I tried...

...to write an edifying post about the anxiety I felt about my approaching due date.

In You, O Lord, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.

I tried to say something about trusting God and surrendering to his will.

For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
it was you who took me from my mother's womb.
My praise is continually of you.

I tried to be honest about my fear of childbirth and of being open to life.

...do not forsake me when my strength is spent.

All my attempts fell flat. Pretentious and irrelevant. That's how my words sounded to me. What an awful combination, when my biggest reason for writing was to make some kind of connection, maybe to reassure someone, or find some succor myself.

O God, do not be far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me!

So I silenced myself. I do that often.

But God had me in his hands all along, as I knew he did, even if my heart hid doubts. In his own time, he bore me along and gave me strength and banished my fears moment by moment. Grace according to my need.

But I will hope continually, and will praise you yet more and more,
My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
of your deeds of salvation all day long,
though their number is past my knowledge.

And now I have been occupied by the ebb and flow of life in my changed and beautiful family, and with a gorgeous baby girl. So my words are slow in coming here. But I must speak now, so I borrow them.

O God, from my youth you have taught me
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.

These words, from Psalm 71, became my prayer in the last two weeks before our baby was born. I went looking in my Bible for them early one morning, when the possibilities of things going wrong loomed large in my imagination. Later, in the thick of labor, I wished that I had more Scripture memorized; but these verses, stuck in my head, sufficed for the occasion.

You who have done great things,
O God, who is like you?
You who have made me see many calamities
will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
you will bring me up again.

Maybe after reading this, you still find me pretentious and irrelevant. It's a risk. But I can't help it.

I have to give thanks to God.

My lips will shout for joy
when I sing praises to you;
my soul also, which you have rescued.