Season of Expectation: Pt 1 Thoughts + Prayers of the First Trimester

Praying for peace during my second month of waiting. Although I haven’t waited long, I’m still impatient and need a spirit of contentment. As I sit at my window; how slowly each day passes until news of the conception is confirmed. I pray that God would allow me to be open to his will. With each passing day, I watched as the tree outside our apartment gently developed buds and grew. Several friends and family told me they were praying for me on the days leading up to the news – unknowing of my angst or of our desire to conceive. On the day we discovered we were pregnant, the little buds opened to blooming flowers. I couldn’t help but notice my prayers being answered by the omnipresent God who knows me to my depth; enough to comfort me in little things as simple as a text or a budding tree. 

          I can’t help but wonder about the ways that the Lord gave Mary peace when she heard the news (Luke 1:26 – 38). She could be stoned for the conception of this child within her and yet God’s peace guided her; giving her confidence and courage to obey God’s will. I picture her leaving Nazareth and making her way to Judah (a journey of about 80 - 100 miles) and being human, I image a wave of emotions flooding her mind. Yet, as she confronts each of her questions and fears, I picture God speaking through the words of the people she is traveling with, who were unaware of her visit from Gabriel.  I would think that perhaps even the most average sunrise or blade of grass would somehow speak a peace unto her.  A peace that would transcend all understanding, allowing her to know that the most powerful and omnipresent God is still present with her to know the depth of her spirit.

Psalms 139: 13- 16

“For you formed my inward parts;

    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.”

Psalms 139 has always been a very personal verse for me.  It spoke of how every aspect and detail of our lives relates back to our creator and His great love for us. As someone who has struggled and still has to deal with the questioning of self-image, I constantly find myself back at Psalms 139: 14 which says that “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” because of my creator and that God (not society) is what gives me value. And at 5 weeks pregnant, I was in awe that someday my child will hear or read this verse and know for themselves how God “fearfully and wonderfully” created them. How currently at this moment, God is “knitting them in my womb” and that God sees them and their “unformed body/substance”. It’s amazing; at the point of conception our child’s DNA is already written with all their quirks, capabilities, nature, and emotions. With more than half of my first trimester a head of me, a miscarriage is still a common possibility which I am constantly surrendering in prayer. Yet, I realize that even at this early stage of his or her life, God knows and loves our child to a depth that I will never be able to achieve. Even though I will know and love my child profoundly, God’s love exceeds my attempts, this gives me so much peace.

My biggest prayer for our child is that they may know who they are by knowing whose they are. Not a child of Josh and Morgan Chitwood but instead a child of our Father in heaven: the creator of all universes and the creator of our lives. And from knowing and trusting Jesus in this way, they will know their identity will be guided to their purpose. My child is never mine to begin with, but it is God’s gift for me to care for and steward with the love from the Creator who has seen us since our beginnings and has created us fearfully and wonderfully.