As I sat in the afternoon sun, the zinnias in my garden lifted cheery faces. But cheerfulness was not the emotion I felt. Fear threatened like a vice around my soul.
I cradled the small bump in my mid-section and cried, “Please, God. Please.”
This pregnancy of 1985 had already lasted longer than the previous two. This baby’s siblings had slipped into heaven as easily as they exited my womb. The doctors had no explanation for miscarriages. They scribbled ‘spontaneous abortion’ on my chart — a term that made me cringe and burdened me with false guilt.
But here, swimming inside me, lay hope. Another baby trusting my body to carry him to term and thrust him into the world. If he survived.
“Please, God. Please.”
Then came the beauty of the divine whisper:
“A thousand may fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand, but it shall not come near me . . . Because I have made the Lord my refuge, and the Most High my dwelling place, no harm will overtake me, nor disaster come near my tent.” (Psalm 91:7 & 9-10 NIV)
The fear dissipated as the words of the Psalmist seared into memory: “It shall not come near me. No harm. No disaster.”
I repeated those verses every day throughout those gestating months. Until the final contraction, the infant cry, and my son nestled in my arms.
Then I rejoiced as my sister Eve, the mother of all living, was quoted in Genesis 4:1, “With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man.”
©2025 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved
For more devotional thoughts, check out Embracing Life with Hope: Daily Encouragement for your Spiritual Journey.