What Being Pregnant Has Taught Me About God and Faith

Well, it has been a while since I posted anything. My last visit to the gynaecologist was on the 11th of February and the doctor’s report was great! The baby had grown to 23 mm, up from 8.7 mm two weeks before. The estimated due date has been pushed back by 2 days to 17 September, 2008. The arm and leg buds have started showing. I couldn’t figure out the heartbeat of the baby on the ultrasound scan but the gynae was ever so patient in explaining to me what the hazy shapes meant. In fact, the gynae seemed really happy that my baby was doing so well. I found her super chatty that day. I also found it so funny that she said that “you see, sometimes doctors really can’t do much to help a baby survive. What is important is that the genetic make-up of the baby is correct.” I was like “Huh? How come a doctor would say something like this?”

But of course, what she says is so true. Medical professions and advancements can do a lot to help improve the physiological state and well-being of the human race. However, they cannot control, ascertain nor guarantee the outcome of medical treatment nor the lifespan of individual. Only God can.

During the course of the last 5 weeks or so, since I discovered that I am with child, I have learnt so much more about the reality of life and its mystery. No matter how intelligent or how advanced technology gets, we cannot control life nor death. And as for health? Sure, we can take all the supplements or medications but they are still no gurantee for complete recovery or preservation of health. Being on the hormone pills to help support a healthy pregnancy, I am so aware of that the health of my baby is not dictated by these small white pills. No matter how well I eat or how much I rest, there is still no way I can personally ensure the healthy development of my baby. All that I do helps to boost the chances of the healthy development, but still it is not a guarantee. I cannot but I am so thankful that I have a Creator, a Covenant Friend and a Father who can.

He who spoke the universe into being. He who commands dry bones to live. He who raises the dead. He can.

And what is even more amazing is He has already made a personal promise to ensure that we will have life, and life abundantly, if we put our trust in Him. I had this discussion with a friend about what faith is. For me, faith is choosing to believe God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. Something I have also been learning about faith is that it speaks. Faith calls things that are not, as though they were (Romans 4:17). How powerful is that – to call things that have not come to pass as though they have. Faith is also believing against all hope, all natural circumstances. Why is it that without faith, it is impossible to please God, and not righteousness or holiness? Because I believe that faith makes one realise just how powerless we really are and only God is the omnipotent. Faith gives God the rightful glory and honour He is due.

However powerless we really are in ourselves, I am truly amazed to find that God has empowered us to live an overcoming life through Jesus and through the Holy Spirit whom He has placed in us. There is so much more to my God that I have known, and it is through this miracle of a baby that I am learning so much more about what it means to be entirely dependent on Him and Him alone.

That is perhaps why in John, Jesus says that He is the vine and we are the brances. If we abide in Him, then we will bear fruit. Just like a branch separated from the mother plant cannot have life and will soon dry up and die, I have no hope of bearing this baby fruit on my own.

In Love with You

Last Sunday, I was feeling just so ‘nuah’ after a week of house arrest. Though I had enough sleep the entire week, I just couldn’t get myself in time for church and it was the 5pm service. Talk about sloth.

Nonetheless, I managed to get there just as worship was ending and (gasp!) I realised I had missed out on Bob Fitts’ leading worship. I do not idolise him but I cannot deny that he is my all-time favourite worship leader. No! It is not because of his good looks. But yes, he is good looking. Rather, there is always this wonderfully sweet anointing on him each time he sings and speaks that makes me feel so drenched with the goodness of God. Through his songs, my faith and confidence in a God who is Big, Strong and For Me is renewed. And there is this quiet, stillness I sense in him that invites me to gaze upon the beauty of Jesus again.

Tears just began welling up the minute I heard him sing. But those tears were not those of despair nor misery. I can’t quite begin to describe them fully except to say that I was enraptured by the beauty and purity and kindness of God. Wendy later said that it was good for me to be reminded of God’s love for me. But I don’t think it was a reminder at all. I think it was a fresh revelation.

I mean I have always believed that God loves me. Jesus loves me. These words “I love you” from God I believed. But hearing these words from God , “I am IN love with you” made me stop.
God is IN love with me? Why? Why would God be in love with me? Perhaps there is no distinction between the phrases ‘I love you’ and ‘I am in love with you’. But on Sunday, there was. They made me wonder, ‘God – the creator of the entire universe and all things beautiful – is in love with me. What does He love about me?’

It reminded me so much of how it is like between Roy and I. Even though we have had years of friendship and courtship between us, I often like to ask him the same question ‘What do you love about me?’ And his answer would often infuriate me – “I love you because you are you.” “What do you mean?” I would cry. I could not accept that he could just love me for NO reason except that I was who I am. “What was it about me that you love? Surely there must something specific you can name that you love about me?” I would badger on hoping to find an answer. On hindsight, I felt I needed him to give me specifics about what I did or my personality or my character before I could believe he really loves me and that he is not in love with his ideal of me. However, pure love is not conditional and not determined a person’s behaviour. Thank God!

With God, I realise that His love for me is unconditional and is not based on what I am capable of or my track record. He just loves me because I was His idea. He just loves me. It is a fact that still blows me away, and I can’t say I have fully grasped it. And I know that is why He has blessed me with such a wonderful friend, confidant and companion in Roy. Through Roy, I have been catching glimpses of what unconditional love means. Thank you honey for teaching me how to love, how to trust and how to have faith. Thank for loving me with the ‘agapou’ love.

And as I end off, I would like to leave you with the song from Bob Fitts’ new album, restore. This is the song that made me stop and ponder , ‘God, are you sure you are in love with me? Why?’. I pray that as you read this lyrics, you will allow yourself to be told by God again just how much He loves you.

