Ways My Unborn Baby Boy is Bringing Me to Jesus

There's nothing quite like being eight and a half months pregnant. I'm feeling like my abdomen is a time bomb about to explode to reveal the most cuddly and precious little blessing ever... and in this interim I'm joyful, anxious, nervous, and reflective.

I've always admired how kids are down to earth, genuinely funny, and especially Christlike. Before I forget what it's like to have my little munchkin Charlie bopping around inside me, I want to pen just a few of the ways he's helped me come closer to Jesus already.

I didn't start "showing" until I was 25 weeks pregnant, and even then it was ambiguous (there's the people at the grocery store that stared at me funny and then nonchalantly looked away, because they wanted to ask if I was pregnant but were afraid of just calling me out for being a bit chubby if they said anything. Their facial expressions always made me want to laugh and cry at the same time). Anyways, I could feel my little human kicking around from as early as 17 weeks. But it was the strangest thing--I could feel him, I knew he was there. But His evidence and reality in my life wasn't apparent to others.

My relationship with God is the same way. I feel of God's love in my heart, mind, and body. I know that Heavenly Father is my spirit Father and I know his son Jesus Christ is my Savior, brother, and friend. My testimony of their reality is like feeling my baby kick at 17 weeks--it's personal and special and REAL. I can share my feelings with my words, but I can't just up and make somebody else feel it. And with that personal witness, no one can convince me that Jesus and my Heavenly Father don't exist. I feel them. Small evidences every day alert me to their reality and benevolent involvement in my life. And the way Charlie is always with me, My Father & Jesus are always with me.


Just a few weeks ago, at about 34 weeks pregnant, I was pulling into the Walmart parking lot to get a few groceries. As is usual, there was a man standing on the edge of the parking lot with a sign reading "Homeless, anything helps, God bless." I often see these people and do what I can to share with them--whether it's 50 cents or a granola bar passed through the window--but a pang of emotion hit me this particular day as a thought flooded my pregnant self in a big, bold voice, saying "That's somebody's baby!"

Tears welled in my eyes. That man, that man holding the cardboard sign in the dirty clothes and hit by hard times, that's somebody's baby! A woman 40 years or so ago carried him and birthed him and loved him like I'm doing for my Charlie. So where is she now? Who's going to be there to give him a hug and dry his tears and help him know everything's going to be okay???

Amidst my panic, the spirit gently reminded me that he is God's child too. While I don't know the circumstances of his mother or father's whereabouts, I do know he's God's son and therefore my brother, and that leaves me with a responsibility to do what I can to help him. On my way out of the grocery store I gave him a case of strawberries. It's not a lot, but he's somebody's baby, and I'd want my baby to have some strawberries if I'm not there to give him some myself.

Every person we see, that's somebody's baby. Whatever their earthly family circumstance, they are always God's child.


Lastly, pregnancy has allowed me to experience just a little portion of the love and sacrifice Christ gave in order for us to resurrect and become reborn spiritually. There's no shortage of oddities and ailments a woman can experience while she's expecting, but I didn't realize the gravity of some of those till I started to experience some of them--nausea, stretch marks, headaches, weight gain, abdominal pain, painful pressure on the back's sciatic nerve, etc. Sometimes, I'm in a lot of pain and I'm sicker than I've ever been. It's humbling to watch my body dilapidate a few degrees. However, this inspired quote changed my perspective:

"Just as a mother’s body may be permanently marked with the signs of pregnancy and childbirth, he [the Savior] said, “I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.” (1 Nephi 21:15–16.) For both a mother and the Savior, those marks memorialize a wrenching sacrifice—the sacrifice of begetting life—for her, physical birth; for him, spiritual rebirth." -Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen


Charlie's worth all of it and more. 
Christ thinks so too, but about all of us, and to a degree we can only imagine and do our best to be grateful for.

I love my little boy & I can't wait to meet him (sooner rather than later, hopefully!), but I'm grateful for all the ways he's already doing what children do best in being especially Christlike and inviting me to do the same.