Funny how we only ever want straight lines from great thing to great thing.
No set backs, no bumps, definitely no valleys or uphill climbs.
Funny how in a broken, messed up world...filled with broken, messed up people like myself, that we desire wholeness and total goodness in everything that happens to and around us.
A longing for better, built into us.
I have found, especially recently, that there is much to want in a world like this. So much lacking, even in our abundance. So much to desire. Good things, amazing things even, still sometimes missing.
Infertility is a word that I never expected to define a season of my life.
Sometimes I guess we make pictures in our minds of what life is going to look life when we "arrive".
It looks a little different for everyone - a certain career, a certain education, a certain success, a certain plan achieved.
For me, it has always been being a mother. I've played mothering roles practically my entire life, and my soul and my heart and my bones greatly long to raise up a light in a new generation, and to nurture and care for this little one who God will use in mighty ways for His purpose and His glory.
I want to hold a child in my arms and know that out of the indescribable love I share with Brandon, that God created life. That He took pieces of each of us and saw fit to make them into a new person, a new child who ultimately isn't even ours - but His.
I want Him to give that gift to me, so that we can give that gift right back to Him.
But here I sit. Seemingly infertile. Exhausted, confused, discouraged, and joyful.
Joyful?
In this journey, my range of emotions has gone from hopeful, to anxious, to frightened, to despair, and anger, and incredible confusion, and then apathy, and in the midst of all of it..joy
There have been more times than I can count that I have cried out, bawled out, screamed out, wailed out, in total frustration over the confliction in my heart.
God, I know you are real and you are here.
But do you exist, and where are you?
God I know that you're good and you love me.
But this feels bad and I feel forgotten by you.
God, I know that you are working in this situation
But what are you doing and why?
God I love you
But I don't feel like I know you
And I need you
But I don't get you.
And I want what you want for me
But I don't want this
And I want it in your timing
But I want it now.
Some of my deepest heartbreak has come in these moments, these conversations, these confusions.
But in the very same moment, so has some of my deepest comforts. So have some of the moments that God has screamed back the loudest. So have the times when I knew His spirit the most intimately and deeply.
And as I yell and stomp my feet and shake my firsts and cry out to Him,
He has been yelling back even louder, each time with intensity growing, and never to shame me, or scold me, or shut me up.
Every time, to tell me He is here,
Every time, to tell me He can not only handle my fits, but draws closer to me in them.
Every time, to say that there is goodness in this even when I don't see it or feel it.
Every time, to say that He loves me beyond words.
But also every time, to ask me what it is out there...that I want more than I want Him.
And my mouth wants to say there is nothing, but my heart wants to admit that at times there are many things. And to have children, being towards the very top of that list.
And the foolishness of that astounds me constantly.
Because anything on this earth without Him means nothing at all.
I have experienced personally, multiple times, how He satisfies above ALL else. I've tasted life on both sides and I've pushed Him away enough to know.
I could be pregnant tomorrow and would feel no more fulfilled, if His love and His grace were not my one thing.
So here I sit. Bound to this God who has not given me what my limited human heart desires in this moment...but who has given me more than my imperfect human heart could ever deserve.
Committed, passionate, awestruck, and joyful.
Because when all else fades, I know, that if I never have children in my whole life...if I never have anything else ever again, He is enough.
He is more than enough.
He is constant and unfailing and walking with me through this season, and loving me more than my messed up self could ever earn.
There is a joy that surpasses all desires. There is an answer that fulfills even the deepest want.
And I may or may not ever understand His purpose in this journey, but I do understand my purpose. Just Him.
