Holy Knitting

Hannah's "first baby picture"

After Mikey was born, we waited a couple of years to have another... circumstances of our life intruded and he was probably five years old before we felt like we could go ahead and start trying for another child. Unfortunately, things didn't go as smoothly for us as we could have hoped... we had several early-term miscarriages and we even consulted with a couple of fertility doctors, who prescribed treatments that are expensive and that were not covered by our insurance. Each time we got pregnant, Cathy got so excited that she would begin to tell people within a week or two after home-testing positive, only to be later disappointed when the pregnancy terminated. I tried to convince her to keep it under her hat for a month or so until we were sure that the pregnancy was going to "take," but she couldn't help it... she kept letting it get out, and then we would have to explain what had happened to people.

Ultimately we left it in God's hands, and finally a pregnancy happened that went well. After a month or so even I was comfortable enough to "go public" with it, and we told all of our friends in our church choir, in the church children's department where Mikey goes to his classes and where we volunteer, family members, everybody. It was very exciting! Cathy was experiencing morning sickness, which is generally considered a good sign of a strong pregnancy, so we were really excited but we still asked Sunday school friends and other friends to pray for things to go smoothly. I remember one Sunday morning Cathy had stayed home from church, I believe because of the queasiness, and we were praying for her in Sunday school. One woman who sometimes has visions when she is praying said out loud to me, "I just see God making something like a cloth, kind of weaving a piece of cloth." OK, I thought, isn't THAT random. But I trust this woman and I believe she hears from God, so when I got home I told Cathy what she had said. When she heard it, Cathy got a sort of stricken look on her face, and said to me "All morning I've been thinking of the verse where it says that God knits us together in our mother's womb."

In a book I am reading, Philip Yancey repeats a quote from Albert Einstein that "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." I haven't been able to uncover evidence that A.E. actually did say that, but I suppose there is probably some truth in it. I don't think that this was coincidence; I consider it one of the clearest words of prophecy I've ever experienced in my life. It encouraged us a great deal about that pregnancy.

The pregnancy which, a few weeks later, spontaneously ended in miscarriage.

So how do you handle something like that? We felt strongly that we had heard from God, and yet what He had said to us appeared to have not come to pass. We were of course devastated once again, but we continued to believe that God was working in our best interests. And we continued to wonder about that prophetic word which had not happened.

Within months, we were pregnant again. This pregnancy carried to term (well, not technically to term, but you know that story already) and sweet little Hannah was the result. Are we sad about the miscarriages? Yes. Does that lessen our happiness and thankfulness for Hannah? Definitely not!

So what about that word of prophecy?

The cap is crocheted, not knitted, but you get the idea.

Well... it seems like a lot of times with prophecy, what you think it means is not always what it does mean. I think when God brought that Scripture passage to our memory, we thought what He was saying was that the pregnancy that was happening at that time was the one that was going to carry through to birth. In retrospect, I think what God was saying though His Word was that He was in control. When the baby came along, it would be because He had "knit" her for us, not because we had done anything right or wrong. God's provision is not something we demand, and it's not something we get because we prayed right. We pray and ask; the Word tells us that is what we should do. But ultimately God knows best how to provide for His children, and he answers prayers in His way.