One year ago I found out I was expecting my 5th baby. Our oldest was not yet 7, I was working nights as a labor and delivery nurse and had recently entered into a dark period in my marriage. The “positive” result of that test felt like nothing positive at all. I wrestled every day with accepting the pregnancy and pretending to be excited in front of my other 4 children, friends, and co-workers. I spent 9 months tortured by guilt of being a bad mom, a bad wife, an ungrateful woman and the shame that those feelings elicited.

The unexpected pregnancy was difficult physically and emotionally, and was made even more so because of a dark time in marriage, but the one place I was not shy to share my struggle was in our School of Community. The readings of The Religious Sense seemed written just for me. I felt Fr. Giussani pulling me onwards as I trod behind him trying my hardest to follow with my eyes wide open. “Either you face reality wide open, loyally, with the bright eyes of a child, calling a spade a spade, embracing its entire presence, even its meaning; either this, or you place yourself in front of reality, defend yourself against it, almost with your arms flung in front of your eyes to ward off unwelcomed and unexpected blows” (The Religious Sense, p. 127). Specifically, there were three moments where I was able to face reality wide open. Moments, that if I were to write The Gospel According to Emily, would be included as examples of Jesus touching me as concretely as he touched any of the disciples in the actual Gospels.

The first experience was the very first ultrasound at around 10 weeks. I was shaking with fear walking into the room: “What if it’s twins?” “What if it’s not alive after all?” The ultrasound technician scanned my belly and after a few moments said, “Now for the fun part” and turned on the sound so we could hear a perfect heartbeat. I threw my arms over my face and sobbed. The pregnancy was no longer an “idea.” The heartbeat, made possible by a seemingly impossible technology, was proof of a life that no one preferred except for Christ Himself. It didn’t matter if I didn't want to be pregnant. He desired this life and I was in awe. On page 102 of The Religious Sense Fr. Guissani says: “The wonder of the presence attracts me, and that is how the search within me breaks out.” This glimpse of His presence helped me to toil onward.

The second experience came a few months later. I was reading the CL USA Newsletter and encountered an essay entitled “Birth Begs A Meaning,” written by a friend and co-worker who works on the same unit at the same hospital as I do and where I was going to deliver my baby. She wrote simply about her experience at work and The Religious Sense. My heart stirred! I told my companions at School of Community that I was grateful to know that if my baby was born un-loved, and not preferred even by her own mother, she would have someone who could look at her and say “I love you. It is good that you are here.” In The Religious Sense, Fr. Giussani says “The Community is the dimension and condition necessary for the human seed to bear fruit” (p. 131). I became aware that to belong to a community is as necessary for my life as water.

The third experience happened while I was in labor at the hospital. It was the middle of the night, I was 6cm dilated, had a broken bag of water and my contractions had completely stopped. Normally when women are on their 5th baby, labor is fast and once it starts nothing can stop it. But mine was at a dead halt. From my experience as a labor and delivery nurse I know the power the mind has over a woman’s body, and more than once had been witness to women who’s psychological and emotional states prevented their labor from progressing. I asked myself, what were the fears stopping me from bringing my daughter into the world? In a moment of grace, and with the trepidation and shame that I imagine Peter having after denying Jesus, I told my husband “I can’t face her. How can I, with the violence with which I have not wanted her for the past 9 months? How can I possibly look at her?” He held me and we prayed. On page 57 of The Religious Sense Giussani says: “Only the existence of the mystery is adequate to our human structure, which is … insatiable begging.” Shortly after this moment of insatiable begging, contractions started again.

My daughter, Sybil’s, birth was one of the most profound experiences of my life. She came beautifully and peacefully into the world on the morning of September 24th. She was so perfect I had to close my eyes. Looking at her was like looking at Christ resurrected: a bright shining light that lit every deep crevice of my life. When I shared this experience at School of Community a friend said “This whole time you had a heart of flesh.” And she was right! I thought my heart was dark, that I had my arms flung in front of reality to defend against it. However, my heart was anything but stone. My struggle with reality put me in a position to receive more than I ever could have hoped for one year ago. At my daughter’s baptism a few weeks after her birth a friend wrote in a poem for us: “Sometimes perfect love casts out all fear, casts out all shame. Comes to us as the answer to the deepest desires of our hearts wrapped in swaddling clothes. Sometimes He makes all things - water, tears, blood, sweat, pain, shame, fear - new.”

I wrote this down as a mercy to my future self! A future self who will inevitably fall into forgetfulness. I wrote it down to, in a way, solidify the judgment. I pray, beg, for closeness to Christ and to live out the fruit of this judgment for the rest of my life.

Emily, Littleton, CO