Wisdom from Screwtape

Not that Screwtape would want to be helpful.  Screwtape, of course, is C.S. Lewis's creation in The Screwtape Letters, a demon writing letters to another demon.  Thus the letters deal with ways to get the "patient", a human, to sin--and refer to the Lord as the Enemy.

It's difficult not to fret when you are officially a week overdue and have had several episodes of "prodromal" labor that have fooled even the midwife.  Today the Lord brought this passage from Screwtape to mind:

Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy's will.  What the Enemy means by this is primarily that he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him--the present anxiety and suspense.  It is about this that the daily bread will be provided. 

It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of.  Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practise fortitude and patience to them  all in advance. 

For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering, even where that suffering consists of fear, is easier and is usually helped by this direct action.

So here is the thing.  I really have no business allowing myself to think much about probabilities--i.e., "I will have to be induced at this rate", which leads to "induction has a 40% c-section rate", which leads to "I really, really don't want to be sectioned", which leads to "but of course, Lord, if that's Your will..."

I am falling exactly into the trap above.

I need to realize that what I am actually being asked--and given the grace--to deal with is the stress of waiting.

Just waiting.  You might, if you are a guy or have never had kids, wonder why waiting for a baby (who is certainly going to be born sooner or later) is such a big deal.  Perhaps I have a little more excuse than some in the fact that the Husband has to fly to another state a week from Monday, and I would really rather he be here when I give birth to his kid.  Perhaps it's worse for me because I'm a nurse and I know too much about the risks of common obstetrical procedures, that become more likely as the time creeps by. 

But I really think most mothers who go overdue with a pregnancy feel the same way I do; like there might be something wrong, like there might be something they can do, like maybe it's somehow their own fault that they're being kept apart from their baby.  ("Mental block", or "are you sure you really aren't afraid of labor?")

I miss my baby, although I've never met him; I miss him, and I want to hold him, and waiting is painful.  That's all.

All that emotional mess is what I really have to deal with, not the probabilities.  When I get to the future, I'll be given the grace to deal with it.  As it is, I need to access His grace for the present.

So this evening I've taken a deep breath and have been trying, instead of praying ONLY "Let the baby be born soon!  Soon soon soon!", to pray at least as much "Let me wait well, in a way the brings You glory."

Maybe you could pray that for me too.

Cheers,

Breanna