My wife and I wanted a baby very much. Then one day it occurred to me that I had never really prayed about this. One of the most meaningful events in human life certainly warranted prayer! All it took to get me down to work, and to bring to my thought the necessary spiritual perspective, was the realization of this need for prayer.
Whether one is expecting a child, already has children, or is hoping to have a child, turning to prayer to understand more of God, divine Life, and more of God's creation, has a transforming effect. A desire to see a shift in our consciousness from a material sense of creation to the spiritual sense gives us the highest motivation for our prayers. Such motivation ensures that we are not asking God for more understanding of divine Life just so that we can have a baby!
Those joyous words "we're expecting" take on new meaning as we consider just what we are expecting. For example, are we expecting to add something to what God has created? In summing up God's creation, the book of Genesis in the Bible tells us, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." Gen. 2:1. In giving the spiritual interpretation of this verse according to Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy writes, "Thus the ideas of God in universal being are complete and forever expressed, for Science reveals infinity and the fatherhood and motherhood of Love." Science and Health, p. 519. God has already created all. This finished, complete creation surely cannot be added to. Is there an idea somewhere that the Father does not already know, love, and sustain? Can man intervene and become the source of an idea not already held in the embrace of divine Love? We can be expectant, then, of a fuller sense of God's work as finished and intact. We can expect a better understanding that each of God's ideas is complete already, and to be seeing more evidence around us right now of what God, divine Life, has already created.
Since God is Spirit and His ideas are spiritual, to pin trust and expectancy on material methods and manifestations would be to lead thought away from the real basis of creation; it would be to obscure our view of man as spiritual. Christ Jesus, the Way-shower, never gave any credence to the idea that man is fleshly. His virgin birth, the unique occurrence reserved for the Saviour alone, nevertheless illustrated a fundamental fact about the spiritual origin of us all. We can partake more of the lessons it teaches us and guard our thoughts carefully and consistently against the lie of material parentage.
The truth is that there is but one Parent—Spirit. We cannot ever take the place of this divine Parent. He is the source of life, because He is Life itself. Jesus rejected the notion that man is a product of the flesh. He commanded, "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Matt. 23:9. We need to take Jesus at his word and reject once and for all the notion of ourselves as the source of parenthood. We certainly can— and do—express the qualities of parenthood, which find their source in the divine Parent, God. But we must begin to accept understandingly that God alone is Father and Mother of all.
Another concept that deserves prayerful consideration is that of propagation. The universally held belief is that man propagates himself, and that man and what he supposedly propagates are material. But man, as God's creation, is spiritual; and God's creation has absolutely no propagating power of its own. How could the creation create? God's children are not multiplied through material propagation but through spiritual reflection. This spiritual reflection is controlled by Mind, which is Spirit; matter can have no influence over it.
When we think about the spiritual qualities that man reflects, we find the very substance of our being. The idea that matter, a material organism, is wholly or partially man, is a misconception. In the scale of spiritual existence, matter just does not weigh in. It has no power to multiply God's ideas.
The sooner we are willing to abandon the belief that matter holds any power of propagation, and that a sense of material substance has anything whatsoever to do with man, the sooner we will begin to discern the spiritual ideas already propagated by God. Couldn't we say that propagation, in its highest sense, is really a revealing to consciousness of God's already existing ideas? So isn't our real role, as hopeful or prospective parents, to be receptive to the revelation, rather than to consider ourselves the cause of something? We couldn't possibly hold the responsibility for doing what God has already done!
I found that as I worked with these ideas, as I began to feel the fact of spiritual existence right here and now, the thoughts of false responsibility for God's work began to fade. I became deeply impressed with the fact that each of God's ideas is fully manifest to Him, and I was able to rest in the knowledge of God's complete control. During this time my wife had been praying to deepen her understanding of her relationship to God, and we had been working together to gain a clearer sense that home was not truly a physical location but the consciousness of God's love. We were also seeing more clearly that God's ideas are not generated through physical impulses, and were experiencing a shift in thought toward Spirit as the source of all ideas. This change of base in turn provided for us the needed receptivity to what God had already created. It should come as no surprise that shortly after this my wife had joyous news to share!
However well meant
or emphatically stated,
views based on the assumption
of man's mortality shouldn't sway
our absolute trust in the Father's
perfect government and care.
