Believe in something bigger than yourself

I was never prepared for the job, not from the first moment I discovered I was pregnant with my fourth child.

I left the doctor’s office and drove for an hour around the back roads of Wallowa County, Oregon, weeping the entire time.

Before I left the doctor’s office, the nurse, who knew that I already had three children ages 4 and under, made a suggestion: “You could abort this one.”

She didn’t know about that recurring nightmare of mine. The one where I am forced to choose between the life of my child or my own life. I’d had one abortion already, the result of a teen pregnancy. My nightmare was the aftermath of that decision.

“Thanks,” I answered, “but that’s not an option for me.”

It had snowed for weeks on end. The hills along Hurricane Creek resembled mounds of shaved ice. I drove slowly due to the slick roads and because I was crying so hard it was difficult to see.

I can’t recall the exact prayer I prayed that day, but I asked God to give me the strength I’d need to be a good mother to yet another child. Tim and I had only been married four years. We hadn’t even had time to figure out how to be a couple, much less a family. I had a college degree but what I knew about parenting could be summed up in three words: “God help me.”

Our twins were 15 months old, still nursing, still in diapers. Tim was starting his first year of teaching, a job that paid him an annual salary of $11,000. We had all the usual bills kids in their 20s have — school loans, car loans and rent. There was always too much month leftover at the end of the paycheck.

I knew without any doubt that this baby would be a girl. That knowing wasn’t the result of my powers as a seer, as much as it was the result of the laws of natural order. Girl sperm loiters longer.

Worried that this baby girl would be overshadowed by her identical twin sisters, who everyone always made such a fuss over, I asked God to make my last child different. To grant her an extra measure of grace, which surely the baby in any large family needs, right?

I had my firstborn, my son, at home. I spent three days in the hospital following the birth of my fourth child. I overheard the nurse ask the doctor, “Can she stay in here that long? Will insurance pay for it?”

“I don’t know,” the doctor answered. “I haven’t had a woman stay this long in 30 years.”

Any time the doctor came in to check on me, I was crying.

He thought I was suffering from postpartum depression. In truth, I was simply scared that I wasn’t up to the task of caring for all those babies.

I named her Constance Ruth (Konnie to all those fortunate enough to be loved by her). It wasn’t the name I had chosen in advance, but at the last minute I named her after a dear friend I admired.

That friend is gone now. Connie died in June after a long struggle with breast cancer. Six hundred people turned up for her funeral. She wasn’t a dignitary or politician or even a Rotary member. She wasn’t anybody important, except to those of us lucky enough to be loved by her. To us, she was everything beautiful in the world.

I’m glad that I gave my daughter my girlfriend’s name. Thankful to have a daily reminder that God grants us grace and beauty, even in these harsh days of war and economic turmoil.

My Konnie, who turned 25 last Sunday, is getting married Saturday.

Not surprisingly, I find that I’m just as unprepared for this moment as I was the day I drove out Hurricane Creek in a pregnancy-induced daze, terrified.

But this one thing I know for sure — God was faithful to answer the prayers I prayed that day. He gave me the tools necessary to love the unexpected child. And he endowed my daughter with that extra measure of grace that has blessed not only our family, but so many others.

The time is drawing nigh when Konnie will face difficulties she never imagined. Moments when she will feel unprepared for her task as a wife, a mother, and a woman.

When that happens, she’ll probably do exactly what all women of merit do and indulge in a good crying jag.

Then, hopefully, she’ll ask God for the kind of help a mama simply isn’t capable of giving.

It’s in those moments, she’ll learn, as I have done, that it isn’t about us and our abilities. It’s about believing in something bigger than yourself.

It’s about believing in a God who is faithful, a God who equips us to do the job, even when we aren’t the least bit prepared for it.

Karen Spears Zacharias is author of “After the Flag has been Folded” (William Morrow). Her next book, “Will Jesus Buy Me a Doublewide?: ‘Cause I Need More Room for My Plasma TV,” will be released in 2010. Contact her through her web site at http://www.karenzach.com.