Exodus

It’s been a tough weekend.   Cam got home from a week underway on Friday, only to be notified that the ships were all sorteeing (meaning leaving port to avoid the hurricane) first thing Saturday morning.   Given his current schedule, this would have meant he’d be gone ‘til Thanksgiving, with only Friday night at home.  I have to admit: I was just barely holding it together before the sortee order, and once that hit I couldn’t keep the tears at bay.   When it rains, it pours, and wow, it pours a lot lately!  Thankfully, the sortee was canceled at the last minute, and I was able to pick Cam up at lunchtime Saturday and have a blessed few more days with him home. 

Friday marked 30 weeks in my pregnancy, and only 10 weeks until our little girl is due.  I wish I could say that I’m looking forward to January 3rd, that I’m ready to be done with pregnancy and have her here already, like I hear so many other pregnant women saying.   But the truth is that I am terrified.  I lie still, focused on feeling her moving inside, with a desperation for it to be this way forever.   Absolute desperation.  I want to do only this, every hour of every day for the next 9 weeks.   I don’t want this time to end.  I feel her every movement, I know when she wakes and sleeps, I eat for her, my heart beats for her.  I know her.   And all the sacrifices I will make for the sake of her life… feel worth it. 

My greatest fear is losing her.  And while she’s here inside, I feel like she’s mine to keep, although I know that’s not necessarily the truth.   I’m afraid that once she’s born, I won’t be able to hold her again for far too long.  I’m afraid of the pain she will have, the needle sticks, her lying alone in her isolette, hurting, when I can’t pick her up and comfort her.  My heart aches for all she will have to endure, and the million times I’ll wish I could take all of her suffering on myself.

As I read Psalm 139, which I now know as our little one’s chapter, I am amazed that these feelings I have for my little girl are the same ones my God has for me.  Only he knows and loves me so much more deeply and perfectly than I can imagine.    

“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.  Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.”

As my heart aches for my precious little one, so must my heavenly father’s heart ache for me.   Why is it so hard sometimes to cast all my fears and burdens on Him, and let him care for me?  I won’t be able to take them from our little girl, but He can take them from me!   Exodus 14:14 says “The LORD will fight for you, you need only to be still.”  God, help me to be still and trust you.