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Reflection:

Any real connection involves vulnerability. 

Whether in marriage or friendship - even in our work. To attempt to create anything in this world is to take a risk. All creating is an expression of vulnerability. 

Even in our biology. 

The ancient psalmist alludes to an interior process of knitting - a delicate intertwining of individual strands over and over again until eventually an elaborate and beautiful tapestry comes to fruition. Presently we have been able to bear witness to this in-utero knitting through published photographs, but throughout the history of humanity, that knitting process remained an interior secret. 

This interior secret is a vulnerable relationship between two individuals. The forming child trusts the mother to provide all it needs so it can be knit together to completion. The mother offers herself to the forming child, trusting it will take what it needs to mature into completion while refraining from harming her. Both parties grow together connected at their vulnerabilities. Both parties take the risk of creating something new together.

If you don’t know anyone who has had a miscarriage, just wait. You will. 

And if you don’t know of at least one person who has lost their life trying to bring another life into this world, just wait. You will. 

The risks are all too painfully real. 

What does it say about a God who’s willing to be this vulnerable with us? 

Who’s willing to come into this world through the statistical risk of childbearing?

Who’s willing to be attached by a placenta for nourishment and life to Its own creation?

Who’s willing to wait and grow in the human womb? 

Who’s willing to be fearfully and wonderfully made, just like we are? 

Any real connection involves vulnerability because it takes the act of making oneself open to truly be known. God came to us floating in embryonic fluid. Embedded in the uterine wall of a Middle Eastern teenage woman It trusted to care for Its fragile knitting process. 

What it says about a God who’s willing to be this vulnerable is that God is willing to open Itself up to deeply connect with us. The real question is, are we willing to do the same? 

…

* this meditation is an excerpt from the book Honest Advent.