Life Within

A Reflection on the Second Reading for March 29th, 2020:
​Fifth Sunday of Lent

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Romans 8.8-11

Brothers and sisters: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

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Pause. Pray.

And then read more...

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I have been spending a lot of time at the IWK Health Centre this week rather than in the community with the families I typically work with, and there are many women wandering around that place with indwelling lives housed securely in their wombs. If you have ever been “in the family way,” you know the unmistakable and oftentimes glorious feeling of life dwelling within you.


I was dead in my sin when I became pregnant with new life, though my sins were largely unknown to me at the time. What I did know, was that things were about to change.


I was able to play with my daughter before she was even born. I would lie down and sing to her often. When I would stop singing, she would kick me. As I started up again, she would stop. I tested this on more than one occasion, because although it seemed highly improbable to me that she would interact this way before birth, the interaction was so clearly intentional. She shattered my preconceptions about pre-born children. Then over and over again after her birth, she shattered my preconceptions about many other things.


When she came to life within me, I also began to be born anew. I saw myself, my body, my purpose, in a whole new way. I began to see myself as having worth—because now I was a part of something bigger than me. I had a family. I had a most intimate relationship—one that was born from within my very being. One that could never be separated from me. She will always belong to me, and I to her.


No longer living for myself, I began to live for her. More than I wanted what was best for myself, I wanted what was best for her.


And so it is to be born of the Spirit.


Something gave way to allow for this sacrificial disposition in me; a dying before a living. But the things that died—selfishness, autonomy, comfort—these are merely things of the flesh. And their dying gave way for the newness of life in love, communion, sacrifice. This is life in the Spirit. Having access to the Spirit of God requires this same full submission to a life more important than my own: the Life of Jesus. This submission is a dying to my own agendas, ideals, preconceptions. In a most radical way, it is a letting go of my very own life to do what I believe He would want me to do. And the reward for this sacrifice is so boundless, my mind can’t contain it.


I write these things to you on the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord—the very day our Mother Mary submitted herself, her whole life, amidst all the uncertainty, certain persecution, and relational sacrifice that she, in her youth and innocence would face—for the Spirit of the Lord to dwell within her. She gave it all to receive it all.


Father, I give you my life to receive Your Life in me, today.




Lori MacDonald
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Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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