In Love With You

http://www.bobfitts.com/

Spirit whisper sweetly now

I hear You in this quiet hour

Humbled by Your tender power

You embrace me

Constant as the morning breaks

Endless never-changing grace

Words that sin cannot erase

You say them still

I am in love with you

I am in love with you

How Your tender heart must break

When perfect love is turned away

But words of mercy never fade

I forgive you

Restoring love that never ends

A brand new day just now begins

Reaching for my long best friend

You embrace me

I am in love with you
I am in love with you

Your precious Son

His perfect blood

This costly way

He died to save

He rose to say

I am in love with you
I am in love with you

Joy for the Journey

It has been almost everything but uneventful in our journey towards parenthood.

Our first encounter with parenthood came at the end of June 2007. The excitement of being pregnant very soon gave away to grief unimaginable as we lost our first child, Jaeden, unexpectedly in August. Thereafter, there began a very hard struggle for faith and trust in the God who is always good.

Not for one minute did I ever consider labelling God as unfair and cruel. I have had been saved from the brink of self-destruction to know better. However, I was thrown into a constant storm of confusion by conflicting condolences extended to me by well-meaning Christians. I had questions as to why my prayers for my baby then had not been answers. I had questions about myself and what kind of person I was that perhaps caused God to not save when I called. I had questions about my very own faith – Have I misunderstood God and His promises? Was losing this child part of God’s plan for me, for us? If so, how do I reconcile that to my understanding that Jesus heals all? I could not come to terms with the idea that God had allowed us the joy of becoming parents only to snatch it away from us so suddenly and so soon.

And all I was hearing from these well-meaning Christians, though sincere, did not help me understand my situation of loss and grief any better. If anything, what I heard them say about God and why He allowed my child to die made me feel even more sick with pain. Two respected leaders in a church told me things that started me spinning down the tunnel of theological trouble. One had prayed along the lines of , “Father, we know that sometimes miscarriage is nature’s way of dealing with abnormalities… So let your will be done.” Another told me that perhaps I had twisted God’s word to fit my own desires for the child, and God had never meant for my child to live beyond those 7 weeks.

I was seriously confused: What about the scriptures that said that miscarriage was a curse of sin from which Jesus Himself had removed from us at the Cross? What about God’s promise that “none should miscarry nor be barren” and that “the fruit of the womb is blessed”? All these scriptures about healthy pregnancies, health and healing I have read and come to believe to be true in the Bible didn’t tally up with what they were saying. Read the Gospels and you see a Jesus who healed all who needed healing and all who came to Him. Not once did He turn anyone away. The famous Isaiah 53 line that reads “By His wounds, we are healed.” A definite pronouncement of our healing in Jesus – we are, have been made well. But what these Christian leaders, with all their years of faith and theological training, seem to be telling me otherwise. God, help!

God did help me sort out my questions and confusions, and He still is. Now in my second pregnancy, faced again with symptoms of threatened miscarriage, I am better equipped for this journey towards a joy fulfilled. I have been reading the Bible and thus far, what I have read re-emphasises my belief in a God who is always Good, always true to His promises, and most of all, full of compassion for people, for me.

As I lie in bed assailed by thoughts of a possible miscarriage, I find strength from reading about the miracles of Jesus. All four gospels reveal a Jesus who always desired to heal the sick and diseased, and He always did. I was stunned to see Him heal even those who did not first ask for forgiveness ( John 5:7 -14). Instead, He first healed them and then advised “Sin no more lest something worse comes upon you.” He told his disciples when he sent them out to villages to “heal all who need healing” and then after healing, say “The Kingdom of God is near you.” The Kingdom of God is one of health and goodness, not one where health is withheld to keep a person in greater humility or to punish him. If those people healed were not even first believers in Jesus, how much more then shall anyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for their sins can receive this healing and health! Health and healing are blood-bought rights of the children of God.

What amazes me again is that Jesus says that all we ask Him and believe, we will receive.(Mark 11:22 -24) So simple – just believe and do not doubt and we will receive. Too simple that it is hard to do. With doubt, prayers cannot be answered. With faith, mountains can be moved. No wonder then that at Jairus’ home, Jesus kicked out all who mocked and laughed at him when he said, “His daughter is not dead; she is only sleeping.” And he only allowed the girls’ parents, his three disciples to remain in the room with Him as He worked His miracle and brought her back to life. (Mark 6:35-42)

And no wonder why Smith Wigglesworth could not stand the prayers of well-meaning Christians who prayed for comfort and strength to face death and those who would be soon beareaved instead of healing. Wigglesworth even went as far as to pray for the Lord to stop their prayers. http://www.smithwigglesworth.com/life/healing.htm Undoubtedly, Wigglesworth, a great healing preacher, had probably learned well from the Bible and Jesus that when we pray, we have to believe. How to see healing happen and health restored if we do not first believe that Jesus can and will! We cannot have half-hearted measures of faith and trust can be taken with God. For if we ask for anything that we can conceive possible with our human minds, what then is the need for faith in a divine higher being?

So for Roy and I, we have decided that we cannot and will not limit God to our experiences and circumstances. But instead, fix our eyes on God and His Word. And as we pray now for the healthy growth and safe delivery of our new baby, we stand upon our Rock, Jesus, that because of what He has done for us on the cross, we can receive His blessings. Our family is defintely one of these blessings He has bought with His blood and bestowed upon us when we were adopted as His children the moment we belived. I do not understand why Jaeden went to paradise so soon, and may never. But now for this baby I am carrying, I have no doubt that God’s will is for him/her to be a full-term baby and to be healthy and satisfy him/her with long life. Why? Because the word of God says so, and it shall be so. None shall miscarry nor be barren. We have been redeemed from the curses of sin once and for all by Jesus.

Thank You Father for your unfailing love. Thank you for giving us this joy that comes from knowing that your love for us is perfect!