...Continued from Part One - "I Have To Be Honest"

"I found out I was pregnant" is a little bit of a misnomer.  Rather, at the beginning of September, I became deathly ill.  I vomited daily, was nauseated constantly, and never felt able to do more than stumble back and forth from bed to couch.  I kept thinking it was some version of the flu that would pass, but by the middle of October, I decided I'd better see a doctor. 

My neighbor, Meagan, mentioned that she had had the flu and thought she was pregnant.  She took a pregnancy test before heading to her doctor and found out she wasn't, but she recommended that I do the same before wasting a trip to the doctor.  I left her house disturbed in my spirit.  I knew I wasn't pregnant, and I wasn't about to take a test just to reopen barely healed wounds.  I made an appointment with a doctor regarding my "flu" and waited.  But Meagan's suggestion wouldn't leave my heart.  Finally, angry at myself for even entertaining the idea, I slammed a dirty dish down into the kitchen sink and headed for the bathroom where I had a leftover test stashed in the cabinet. 

I kept rolling my eyes and accusing myself of stupidity while I sat and opened the wrapper.  Part of me was afraid it would tell me I wasn't pregnant, and another part of me was afraid it would tell me I was.  Because even if I was, I'd learned the hard way that's no guarantee of a living baby.

The pink mark came immediately and unmistakably.  "Oh, God!" I moaned, "Please let me keep this baby!  Please let this baby live!"  I knew then what I had been afraid of the entire time.  I didn't want to know that I was pregnant, because maybe if I didn't know, it wouldn't feel so awful when the baby passed.  Oh, you mean I've been pregnant this whole time?  Huh.  Well, good thing I never got my heart attached.  But that bold pink mark obliterated my ignorance-is-bliss strategy.

I left the life-changing plastic stick on the bathroom counter and sat quietly on my living room couch in a strip of sunshine.  Too many thoughts swirled in my head to fully finish any of them.  My heart kept starting prayers, "God!" and ending them right there.  What did I want to pray for?  I couldn't figure that out.  I had so thoroughly convinced myself to be content with no more children, that the possibility of another child took a lot of adjusting.  Besides that, I knew probabilities were against this baby being born.  I sat and decided: I would keep this news to myself.  No one needed to know a baby had started inside me once upon a time, and when the baby eventually died, no one would need to know that still another chunk of me was missing.  I would stay quiet.

Then the Holy Spirit whispered to me.  "Who are you trusting?"  Who am I trusting?  What kind of question is that?  I asked Him.  "Does God give good gifts or not?" He clarified.  Oh...  "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights Who does not change like shifting shadows."  The verse in James chapter one echoed in my soul.  Does that mean this baby -- even if he or she dies tomorrow -- is a good and perfect gift from You to me, God?  My nose starting tingling, and my eyes filled with tears.  "I don't know that I like these kinds of gifts, my Lord."  I told him out loud.  He smiled at me and assured, "It IS good, Missy.  Trust Me."

I sighed and pondered a little bit longer.  Time to make some decisions, but these decisions were so hard to make.

"Okay, God," I finally said.  "I know you only give good gifts.  So this pregnancy -- no matter how long it lasts -- has to be a good gift.  I will rejoice and be glad in it."  I paused, then added with a sigh, "Even if it ends tomorrow."

To Be Continued...