Right now I have only one desire for the baby in my womb: for him or her to always always know and love God. And that's become my mantra of sort for pregnancy. More than prayers for health and safety, this is what I pray for this child.
But how do I ensure that this happens?
I was so blessed to grow up always knowing that the Lord existed and loved me. Sure, I went through different phases where I questioned things; but the actual existence of a loving God was never something I doubted. I realize this isn't the case for everyone, but to be honest for someone to not know this is just a completely foreign concept to me. I have a hard time understanding it.
Did my family and church family just do such a good job that the seeds of doubt were never planted? Is this just an extra gift of grace from God? Most importantly, how can I get it for my child?
I've come to the conclusion that praying for it and modeling it are the only things I can do to help this child know and love God (and those are of course powerful things). But I do wonder if there are any specific ways that my husband and I can foster this. So, as usual, I'm turning to you.
Did you ever doubt the existence of a loving God? If so, were there any reasons you can pinpoint? (For example, maybe you experienced a traumatic event, had a lack of good instruction/catechism, etc.) If you didn't, can you identify why that is? (For example, maybe you had a really good example that you looked up to.) How do you hope to encourage this in your own children?