This month I am back to hitting the books and as determined as ever to learn and absorb as much as I can as I continue this wonderful and challenging journey in midwifery on the mission field….including the one right inside my own home! I love learning through the Charis material and how it all so beautifully points to the heart of a loving and incredibly awesome, complex, and creative God! The more I learn about God’s incredible design for our bodies, birth, and the world around us, the more I am in awe of Him. It’s hard for me to understand why brilliant scientists can’t see that science itself is one of the greatest proofs of a masterful and loving Creator. He has written of His love for us all over everything, from the tiniest cell to the precious children we have the honor and joy of catching…..and raising.

My heart’s cry in this season is that everything I do will also have His love written all over it for everyone to see, and that as a result, my love for others will be more evident, more selfless, and less hindered by my own sin. I love how that is the very heart of Charis Childbirth, her founders, her directors, and her instructors, and probably all of us who have been affiliated in any way for any significant amount of time. I love how far reaching and deeply connecting it is and how it applies to all the precious aspects of real life.

A couple silly, but sweet examples of this all happened this past week. They all seem completely unrelated, but the Charis heart connects them all. The first was with a dear friend who has courageously embarked on a journey towards better physical health, largely centered on better nutrition for herself and her family. What I learned through Charis drastically changed my life concerning my relationship with food in many wonderful ways. Simply as friends chatting about life, as we often do, I casually shared some of the things I have learned and what I have applied and the differences it has made. I shared some of my favorite healthy recipes, many of which have come from this very newsletter and even some from Kristen’s own blog. I even recommended some of the Charis required books on the topic. A couple days later my sweet friend told me what an incredible encouragement that God had used me (unknowingly) to be to her. She explained that the way I had shared my own knowledge and experience in an un-condemning, loving and encouraging way that wasn’t pushy or superior had meant so much to her. Upon reflection, I realize that sharing information in that way does not come naturally for me. It is a precious life skill I’ve learned directly from Charis and many of the Charis ladies who have had such an eternal impact on my life, starting with Kristen Schuchmann and Susan Oshel!

Secondly, another sweet friend of mine called me this week to share that her friend was in the hospital in labor. She told me her friend was 3 cm dilated and wanted to know how long until the baby would be born. I smiled and used those same Charis skills of patient, humble instruction to explain that a million different things determine how long a labor will take. As I continued with a normal homeschool day, I was able to help a friend help a friend who was in labor all the way across the country.

Which brings me to my final Charis connection – our homeschool day. Currently in my own studies I’ve been learning about microbiology. I just have to say here that I have immensely enjoyed learning about the history of microbiology, starting all the way back with Levitical law and the exciting realization that clearly, God was the first microbiologist. Anyway, what a fun surprise it was to look at the science assignment for my 1st graders to find we would be reading a book called Pastuer’s Fight Against Microbes! How fun to be studying some of the same things at the same time. It was helpful for me to break it down and study it at a more simple level, and it was also fun to feel like quite the expert science teacher for my kids this week. (=

Isn’t it beautiful the way God calls us each to skillfully and obediently weave our lives with the threads He has given us, and when He brings it all together it is both extravagantly beautiful and useful?

Exodus 35:25 – “All the skilled women spun with their hands, and brought what they had spun, in blue and purple and scarlet material and in fine linen.”