Article August 25, 1997 Issue

Pregnancy and childbirth: spiritual preparation

Pamela Lishin Jones

I Was very happy as a career woman and never thought I would have children. But when I got married, the story changed. My husband had always looked forward to being a father. Neither of us wanted to be willful, so we decided to pray together about this.

As my thought opened, I realized that one of the primary reasons for marriage was to provide a foundation for having a family. We also talked about an experience that a friend of mine had shared with me. She had not been able to have children. But after much prayer, she came to understand that her identity as God's child was complete. Therefore, if she was to be a mother, then motherhood was part of her God-given purpose, and it would manifest itself some way in her life. Within a year of this realization, she had her first child. This idea really helped free me from thinking about the so-called biological time clock that was beginning to tick a little louder each year. We resolved to leave the matter in God's hands.

The result of our prayer, and of our letting go of willfulness, was that we found ourselves expecting. The first thing I did was to welcome this idea into my thought and into our home, and to be radiantly happy. Thanks to our spiritual preparation, I found I could do this very genuinely. And because my thought was open to this idea, my body adjusted naturally without any resistance or ill effects.

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