I Pray Three Things

March 26, 2014

So I'm one of those people that talks about her 'friends' and is totally talking about the people who write the blogs she reads. I'm all 'a friend of mine' ... 'well, someone I know' ... 'okay, so someone who's blog I read' is doing this or that. And today one of those sweet ladies is having a baby. Yes, I just teared up at an instagram picture of a lady I've never met who is currently in labor.

The truth is, whether I know you or not, when I find out you are going into labor, or I hear you're having pregnancy complications, or even if I hear that you're having the most normal healthy pregnancy ever... I pray for you. My heart pleads to the Lord that your baby will be healthy, that you will be safe, that you will never have to walk out of that hospital with empty arms.

I have quite a few friends who are pregnant right now, some of them who have gotten pregnant since Hannah was born. And you know what, I love to hear that you're having a baby (or two!). I love to hear that you're healthy. And even if everyone else is praying that your baby will have your nose or will grow up to be smart, I'm praying desperately for two things.

The first is that your baby will live. Plain and simple. That your baby would live, out in the open air, on this earth, and live until he or she is the ripe old age of 87 at least. I pray that you would live too, that you would live to hold your sweet baby in your arms.

The second is that your baby would know the Lord as his or her Lord and Savior and that someday you would get to know that your child has trusted in the Lord. I pray that your baby would have a great purpose for His kingdom and that the Lord would get all the glory.

But I'll be honest, I do pray a third prayer too. I do pray for you, that if you still experience loss, if you have to spend months and months telling almost total strangers that your little girl didn't make it, I pray that you know the Lord. I pray that you hold fast to his truth and his Word. I pray that he brings you peace in your pain and that you are not tempted to turn from him. I pray that if something so horrible happens that you are able to say 'Thank You' because you have somehow in all the chaos seen the beauty of the Lord more deeply than you have ever imagined. I pray that you sit thinking of your sweet baby weeks and months later and you can thank the Lord for the blessing of being a mother, for the joy of carrying that child, and for the true goodness that you now see in the Lord in any and every circumstance. I pray that you would know that the Lord does not change based on our circumstances, but that he is always good.

So today I'm praying for a lady I've never met. And I pray the most for the first two, but, yes, now, I always do pray the third.

And today I'm ready to start praying for myself, but they tell us to wait just a few more days before they can tell us if there really is a baby in my belly, or if there was an early miscarriage or a rogue hormone that made my test say positive.

Soon though. Maybe somehow magically they'll call today. But let's be honest, one to two days usually doesn't mean zero days...