Just a tiny glimpse!

I am down to 6 weeks left of my pregnancy. For the most part, I am doing well. I have felt good, I've kept up (barely, but I've managed)... and now, I'm exhausted. I'm having back pain if I stand for too long, if I sit for too long, if I lay on the couch, if I don't roll over at night every 2 hours... its hurting. I'm tired, I feel heavy. Nate is big, and still moving around as if he has all the space in the world. I feel pressure, then I don't. I have contractions... just ONE shy of heading into the Labor and Delivery... I'm ready to be done. But I still have 6 weeks (well, technically, to my due date, I have 8 weeks, but we will safely deliver 2 weeks early).
There is a part of me when I am sitting with top notch pain in my back that wants to just be done. I want my water to just spontaneously break and be rushed in to be relieved... but that is a VERY small part of me, the over all majority of me, the part that knows how bad that first part would be knows that Nate is not ready. He may be measuring big. He may be flipping and dropping and causing momma to be restless, but he's not mature enough. he's too young. So knowing that its my comfort or his health, I would endure this pain for years more... for a life time if it meant he gets to be healthy!
And this made me realize that although my pain is not even close to the pain Jesus felt on that cross, it is a glimpse into the type of sacrifice Jesus made for us.
I would do anything for my children. I've had pain in pregnancy before. I've experienced pain even as I was getting a c-section (maybe not hours and hours of labor, but pretty intense pain when the spinal is not going well), but I did it again... and again... and plan on doing it yet AGAIN... its a sacrifice I make for my children. I've had babies sit on my sciatic nerve making it very hard to move without crying out in pain... but I didn't abort them for my comfort. I endured. Women will go through 48+ hours of hard labor to deliver their babies... then do it again a couple of years later. We make sacrifices (for the next 18 years)... like I said, nothing compared to being beaten and mocked and eventually hanging on a tree to die... but its a glimpse.
A glimpse given to us to understand the type of sacrifice Christ went through in order to give us life. The intense back pain he must have felt. Not just getting whipped, and torn apart by the type of whips used... but to then expose that bloody damaged back to a splintery rough tree for hours!
The excrusiating pain he felt each time he moved to catch a breath (and if you've had girls who like to plant themselves high in your rib cage you have a glimpse into how it is to gasp for your breath).
Its not the same. Not by a long shot... but we catch a small tiny glimpse into the love it takes for a person to endure such pain and discomfort. We are human, it is impossible to love the way God loves. But when we give birth to our beautiful children and we love them with all that is within us we never stop and think "You are not worth all that pain I went through!" NEVER. Some of us look down, then look up at our husbands and say "lets do it again!" (I literally did this last time... I WON'T be doing it this time... but the love is still the same!)
Jesus looks at us, even when we aren't those cute innocent babies and says "You were so worth it!" YOU WERE SO WORTH IT! The sacrifice he made to give us life was big. And he did it with you in mind.
I've shared my story about how I feel each one of my children had a place in our family even before I knew what order they'd come. I just could picture each one as part of my life. And each one has never disappointed me... Jesus saw you long before you saw him, and longed for you to be part of his family. He may not have endured 9mo on that cross, but the pain and agony he endured that day was a lifetime of our sins. And we were so worth it!
I thank God for the tiny tiny glimpse into what it takes to sacrifice. And I thank Him even more for enduring that sacrifice for me... and I'm no cute little baby!