by: Abigail DeWitt
Instant shock. Heart pounding- are those tears? Or am I laughing? My voice trembled with notes of excitement and unbelief quivering through, “umm Josiah…”. I called my husband’s name as I stood shaking in the bathroom staring at two very pink lines-almost exactly one month after we got married.
I’ve always been quite the planner. And this was not the plan. “Two years”, is what I told my husband while we were dating about when I wanted to try for kids. However, the Holy Spirit had different plans. Not long after we got engaged, I began feeling the Holy Spirit leading me to pray for our future children with urgency. As I prayed for them, I began hearing that still small voice tell me they were coming sooner than I had thought. Those same words began to progressively get louder and louder and more consistent as my husband and I approached our wedding day. I began to think I was going crazy because it was becoming like a record player in my head! I began talking to my husband, then fiance, about it and told him maybe one year instead of two- my attempts to reason God’s plans to fit my own plans for the journey I thought I was on.
When I stared into those bright pink lines that showed up faster than a dog when you open the treats bag, I realized that the Holy Spirit had been speaking to me for months about children coming sooner than I had planned because He knew I would have panicked if He didn’t. Why did he do that?
Because God cares for us.
He took a look at who I was as a person-the person that he designed, and prepared me according to the way I specifically needed to be prepared. Matthew 6:30 NLT says “And if God cares so wonderfully for the wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?”.
Over the last 9 months of my pregnancy I have seen this verse be proven true over and over again. At first, it started with God taking care of the major things- things we had been praying specifically about. God was able to get me on a new insurance plan that covered both my chronic illness and all things pregnancy within 15 minutes of applying to the insurance coverage, and he got me into an OBGYN clinic, new doctor’s office, and endocrinologist within a matter of days, despite the fact that all of the offices had long wait lists. This was a huge miracle, which led me to walk out in more prayer. God began taking care of needs left and right, blowing my mind daily. Rent dropped $100 one month for no reason right when we needed extra cash, he healed a wrist injury of my husband’s sooner than anticipated, he gave me the strength I needed to lead some young adult ministry events before it was commonly known I was pregnant. My faith that I had previously thought was strong began to increase, and then one day God asked me to trust him even more.
He had asked me to leave my current part-time job and trust him with the rest. Doubts rolled in. Many of my pregnancy cravings evolved around street tacos and rice bowls, but most cooking smells made me so sick. All the way down to turning on the oven and stove. It seems silly, but I was scared that if my husband and I relied on one income, I would starve and not be able to access my pregnancy cravings, not to mention the essential oils and natural medicines I needed to combat morning sickness and colds I kept getting. Yes, I knew that God cares for us, but did he really care? How close was he to me in this? How close is he to all of us?
I felt this persistent call to leave my job and trust him and one day remember this still small voice speaking to me saying, “Watch me provide for your family like I did with your parents”. My husband began talking to me about how he thought it would be best for me to stop working as well. My health was declining trying to manage work while having a chronic illness and being a first time pregnant mom. After weeks, I finally let go, trusted God and left my work. This opened up a whole world of God to move and pour out his care for me.
God began providing one thing after the next, things large and very small. For example, in my second trimester there was a point where we were pretty tight on money with car problems demanding to be fixed, cold medicines needing to be purchased, and holidays/birthdays coming up. A pregnancy craving for a warm, yummy QDoba bowl came up. For days I had this craving and it just kept getting stronger, but I didn’t want to say anything to my husband and burden him with a desire that just seemed not important enough compared to things we were facing. I applied the same thought process to my prayer life and thought that God cared, but he didn’t care enough to hear about my QDoba craving.
Boy was I wrong. One morning-at the peak of my craving I received a text from my husband who works as a plumber. He said that he had a minor job at the QDoba right by our apartment and that they were going to give him free QDoba for lunch that day, but he already had a lunch he’d been looking forward to and knew I had previously craved QDoba. (Again, he did not know the craving came back). So, he asked me what I would like and brought it home for me for lunch that day. It was such a small thing, but it taught me that God not only cares for our big things, but he cares for the tiny-minute things in our lives too.
When Jesus was starting off his ministry on earth, he repeatedly took care of and for people. In Matthew 12:9-10 NLT Jesus noticed a man who had a deformed hand in the synagogue he was visiting. The man didn’t even approach Jesus and reveal to him the struggle he was living with, it says in verse 10 “he noticed a man with a deformed hand”. He noticed. A bit later into the chapter Jesus healed the man.
“Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand”. So the man held out his hand, and it was restored, just like the other one!” Matthew 12:13 NLT
Jesus could have come to the earth as just our Savior from sin and the evil one and that alone would have been more than enough! But no, he came and served, loved, and deeply cared for people on top of dying on the cross to save us from the grip of death and sin.
Why? Because God does care.
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