Bailey Newbern is a Ministry Assistant in Student Ministry at Liberty Live Church in Hampton Roads, VA. She is passionate about discipleship and leading up the next generation of girls, especially girls in middle and high school. She also specifically loves helping young girls and women navigate through depression, anxiety, and other mental health needs through scripture and prayer.
On May 7, the pregnancy test was positive. It was a Wednesday night, and I’d just gotten home from church and put my almost 8-month-old to bed. It couldn’t be true. My baby was still just a baby. He deserved to still be the baby. How could I do this to him? This was not my plan.
I struggled with this for weeks, keeping it as my husband’s and my secret, too guilty and ashamed to share with the world. People would think that we were not capable of having two children so close together. We wouldn’t be able to afford it. Our home and car would be too small. How could we have been so careless to allow this to happen?
Almost 3 months later, we sang a song in church that I had never heard before. It said, “He has good plans for me…And surely Your goodness and mercy, will follow after me. So, fear will not find me ‘cause I’ll be dwelling in the house of God.” Wow. This wrecked me. He has good plans…for me. This tiny baby in my womb was His plan. It didn’t catch Him by surprise. He’s already orchestrated every single detail. The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 139, “For it was You who created my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (CSB)
God is in the details. In these past 4 short months, God not only already worked out and solved so many of my worries and questions of how this was going to work, but He covered me in His peace. Peace that I can attribute to none other than Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 29:11a). He knew, and it was His plan! I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that His plans are far better than any plan I could ever create for myself. How ridiculous it is for me to ever think otherwise. How silly for me to think God was caught by surprise by the life created (by Him!) in my womb. The Lord already has such big, GOOD plans for this sweet little baby and our family. Plans to prosper us, and not to harm us. Plans to give us a hope and a future. And I prefer His perfect plan over my own any day.
