The burden of childbearing, as Scripture says, is great, it weighs down the body and fetters the movements of the soul. Yet this very burden is a sacred vessel of life, and through it God often draws a mother’s heart closer to Himself. You have asked for a healthy baby, for protection from complications, for the healing of your diabetes, and for the placenta to move to its proper place. These are good things, and you have called upon the name of Jesus, which is right. But do not think that bodily health is the whole of health. The same Lord who said, “Woe to them that are with child” in days of tribulation, also said, “I have made a whole man healthy” to show that true wholeness is not partial, like circumcision, but complete in Him. Seek first the health of your soul, that you may be among the holy who approach the spiritual fountain without shame, and then trust that He who cares for the body can also restore it.
Look at the woman with the issue of blood. She did not demand, nor did she say, “I must be healed or I perish.” She saw who followed Jesus, sinners and publicans, and took courage. She came quietly, full of faith, and touched but the hem of His garment. She did not need to be seen by men; she needed only to be seen by Christ. Imitate her. Approach Him with that same confidence, but also with that same humility. For you must know that health and sickness change places daily. Today you are anxious about your womb, tomorrow you may be strong, and another who stands proudly in the church may fall into a grave illness. Despair neither on your bed nor on your staff, but say, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead,” and let that awakening be first in your spirit.
You mentioned “unknown health conditions.” Be careful not to let fear of the unknown drive out faith. The physician of souls knows them already. Do not suppose that a short season of prayer, like forty days of supposed purity, can cover years of neglect. If after those days you return to former carelessness, what have you gained? The body may be mended for a time, but the soul will relapse. The demoniac and the maimed who sit before the church doors are placed there to teach you thankfulness and humility. When you look upon them, do not think, “Why must I suffer?” but, “How much have I been spared?” For a healthy woman who never enters the house of prayer may be puffed up with pride, but a sick one who clings to Christ may be made truly whole.
And what is this whole health? It is to be numbered among the holy. The deacon cries, “The holy things for the holy!” to separate the scabbed sheep from the healthy ones. That voice searches the heart. If you wish your child to be born healthy, then prepare yourself to be a mother who will raise that child in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. The child you carry will one day mix in this pompous world, full of inflammations. How will you arm it, if you yourself are unarmed? Begin now to apply the remedies of Scripture, to pour out the oil of true philosophy, so that when the child comes, you may raise up a physician for the souls of others, not a slave to appearances.
Judge not by mere appearance, the doctors’ reports, the movement of the placenta, the numbers of your blood. These things have their place, but God is not bound by them. He breaks His own Sabbath when He chooses, and He allows what is outside the law to become the law. Trust in Him who knows what is best for both body and soul. And if, in His inscrutable will, the healing you ask is delayed, do not let your hands hang down or your knees grow feeble. Lift them up. He who raised up a man wholly undone will not forget you. Only see to it that you do not make the womb a god, or the infant an idol. Your highest good is not a risk-free pregnancy, but a soul cleansed and clinging to Christ. In that, there is no complication, no unknown condition, and no fear. Amen.