When we were expecting our third child, we wanted a home birth, but early in the pregnancy I developed a bleeding condition. I had been praying for a harmonious birth all along, and I saw this as an opportunity to grow in my understanding of God as Life. I had been studying the lives of Sarah and Abraham in the book of Genesis and deeply trusted the statements "Is any thing too hard for the Lord?" and "God is with thee in all that thou doest." Like Abraham, I strongly trusted that God would support this birth every step of the way. This verse from Zephaniah became my daily strength: "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing."
I also prayed using this statement from Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, which was particularly helpful in understanding man's unbroken unity with his Maker: "He who has the true idea of good loses all sense of evil, and by reason of this is being ushered into the undying realities of Spirit. Such a one abideth in Life,—life obtained not of the body incapable of supporting life, but of Truth, unfolding its own immortal idea." This spiritual truth also healed a lingering sense of the loss of my father, who had passed on the year before. I was now fully identifying my father as one who always "abideth in Life."
As I overcame doubt and fear, the pregnancy soon progressed harmoniously. When I neared the time of delivery, Hymn 314 from the Christian Science Hymnal was especially helpful to me.
