in order to help others see the benefit of their own wilderness experience (like Nephi’s return to Jerusalem to invite Ishmael’s family into the wilderness).

Wilderness experiences are necessarily (and can be deliciously) humbling. They are where you best see yourself in relationship to God. There is no pretense—no illusion that you can try to hide behind. The conversation between you and God is honest and true (held to an exact and precise standard). It is beautiful to those who desire it and desirable to those who see it as beautiful.