Week forty is here and the waiting has begun! I say that the waiting has begun because these nine months have really flown by. Surprisingly to me, this has not been anything like I thought it would be. Scores of women have assured me of the discomforts and agonies of these nine months, but I have been exceedingly blessed to have missed out on pretty much all of them. I’ve been told by more than one high school girl that my pregnancy has been extremely boring–I think they wanted some drama–but my doctor refers to this “boring” state as having a record that is “clean as a whistle”. I know that the Lord has been good to me…

The last couple of weeks our excitement has really grown in waiting for the baby to be born. We are as ready as we can be, the room is finished, I have finally packed a bag…now we wait. I have been so amused at people’s responses to our waiting. Yesterday at church half a dozen women came up to me and said, “You haven’t had the baby yet?” or “Still no baby?” I wasn’t sure if I should respond like these were real questions or if they were just meant to be rhetorical statements. As if it wasn’t obvious that the baby had not yet been born! Another funny response is “Give us a call when it happens!” If we had been following that request we would now have a list of eighty people to call! Some specify, “Call us when you’re on the way” or others are willing to find out afterwards as long as they get called!

My favorite response to waiting is from the high school students. Bobby is the high school director at our church so all the students seem excited that the time is soon. Most of the girls in my small group say they really want a personal call or at least a text message! At Bible study last week one girl said as she was leaving, “I always have my phone on so don’t hesitate to give me the call!” The guy leaving after her said, “Me too, I want the call!” When I am out with some of the girls they say, “I wish it would happen right now, this second!” I don’t have the same enthusiasm about it happening instantaneously when we’re having lunch at In ‘n Out or something, haha! But it sure is fun to have people excited with us.

One thing I’ve been reminding myself of is that all the timing is in God’s hands. People often act like the baby decides when it’s ready to be born, but I know this isn’t the case. We know from Psalm 139 that God already has picked the exact time when the baby will be born. He already knows this little person intimately. I’m pretty happy to just wait on the Lord and not go hike three miles or do jumping jacks–some of the crazy things ladies have told me they did when they got impatient! I won’t be trying any of these tactics, but I will be thinking about these verses I love: