Renita J. Weems - Showing Mary: How Women Can Share Prayers, Wisdom, and the Blessings of God

Copyright 2002 by Renita J. Weems All rights reserved.

Scripture references are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Published by Warner Books, Inc., with Walk Worthy Press, Inc., 33290 West Fourteen Mile Road #482, West Bloomfield, MI 48322

Real Believers, Real Life, Real Answers in the Living God

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First eBook Edition: May 2002

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ISBN: 978-0-446-55440-4

For Cecilia, who many years ago taught me how to pray out loud.

It is not what you are, nor what you have been that God sees with his all-merciful eyes, but what you desire to be.

The Cloud of Unknowing

You are on the verge of something special. You know it. You can feel it. Something is in the air. You are restless and don't know why. You wake up in the morning with flutters in your stomach even though your calendar doesn't indicate any special meetings scheduled for the day. Your mind is racing from thought to thought, and you can't figure out why. A voice in you won't be quieted, but you can't quite make out what it's saying. You wonder if you're forgetting something, but you forgot what. Nothing has happened or is about to happen. But it is, and you sense it. It feels as though you're supposed to be doing something, something important, but you don't know what it is. The people and things you usually rely upon to distract you when you're unsettled only frustrate you right now. Today is not the first day you've felt like this. This feeling has been coming in waves, off and on, for some time.

You're on the verge of giving birth and don't know it. You're pregnant. No, no, noI don't mean you're pregnant with an actual baby (unless, of course, you are with child!). The birth referred to here and throughout this book is of another sort. It's the sort of birthing a woman does scores of times throughout her life without recognizing the symptoms. Her interests, her tastes, her emotions, her dreams, her image of herself grow and change throughout the phases of her life, causing enormous discomfort for her and for all those who look to her for strength and guidance. She barely notices the labor pains for what they are. This pregnancy has nothing to do with whether you're married or single, nor does it have anything to do with whether you are able or not able to bear children. Young, perimenopausal, menopausal, or postmenopausal, you are never too young or too old to give birth to yourself. New parts of yourself. New dimensions to yourself. Untapped sides of you. You are like Mary of Nazareth in the New Testament gospel stories. You are pregnant with possibility.

All the time you've been thinking it was your external circumstances that needed overhauling. A new job. A new house or apartment. A new hairstyle. A new wardrobe. A new look, period. New friends. A break from the family. A new husband. A new boyfriend. A husband or a boyfriend, period. But that's not it. Those are fine for temporary relief, but they can't quiet the deeper, interior upheaval that's going on inside you. To calm those twitters, you have to first face them and call them what they are. Spiritual gestation. Outgrowing an old self, shedding old skin, and becoming a new self. Sacred labor. Holy work. Rebirth.