God’s call to motherhood

Copy editor/writer Simone Delochan concludes her interview with Candace Sobion. Part 1 HERE

“This is the story I think God wants me to tell.”

Attending Mass became frequent. On arriving home after Mass, Candace Sobion would walk out onto her patio, to sing and bask in the afterglow of receiving the Eucharist.

Early in 2019, while standing on the patio on which there were two chairs, “….I see a vision of a baby in each chair. I break down crying. It was clear; it was not my imagination. It was not a dream.” A couple weeks after Carnival, she realised she was pregnant. She was ecstatic.

At the doctor’s office, she was told the baby was not growing. Regardless, Sobion thought, all will be well. Afterall, God gave her a vision of her motherhood.

The Wednesday before that Easter 2019, she went to the hospital because she was bleeding. There was a visit to another doctor; she was in terrible pain and turmoil with God, but did not want to have the ‘DNC’ (dilation and curettage procedure) performed. Sobion cried out to God in her bathroom, “What you want me to do?” …and a sudden peace descended. She knew then.

She returned to the hospital and as she lay in bed, still in pain, she saw Him waiting for her, “….sitting outside, arms crossed, legs outstretched. He looked illuminated, kind of transparent, white, like a cloud, a long white robe…I see His presence. I know He is there, and I feel calm.”

After the miscarriage, everyone had advice for her, and Sobion went “from doctor to doctor to doctor”. In 2020, her anxiety grew because of the vision and the expectations tied to it.

Sometime during the months March to May, a doctor advised her to stop eating dairy and meat because cysts were being formed. She did stop, and God put her on a fast as her marijuana use had continued.

“He woke me up every morning at 4.30 a.m.” She read a chapter of the Bible and by the end of the week, the addiction was gone. “He replaced it with the Word. As I read it, I realised this was what I needed all the time. This filled me up, built me up. I didn’t know…” During the pandemic, she began drinking wine and He said to her, “I need you to depend on me.”

Lord, protect this baby

In 2021, Sobion’s busy life resumed with local tours, and as Easter approached, she suspected she was pregnant again. A test on Good Friday confirmed her suspicion. “I am overjoyed. I felt real good about my relationship with God.”

The following week, she had a site visit in Tobago, and awakened at three to get to her five o’clock flight. “This is not it,” she thought to herself, as she got ready in the wee hours of the morning. She had had a dream before of handing a baby to her husband, to pick up her work bag with laptop, books, and other documents. The bag fell, and all the contents spilled out.

It was a clarion message that she could not keep up the pace of her work life and have a baby. “Lord, protect this baby,” she prayed.

By lunchtime of that day, the pregnancy had ended. “I was so angry…so, so angry,” her voice breaks. “I didn’t want to see or hear anything about Jesus”, but Sobion returned to Mass, and prayed for her faith to be restored. She had upcoming tours, but by then Prime Minister Keith Rowley had closed the beaches, which led to cancellation of the tours and an opportunity to simply rest.

In the meantime, she continued going to her doctor who did tests; all results were “good”. The doctor discussed in-vitro fertilisation and other procedures and their success rates. Her response, however, was not to go that route. “Doc, I hear you, but I know there is a child there for me. I just need care.”

In her prayer life, the name ‘Sarai’ came to her. Immediately she understood the biblical implications. Sarai, Abraham’s wife in the Old Testament, had doubted God’s promise to make Abraham the ‘Father of Nations’, because of her own barrenness until the age of 90.

“Ok, Lord, I won’t be like Sarai. I will believe, and it will come. After that visit [to the doctor] in April, by June…went to check, and I was pregnant.”

Of this pregnancy Sobion says, “I am excited and hopeful. And very anxious…I am now in my sixth month. I want women going through the same thing to know that there is hope in Him.”

To everyone she offers this guidance, “God is always with them. There are times when God is silent to me. Trust takes time; relationship with God takes time. The world will always be louder…but with education, you can build with Him. The Word—I never knew the Bible had those healing properties. The Word is God.”