I remember when I first knew I was pregnant!  The tests all said I was, the lines (on all the pregnancy tests) revealed I was truly pregnant, but I really struggled to believe it because it was just too unbelievable.  You see, for years, we had been married, and while we did not want to have any children for a time, once we decided to change our lifestyle, we thought we would become pregnant within a month.  That month of wishful thinking turned into two months, and two became four, leading from four months of hoping to half a year.  I never told a soul we hoped to have a child; why would I because we had desired a child for a full six months, and still we were not pregnant.  Unfortunately six months became more and more and more, until years of wishful thinking passed by and still the sounds of our house were filled with just the two of us.

At first, I was okay with just being a couple.  Really, I was.  I could hold babies, see babies, go to church on Mother’s Day and remain seated as I looked around, excited for all the mothers I saw.  Then, suddenly, I could not!  Then suddenly, I avoided all places with babies, I did not want to hold anyone’s baby, and I found Mother’s Day extremely painful.  In fact, on the Saturday before the Mother’s Day of my twelfth year of marriage, I remember where I was & what I was doing as I contemplated skipping church the next day.

That was when my sisters arrived on the scene.  They pulled into the driveway, and as I peered out the raised garage door, I remember yelling so they would know where to find me.  Then I saw them walking across the grass to reach the back garage where I was located.  Not only did my two sisters walk toward me, but there were three precious, little girls walking my way as well:  my older sister’s two daughters & my younger sister’s one daughter (one of the two she would one day have).  These girls, my nieces, were like an extension of me because we spent a great deal of time together (the girls and me), so it was not unusual that they were walking toward me across the grass on that Saturday before Mother’s Day 1998 and they were holding something in their sweet, little hands:  a Mother’s Day flower for ME!

I remember when I first knew I was pregnant!   I knew because I felt the presence of the baby moving inside me!  The slightest flutter—that wonderfully, hopeful feeling and thought that enters your mind, “Maybe I REALLY am pregnant!”

There will never be a female who will be pregnant and not be pregnant at the very same time.  Yes, that’s correct.  A woman is either pregnant or NOT pregnant.  These are two totally different places for a woman to be, but she cannot ever be in both places at the same time.  In April 1998, I was NOT pregnant, but suddenly and wonderfully in May 1998—I WAS GLORIOUSLY PREGNANT!

When a person comes to know Jesus as Savior, then our desires change.  We suddenly don’t want to do the same things we always wanted to do, and if we do—do the things that we once did, then we feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit of God inside us saying, “Child, why are you doing what you once did when you are not who you once were but are mine instead.”  That’s right;  our priorities, desires, thinking, and way we live our lives—CHANGE because of JESUS!

We may “try” to hang out with the same people, doing the same things we once wanted to do, speaking just as we always spoke, but we struggle because we suddenly KNOW that JESUS WOULD NEVER DO, SPEAK, OR ACT LIKE WE ARE ACTING!  That’s how a person can know he is a child of God!

• We hear God’s Spirit speak to our inner being.
• We pay attention to God.
• We hear God, and when He speaks to us, calls us out by name, we hear Him.
• We allow God’s voice to guide us out of situations.
• We ask God to give us opportunities and courage and boldness to speak about Him with other people, even to those who knew us as we once were—the OLD us—the person we “used” to be.

Before I was pregnant with my daughter, I only cared about me:  I did what I wanted to do, ate what I wanted to eat, drank what I wanted to drink, played second base on an industrial co-ed softball team where the line drives came fast, speeding toward my body.  Once I became pregnant, suddenly the game I loved was not my top priority.  I did not want to jeopardize this “newness” living inside of me.  Jesus does that to a person—CHANGES HER, CHANGES HIM TO A BRAND-NEW PERSON WITH A BRAND-NEW AGENDA!