Welcome.

I had occasion recently to recall an experience of years ago. I was young, barely graduated from high school. It was my first off the ranch job. I was a gas station attendant in town for a small business owner. He was good to me and trusted me to keep things together as he sometimes stepped away to run errands around town. I worked hard for him and enjoyed meeting and associating with all kinds of folks traveling along the loneliest road in America.

One particular day a van full of true-blue hippies pulled into the service station. Since it was full service, I began to attend to them and fill up their van. In my innocence, I didn’t recognize signs of drug use, but looking back now I remember rolled joints, brainless comments, and a strangeness I didn’t understand.

I distinctly remember making conversation as I cleaned the windshield and filled up the volkswagon with gas. At one point I asked the male figure standing nearby. “Where are you from?” He somewhat contemptuously said, “My mother’s womb.” Others of his company nearby sneeringly laughed.

The disparaging disdain for my question bothered me.

And it still hurts me to this day.

I felt that although he in fact had spoken a truth, he had presented it in a way that did no honor to the woman who gave him life nor to the beauty of the womb itself.

Fast forward thirty years.

Last week, my author-friend delivered her seventh baby, and in a text she sent me with a picture of that darling one, she wrote, “We are in love…”

A day after her home delivery, I read something in one of her published books. It hit my soul with such force! Finally, I knew why, all those years before, I had felt sorrow at that gas station as I heard those unfavorable towards the womb words roll out of that hippie’s mouth.

After bringing her second son into the world, my friend had, in her words, “a powerful spiritual experience.” (Farrell, H., “Walking With the Women of the New Testament,” pg. 149). She wrote,

“After the birth of my second son,…I got in the shower to clean up…While I rubbed soap over my belly, I began to think how strange it was that just earlier that morning, in the same shower, I’d rubbed soap over a pregnant belly. Now it was empty. I thought to myself, “Wow! Where did it all go?” And then the words “He is not here” pierced my heart, and I found myself remembering the story of the women at the empty tomb…While I stood in the shower and stared at my deflated stomach, I had a powerful realization that both the womb and the tomb are places of transformation and those who enter emerge as new beings…” (Farrell, H., “Walking With the Women of the New Testament,” pg. 149)

Is this among the most glorious of things you’ve heard or what?

The womb, the tomb – holy places of conversion and revolution and, as my friend said, absolute transformation. Back to her inspired words:

“The womb is a place where bones, sinews, muscles, organs, and nerves are all organized and ordered. A person enters the womb as only a few cells and miraculously emerges nine months later as a mortal being with millions of cells. In a similar manner, a tomb (death) is also a place of transformation. A person enters it with a mortal body that will corrupt and decay, yet, because of Christ, one day that body will be organized and ordered again and will emerge as an immortal being…” (Farrell, H., “Walking With the Women of the New Testament,” pg. 149)

“Those who enter emerge as new beings…” (Farrell, H., “Walking With the Women of the New Testament,” pg. 149)

Finally I understood why my heart was jabbed thirty years ago.

That man’s derision and almost mocking attitude towards the womb – the place where he began his probationary growth, that holy beginning – was so hurtful.

Jesus once told Nicodemus that “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” and Nicodemus wanted to know “how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb?” (See John 3:3,4)

No, Nicodemus, no but the first entry therein provides a way for incredible transformation. A waiting spirit come from heavenly realms sent into a waiting womb, and there, in that just right environment, transformation begins. Just as transformation begins when one is “born of water and of the Spirit.” (See John 3:5)

The womb.

What a place of sanctified holiness!

For growth. For change. For advancement. For progression. For total transformation. It’s so beautiful.

And then the tomb.

Another place, as my friend observed, of total transformation.

The body of Jesus was laid in a borrowed tomb, and He rose from that place. Totally transformed into the resurrected Lord! Never to die again! Ensuring our everlasting resurrection.

I mean we lay flesh and bones into the ground or incinerate them in burning flames, and yet all parts and pieces will come forth in a perfect wholeness in the day of resurrection. Transformed beyond blemishes, flaws, disease, genetics, and handicaps!

Has there ever come to man such a chance for transformation?

I’ll never look at a grave or graveyard the same again.

Never.

Holy places of waiting where a great work of transformation will take place.

The womb, the tomb – I love them both.

Unto all the world: Our life is a womb to tomb journey, one of invited change and hopeful progression. Both places are beautiful settings for the wonder of transformation, and I love that it is so.