The driving mission behind Made for This Birth is to share the message that God, the Creator of the whole universe and the Creator of every single woman, cares about birth. It is not just in a general sense. He cares about every single birth. He cares about your birth. Not only does He care about outcomes and the people involved, but He cares about the design being respected, the choices made during, and the experience that every woman, baby, and family have through it. Perhaps that seems obvious to some reading but a variation of the theme of “God doesn’t care about …” can often be heard not only when it comes to discussions about birth but also those involving all sorts of aspects of parenting, health, lifestyle choices, and more. We human beings love to dissect and compartmentalize ourselves and our decisions.
That doesn’t mean that there is only one “God-approved” way or set of decisions, of course. Women have different circumstances, different environments, different histories, and different social structures around them that must inform each individual woman’s decisions and plans for birth. There are a variety of ways that each woman’s birth choices can glorify God. But it certainly remains that God cares about it and He wants His design and guidance to be an integral part of the process. In the way of a loving Father, He wants to be involved and His opinion asked. He cares about the process and decisions and He especially cares how His daughter’s heart is affected throughout it. But it is not in a way where He is dictating each and every detail or removing her freedom or function of discernment.
Put another way: when a friend is about to go through something intense, dramatic, and emotional, an event that will affect her deeply and change the rest of her life, do you care? Or do you tell her she’s on her own and you don’t want to know about it? What if that person is your son or daughter? How much more infinitely so, then, does God care about such a thing for one of His daughters, especially when that thing is also the way He Himself designed for us to join in His work of bringing life to the world.
God constructed the design of birth. From the process of conception to the process of fetal growth and gestation times, to the way the uterus contracts and opens and the baby molds and moves and comes forth into the world through the vagina, He came up with all of it. That was His genius. He planned it intricately to the last detail to work beautifully so that His greatest masterpiece of all time, the human person, might participate in and continue His work of creation. He knew what He was doing.
That means that in respect for God as His creatures, we must take His intentional design for birth as the default when making decisions, honoring our bodies as the temples and masterpieces He wanted them to be. It means that studying that design and seeking to understand why He created the process as He did is a way to glorify and honor Him. It also means that we don’t necessarily need to understand it all to the most meticulous detail to recognize that He knew what He was doing. Exercising a humble and simple trust that His design works is also a way to honor and glorify Him. Honoring His design is the best way to achieve outcomes that are healthy, not just physically but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It also means that when that design is ignored or discarded as gratuitous or worse, inferior, that there will be repercussions, some we might never have anticipated.
His design for the woman’s body is good and beautiful. We also know that in a fallen world, there are times when His design gets distorted and it’s in the best interest of mother or baby to intervene. Those times, too, when done appropriately with wisdom and prudence and love, can also glorify Him and can even be a symbol of redemption. He is glorified through medical advancements that truly restore or protect the health of the body, revere the creative act, honor natural law, and respect the dignity of the people involved.
The invitation from Made for This Birth is to step into the beauty and mystery of birth and allow God to move into your birth space and decisions. Allow reverence for His design to guide your decisions. Allow and invite Him to work in and through your birth in a way that is intimately unique to you. He cares passionately about you and your baby and that means He cares passionately about your birth, every part of it.
