Your movements are now frequent enough and strong enough
where I often wonder if someone will glance across the room at my belly and
notice it pulsing and shaking! This week
you have added a new movement: pushing.
Previously I mostly felt “bumps”, but this week I have also felt firm
pushes giving strong pressure in one little spot.
In addition, you are moving all your limbs with more control
and strength. When you were smaller, I used to feel bumps, and immediately put
my hand over that area. With patience, I
would often feel repeated movements in the same spot. Now it is sometimes like trying to catch a
jumping bean. I will feel a bump over
here, and put my hand there. But the
next bump will be on the opposite side, so I follow it. But then the next one
is somewhere else entirely!
You are also big enough that most everywhere I go, people
have something to say about you. There
is no doubting my body looks like there is a Beta inside!
According to averages, you are fourteen inches long, and
about one and three-quarter pounds. Your
spine is as long as an average adult hand, and your feet are two inches long
already! No wonder I can feel them so
distinctly.
A big event occurring in your development this week is your
eyelids will come unsealed! You will be
able to blink and sense light more distinctly than before. Behind your eyelids, retinas are forming. When you arrive, your eyes will be a
grey-blue color common to newborns, and it will take until you are about two
years old for your permanent eye color to be established.
Brain wave activity shows your visual and auditory systems
are recognizable, proving you can hear and see.
Under the surface of your skin, oil and sweat glands begin to function.
At church this week, you never stopped moving during the
entire band rehearsal, worship, and teaching.
We had an amazing guest speaker, Malcolm Smith, who talked about the
meaning of God’s love, and the meaning of His covenant to us, His people. After the service, I was so touched that I
went forward to be prayed for, and they prayed for YOU too. What amazing prayers have been spoken over
and for you, Beta.
This week, since such a big change is happening with your
eyes, I am praying over your eyes, physical and spiritual. The Bible has a lot
to say on this subject!
Ears that hear and eyes that see – what a gift. One that we can never take for granted.
“Even children are
known by the way they act,
whether their conduct is pure, and
whether it is right.
Ears to hear and eyes
to see—
both are gifts from the LORD.” (Proverbs 20:11-12)
In my lifetime, I have had the privilege of witnessing
several inarguable miracles. A man at
our church was born with one leg about three inches shorter than the
other. He lived over thirty years of his
life that way, using orthopedic shoes and always suffering some
discomfort. At one of our church
services, he was significantly prayed for, and while we were all there, his
shorter leg grew out! He tried to walk
in his orthopedic shoes, and couldn’t do it because his legs were now the same
length.
Two miracles I witnessed while a young girl on a mission
trip with our church to Mazatlan,
Mexico. One year I REALLY wanted to see a miracle, and
had prayed for months before the trip that I would get to pray for someone
while we were there, and see them healed.
I met a girl a couple years older than me who came to some of our
nightly meetings. Despite not being able
to speak each other’s language, we became friends, and I saw her several times
during the week we spent there. One side
of her face was shrunken and deformed since birth, so that she had trouble
speaking, and even seeing from that eye.
With my mom’s help, I prayed for her ever time we saw her that
trip. I was devastated when we flew home
from Mexico,
and she had still not been healed. Then
about a year later, I received a letter from her with a photo taken on her
birthday. I was shocked to see that her
face was about ninety percent healed.
There was only a tiny turn of her mouth at one corner to show where the
deformity had been. Over the course of
that year, she had been healed a bit at a time.
Another moment was when we were giving away food to needy
families in Mazatlan. Our team had separated rice and beans into
brown paper bags in advance. As families
made a line and came up to us, we would hand them two bags. The trouble was, people kept running home to
deposit their bags, and getting back in the long line. Or if children were present, they would grab
their siblings to send them through the line.
Things moved so quickly, we couldn’t really regulate who was receiving
the food, we just kept handing out the bags as fast as we could. The bags were piled behind the group of us
who were passing them out, and I distinctly remember turning around at some
point, and noticing there were probably less than twenty bags remaining. As I turned back to the line in front of us,
two bags in my hand, I realized many of these people would go home empty
handed. There just wasn’t enough for all
the people still waiting in line. So we
just kept grabbing bags and giving them away, again moving so quickly it was
hard to keep up.
Twenty minutes or so later, the line had dissipated. Everyone who wanted food had received it, and
no one remained asking for more. I
turned around to what had been the pile of bags behind me, fully expecting it
to be depleted. Instead, there were five
or six bags remaining. I stared,
stunned. Wasn’t it twenty or thirty
minutes ago, when the line stretched down the block, that we only had fifteen
or twenty bags remaining? How was it
possible that all those people received two or three bags each, and we still
had a few left over? I knew with
absolute surety that we had witnessed a miracle.
Beta, I pray that in your lifetime, you will also witness
many miracles as this verse in Deuteronomy says.
“He alone is your God,
the only one who is worthy of your praise, the one who has done these mighty
miracles that you have seen with your own eyes.” (Deuteronomy 10:21)
I pray that you will remember, truly see the people around
you, and take action to care for those in need.
Proverbs says, “Whoever
gives to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to poverty
will be cursed.” (Proverbs 28:27)
It is often in these moments, where we give ourselves away,
that we realize we have been in the presence of God. He has come to earth and shown Himself in an
undeniable way. My entire life, whenever
I have felt sad or far away from God, these things I have seen are some of what
I have held onto. No one can ever
convince me these things didn’t happen.
I was there. I saw them with my
own eyes. Neither person, nor spirit,
nor my own rationalizing can argue with these things I have seen. May the same be true for you.
“But as for me, I know
that my Redeemer lives,
and He will stand upon the earth at last.
And after my body has
decayed,
yet in my body I will see God!
I will see Him for
myself.
Yes, I will see Him with my own eyes.
I am overwhelmed at the thought!” (Job
19:25-27)
“I will study your
commandments and reflect on Your ways.
I will delight in your decrees and not
forget Your word.
Be good to Your servant, that I may live
and obey your word.
Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in
your instructions.
Teach me your decrees, O LORD; I will keep
them to the end.
Give me understanding and I will obey your
instructions;
I will put them into practice with all my
heart.
Make me walk along the path of your commands,
for that is where my happiness is found.
urn my eyes from
worthless things,
and
give me life through your word.” (Psalm
119:15-18, 33-37)
As you begin now to see shades of light and dark, and when
you emerge into bright daylight and can see in greater detail, may the face you
seek most be the one of our dear Lord Jesus.
“I lift my eyes to
You,
O God, enthroned in heaven. (Psalm 123:1)
