Advent Devotional by Kim Kankiewicz

 Luke 1:39-45 

The baby leaped in her womb. (Luke 1:44)

My children were born at the height of the Baby Einstein craze, when companies marketed classical music and visual art to parents of infants with the promise of enhanced language acquisition and brain development. In fact, we were told, in utero exposure to Mozart and Beethoven would give our babies a leg up before they even poked a toe out of the womb.

 At the start of 2003, while pregnant with my first child, Jack, I committed to reading through the Bible in a year. Influenced by all the attention on fetal sensory awareness, I decided to read out loud. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” I read to my belly. When Jack was born in early April, I kept reading aloud. I’d reached Leviticus by then. He slept through most of it.

 In today’s reading, John, while still in his mother’s womb, leaps in response to the Jesus dwelling in Mary. I hoped something similar would happen as I read to Jack: that he would respond to the Jesus in me, and in the Word, even before his birth.

Though I treasured that experience, I didn’t repeat it with my second child, Signe. I’ve regretted this sometimes, as if I failed to speak a spell of protection over one of my children. As a mother, I want to imitate the mothers in Luke’s story, raising children for a life of faith. But this Advent, after walking with Signe through a season of trauma, I find myself identifying with John. I am increasingly aware of the Jesus in people whose lives look messy, like Mary’s did, and I’m eager to let that presence direct my movement.

Kim Kankiewicz