I don't have babies easily, each of my children were born after a long, hard labor.  Now we are in labor again for spiritual birth and for some of them it feels long and hard. I was thinking today about some of the parallels.  I had very little control about the outcome and yet I was intimately and painfully involved with the process. In the same way I can't force my child to yield their life to Jesus and embrace Him as their rightful LORD and master - I have very little control, and it is excruciating bearing with  them as they choose to live for the flesh and make devastating decisions that we will all live with for life. As they thrash about the "womb" of our home and family, we feel every kick and punch. You can't separate yourself from your unborn child.  I remember waking in the night needing to use the bathroom because my body was processing the wastes for two, now I wake to pray, processing the spiritual "wastes" for them as well as myself. I don't ever remember worrying during labor that  any of my babies would be stillborn even though it was certainly in the realm of the possible, in fact I comforted myself between contractions with the coming joy of holding our new baby.  Perhaps rather than picturing and fearing their eternal damnation I need to picture our lives in a unified spiritual relationship with these yet unsaved children, imagining what it will be to fellowship freely and to work together for the Kingdom.    I really didn't mind being pregnant - it seemed like such a privilege, somehow I want to get to the place where this discomfort and pain feel like a Kingdom privilege.  Right now it feels like I felt with my firstborn when labor had gone on for three days without a break, that perhaps this was just the way the rest of my life would be with no relief.  During one of my labors, I had hung verses on our wall and I traced out the words with my eyes and in my mind as I breathed through contractions, one especially, "The name of the LORD is a strong tower.  The righteous runneth into it and is safe."  I think I'll meditate on those wonderful words some more as we breathe through the spiritual contractions anticipating the moment of birth.