When you pray for a healthy child and deliverance from the ailments that threaten your body, you do well. The woman who suffered from an issue of blood for twelve years approached the Lord in the press of the crowd, saying within herself that if she could but touch the hem of His garment, she would be whole. She did not let her long infirmity breed despair, nor did she demand a public sign; she came in faith, and her faith made her whole. Let that same confidence be yours. Draw near to the Physician of souls and bodies, not in the noise of words only, but with your heart’s full trust. The Power that stopped that flow of blood is able to quiet the storms that trouble your womb and to command health where disease threatens.
Do not judge by appearances. The presence of fibroids and the shadow of diabetes may seem to you a sentence of hardship, but the Lord does not weigh our prayers according to the gravity of the ailment. He who made the whole man healthy with a word can certainly preserve both mother and child. Yet learn also that our bodies, even when afflicted, are not our true wealth. The state of your flesh is not the measure of His mercy. I have seen many who boasted in perfect health fall through carelessness of soul, and many who were sick rise up not only in body but in spirit. Therefore, while you rightly ask for a safe delivery and a sound infant, ask with still greater earnestness for the grace to bear whatever He appoints with thanksgiving.
The woman with the issue of blood did not simply seek her own comfort; she was driven to Christ because she saw who followed Him, sinners and publicans, and she reasoned that if He welcomed such, there was hope for her. Do you also look not at your own fears but at the company He keeps: the broken, the penitent, the weary. He has not turned them away. Your prayer is not a demand upon God but a beggar’s hand stretched out. Continue to stretch it, and do not think that a few days of earnest supplication are enough, then to return to a life of distraction. The health of the body is a good gift, but the health of the soul is the one thing needful. If you gain a thriving baby yet lose your own soul through impatience or unbelief, what have you gained? And if trials come, they may become, if you meet them with faith, a medicine far more potent than any earthly prescription.
Make provision for your body, to be sure. He who instructed Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach’s infirmities does not forbid you to seek wise care or to pray for relief from the complications that beset you. But make that provision for health, not for anxiety’s fulfillment. Do not let the fear of what might happen consume your thoughts, for that is a provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts, in this case, the lust of control and perfect safety. The life we now live is a sleep that passes away; your true life is hidden with Christ. When you pray for mercy, entrust yourself and the child into the hands of Him who numbers our days. He who knows the secret workings of the womb can command the fibroids to do no harm and the blood to sustain life without excess. Whether He grants deliverance exactly as you imagine, or leads you along a path you did not expect, His mercy remains. He has called you to be among the holy ones, not those without need, but those who cling to Him in their need. Stand fast in that hope, and let your prayer rise not as a complaint but as the quiet touch of faith that reaches for the hem of His garment.