“If you never mentioned, I never would have known!”
I knew what people were referring to. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder how it also applied to many other facets of our lives- a dream, concealed from the public eye, quietly simmering away; an idea, too shy to be disclosed, shaping itself; a song, veiled undercover, composing itself inaudibly.
Besides early pregnancy, there are a lot of things in our lives which we don’t announce, which people never know, and yet hold incredible significance for us, and the world.
For my gestational age of 5 months, I know I’m considered “small”. Until the fiery karate kicks came on board, I often felt very much un-pregnant on most days.
In the same way, I believe many of us carry a dream in our wombs. Yet, because it’s not “showing” yet, we may grow discouraged from the lack of sentiment and fanfare from those around us.
What amazed me, however, was seeing Baby on the ultrasound at the five-month mark. In just a matter of 5 short weeks, its delicate frame and fragile, toothpick legs had grown into a chubby torso and chewy drumstick legs responsible for its daily kickboxing routine.
I learnt- that even when we don’t feel like anything is happening, that doesn’t put a dent on God’s continuous miraculous working in our lives.
What amazed, and continues to amaze me, is how little control I have over this budding creation forming inside me. For all the privilege I have for being the very vessel and steward to bring this life to birth, I have absolutely no active say in forming Baby’s face, gender, or heart in the womb.
While I have control over certain lifestyle decisions which can help Baby, I often feel I have no direct control over my burgeoning body, expanding itself every day to accommodate this amplifying being, stretching itself in its inexorable draw towards life.
But God does.
It made me wonder, if perhaps, this applies not just to carrying a baby, but really, being a steward of the dreams God has placed in each of our wombs.
The truth is, we’ve all been called to steward something- our studies, finances, job, project, or ministry. Like a baby in the womb, each of these has the potential to birth into something powerful and meaningful into the world, or die a premature death.
As stewards of the dream, we feel ultimately responsible for how our dreams turn out. So we strive and strain, we toil and tug. At times, we work ourselves to death.
Yet, I am learning- could it be that all that we have been called to steward are just like the baby formed in a mother’s womb- entirely ours, and yet, entirely not.
Could it be that all we are called to do, is to labor at rest, and put our faith in a God whom we can trust will bring this life-filled dream to pass?
After all, all that we have been called to steward- from our finances to our jobs to our children- never really belonged to us. They do and do not. We are but temporary stewards, of what ultimately, belongs to Him.
Just like the mother who reads up on what to eat, what to do, what not to do, we too, have a part to play in sowing, watering and nourishing what God has blessed us to steward.
Yet, it boggles my mind, in awe-inspiring wonder, to know that it is God who created the seed, the destiny packed within that tiny seed, and Him who makes things grow.
We plant, we water, but He makes it grow.
This paradigm shift changed everything for me. It made me not worry about whether Baby would be affected by Zika, whether we would “shortchange” Baby’s future by serving in the mission field, or whether Baby would become a successful human being in the eyes of the world.
Because ultimately, what defines the success of the fruit we bear, does not lie directly in our striving and strife, as much as it does upon the restful faithfulness with which we cultivate our relationship with the Creator who creates, grows and flourishes.
What we commit to Him, He gives back to us. Just as how we don’t own anything we have, we don’t own our children either. We are but stewards of this great honor, chosen to govern dreams and lives.
Looking back, this directly applied to our time in Africa as well. With just a year there, we often wondered what impact that would make at all. Yet, more than a year later, quietly and without fanfare, we’ve seen how a small weekly village sewing project has flourished into a full-fledged vocational school teaching underprivileged women how to sew bags and footwear; the little village girl whose life we helped save has grown to become a beautiful toddler; the dismal healthcare project I helped to initiate has become a transnational partnership with Singapore.
I’m not discounting the effort we put into what we steward. At the end of the day, I believe God does ask us to give an account for what we were called to guard, protect, sow into. Yet, I am learning, that just as how God is the Creator and Lord of this growing baby within me, He, too, is the Lord of every other aspect of our lives.
In these past 5 months, I have been well conscious of the fact that I don’t look pregnant. Similarly, when we live our lives, it may just very well seem like nothing very much is happening.
Yet day by day, Cliff and I pray for our baby; I eat my multivitamins, we sow words of faith into our child. Similarly, shall we not continue to sow, to plant, to water, even when things look dormant?
After 13 months of what seemed like a stagnating partnership, I was on the verge of giving up on the Ugandan-Singapore healthcare training project. Then, just a few weeks ago when I was abruptly transferred to a new workplace, my supervisor requested me to present the project to the senior management and on the spot, they agreed to fund this project, so that it could be used as a model of outreach to other ASEAN nations in the near future.
We plant, we water, we are called to be faithful- but God makes things grow.
I don’t know what it is you’re waiting for today- it could be an outcome, a result, a birth of a dream you’ve been longing and travailing over in prayer, in your studies, workplace or calling in life.
People all around you could be telling you how abysmal your situation is, how unpromising things are, how unlikely it looks that anything is growing inside of you.
But just as how unpregnant I’ve looked for the past 5 months, I am learning, how amazingly silent our God can be when He works the miraculous, humbly and unapologetically.
So don’t give up- keep planting, keep watering, keep being faithful.
After all, if God planted His seed in you and chose you to steward it, will He not grant you the ability, strength and favor to mother the dream He created for you in the first place?
The rest, belongs to Him.
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made,
even his eternal power and Godhead;
so that they are without excuse.”
-Romans 1:20