The Time for a Miracle Baby

Liz had been thinking of a baby for many years—soft and warm, cuddly and loving—and all hers. The time was right, she and her husband decided they should wait no longer and then it happened—she was pregnant. The test she held in her hands in a country far away from her own homeland was enough to convince her that her missed period could mean only one thing—life grew within her. She immediately felt the presence of life, she carried herself with greater ease and thought about the food she ate, how many hours she slept, what she lifted, how she sat, and so on. She was excited and mesmerized by the miracle of life that had been created within her own body—her own body.

Maybe that’s why the day the Lord spoke to her she could not understand—would not understand. It happened as she sat in her living room, sorting through clean laundry, the rush of a whisper, the nudge of her spirit, she heard it within her being—not as an audible proclamation, not as an angel glowing gloriously from heaven, but in a still small voice from God, “You will not have a baby now. You will wait.” She furrowed her brows together in the middle of folding a wash-worn towel and wondered how she could have misunderstood God, for she was having a baby—she was pregnant after all. She shook her head and whispered to God in her heart, “What do you mean?” Silence. She pushed aside the heavenly conversation and finished the laundry, began supper, and waited for her husband. When he came through the door, she didn’t mention God’s words, instead they talked about names for the baby. As they readied for bed she almost built up the courage to tell him and ask him what he thought about the happening, but knew he’d tell her that it was some pregnancy horomone kicking in making her mind run ninety miles an hour on a collision course with itself. She instead slept next to him pondering God’s nudge in the silent places of her heart.

The next day when the bleeding began only eight weeks into the pregnancy, she cried and he cried. She lay in the floor and knew that life no longer grew within her body and she wailed, pulling her legs into a fetal position her heart broke a thousand times for the life she would not know. Each day she walked further away from that day, she felt like she were walking in a shell of her former self, she grasped for breath and her heart burned. She saw children in the park and her arms ached. She heard the wails of a baby on the bus and sparks of pain flew through her body. She questioned her own body. Were she the reason? She questioned her doctor’s care. Was he the reason? She questioned her husband’s DNA. Was he the reason? Had she jumped too high? Had she bent too low? Had she ate too much? Had she tried too hard? Was there a secret to baby-making that she did not know?

But in the quite of the day, when she had exhausted herself with the whys of tragedy, she knew in faith that God’s words spoken so softly to her in her living room had not been only preparation for the loss, but assurance of His constant companionship with her. He had not said her loss would be easy, He had said that the time was not now. He had not said why, He had said. And by Him saying anything at all, He had assured Liz that He was with her—through Her pain, He was with her.