We knew it was of vital importance to support the period of gestation with the highest spiritual views of the event we could bring to it. The world tells us that a material organism is forming in a material space. This view affords about as much perspective on reality as the view from within the womb affords on the living room! We can challenge mortal reasoning by asking, Is a material structure—brain, blood, flesh, nerve, bone—really being formed? Mrs. Eddy writes in her book Unity of Good: "A molecule, as matter, is not formed by Spirit; for Spirit is spiritual consciousness alone. Hence this spiritual consciousness can form nothing unlike itself, Spirit, and Spirit is the only creator. The material atom is an outlined falsity of consciousness, which can gather additional evidence of consciousness and life only as it adds lie to lie." Un., pp. 35-36.
Man is not found in matter, and we need not allow any space in thought for the lie that a child is so many molecules of matter converged into a material organism. We can take a firm mental stand for the truth of being and deny the lie any space at all. The truth is that a child is an individual spiritual expression, formed by Spirit, God, nourished by His love, impelled by His power, and completely safe in His arms. This is the eternal fact of spiritual existence.
It is natural to appreciate such things as the kicking of little legs, but it's important to realize that the child's identity and environment are totally spiritual. The clearer this is to us in the early days, the more we will find ourselves equipped with spiritual perspective, power, and freedom at the time of birth. We will find ourselves trustingly placing the birth under the guardianship of divine Love, not so much waiting for the appearance of a mortal but for the unfolding to human view of an already complete spiritual individuality.
The life and mind of the child are not really the result of a material process and are not in a mortal body As a formation of God, the child proceeds directly from the divine source as a complete spiritual idea. It has no life or mind apart from God.
It's vital to be alert not to allow materially educated perspectives to overthrow our higher knowledge that God is in control at every point. However well meant or emphatically stated, views based on the assumption of man's mortality shouldn't sway our absolute trust in the Father's perfect government and care. When we are asked for blood samples, iron counts, body weight, and other such material measurements, prayer can help us gain the freedom to go ahead and give the doctors and midwives what they feel they need, certainly when regulations or law require it. But at the same time we can affirm for ourselves that at no point do spiritual convictions and means mix with material methods.
Two words that bear consideration here are compromise and concession. It is interesting to note that Mrs. Eddy in her writings never indicates that compromises should be made with material methods. However, she does refer to concessions made by Jesus. In Science and Health she writes, "Jesus' concessions (in certain cases) to material methods were for the advancement of spiritual good." Science and Health, p. 56. The age in which we live is yet in infancy in its perception of spiritual truth, and we can rest assured that the human steps or tests we are required to take can appropriately be viewed as concessions to the age, not as compromises of our honest convictions. When John the Baptist expressed surprise that Jesus should be coming to him for baptism, Jesus said, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Matt. 3:15. At the same time, Mrs. Eddy indicates that Jesus' concessions were "in certain cases." Our love of and genuine appreciation for those who are endeavoring to help us in the best way they know is an active prayer, and it will show us when concessions are appropriate and when they are not. And we can trust that the forbearance and compassion we are expressing will advance spiritual good, not compromise it.
Our contact with those in the medical profession can be a time of greater mutual understanding. It affords them an opportunity to watch spiritual truth in action. During the period of labor before our daughter's birth, there were certain conditions which, although we did not know it, were considered by the midwives to be "complications." Because of these complications, strict requirements and deadlines were placed on the labor process. The first stages of labor had to begin by a certain hour, advanced labor had to begin by a certain hour, and so forth. With each new ultimatum, I felt a complete assurance that if that was what they needed to see, they would see it. However, I knew that these were not God's requirements. He knows only harmonious action, always happening exactly as it should, when it should. Furthermore, the life of this little one did not depend upon any processes of material motion.
Each deadline was met within ample time to satisfy the midwives that all was normal. The midwives knew that my wife and I were students of Christian Science, and the sustaining, protecting power of this Science was actively demonstrated for all to see. The final hours of labor prior to delivery were so filled with a feeling of God-derived strength and calm that we were able to meet each need alone with Him, without the help of the attending midwife. As a matter of fact, the midwife, while alert to our needs, spent much of this time in another room reading the newspaper, commenting that if all couples went through active labor as we did, she'd be out of a job! Another unexpected blessing was that the Bible Lesson for that week, from the Christian Science Quarterly, contained a section specifically about birth. This provided added spiritual impetus to the event and was a powerful sign of God's very present care.
God is truly with us through every moment, every detail of the birth. Our privilege is to keep our thought focused always on the spiritual perspective that comes to us through prayer. And through our consistent study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings, we are assured of ever-widening views of the nature of God's creation. Whatever we are called upon to meet will be cared for quickly and safely as we remember that God, the Life of all, governs every aspect of the experience, from conception through birth—and ever after.
