When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was diagnosed with an infection during one of my regular checkups. As the obstetrician handed me the prescription, I had to tell her that I really didn’t intend to fill it and would be relying on prayer instead. She explained that this infection was thought to increase the risk of premature birth and that she didn’t feel comfortable with my decision. After some discussion we came to an agreement: she would re-test me during my next visit, and if the infection had not cleared up I would take the medication.
During the next month I tried again and again to pray about this situation, but met with mostly frustration. I was feeling pressure to get rid of the infection and not spending much time listening to God. Finally one afternoon as I was sitting quietly in the bathtub, I reached out to God and humbly asked for His guidance. At that moment, I felt as if a warm light was shining down on me in the tub and my thought was filled with a message from God – He simply told me to be grateful for the child. I realized that I had been having a lot of feelings about my coming child (mostly anxiety) but gratitude was not at the top of the list. From then on, every time I thought about the baby I was “bathed” in pure gratitude.
At my next checkup the obstetrician tested my sample herself, as she didn’t want to waste time waiting for the lab results to get me started on the medication. When she came back into the room where I was sitting, she was shaking her head and saying, “I looked at it twice under the microscope myself, and there was no sign of the infection!”
This healing was an important one to me for a couple of reasons. First of all, anybody who has ever been a mother can tell you that anxiety can be a constant companion if you let it. Learning to replace anxiety with gratitude has been a go-to skill for me countless times over the last twelve years since this healing occurred!
Secondly, a logical person might wonder why I would choose to spend a month praying about a minor medical problem that could be treated with a $10 prescription in about 5 minutes. What I learned is that the infection never was the issue. It was just a little warning sign that I needed to get closer to God. And no amount of effort is too much if it gets you closer to God.
HH