God of the impossible; God of the PROMISE

It’s hard to explain the ache of infertility, as with most things in life - words can’t convey the exact same emotion as living it out.

But - I wanted, still, to take the chance to detail the journey that has led up to this new life in me -
because even if the journey is different; the tactics of the enemy, and my tendencies toward emotion in it all, are probably all too familiar to you. 

And the God who has intervened and redeemed in my story is the same one who is pursuing you in yours.

He is consistent, even if our circumstances vary.

So I don't know to what degree the concept of infertility hits you; but I would be willing to wager that you and I could stand arm in arm with a lot of the struggles that can fall within it.

longing. searching. identity. comparison. value. worth. adequacy. control. defeat.

These are the traps that were frequently set before Brandon and I over the course of the past five years.

Some days; we stood firm in hope and faith and trust in who God is and what that means to us.
Some days; we fell at His feet and begged for His comfort in our weakness.

Through it all - we have seen first hand the demonstration of just how sovereign and merciful He is,

And His grace has been poured out time and time again.

For every seeming defeat that He has allowed us to experience;

Not one has ever been left unredeemed.

Every tear has been wiped.

Every prayer has been heard.

Every question and doubt - understood and forgiven.

We do not deserve the way that He has held us through our seasons of naive confusion and entitlement; but even still He spoke promise within it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself....

Here's our story:

Brandon and I had been married for about 4 years when we decided that we were ready.

We wanted a family, and as we watched friends around us get pregnant and birth their children - we expected a quick answer as well.

We wanted a family. But it wasn’t happening.

After about 8 months of trying - we scheduled a doctors appointment to begin figuring out what was going on.

I remember waking up on New Year’s Day, with the upcoming appointment with a specialist set -

and immediately, I rolled over into Brandon’s strong and constantly ready arms and just started sobbing and said - “this is the year we will find out that we can’t have kids”

He held me, wiped my tears, and as we talked we began to understand that our story might be different.

I’ll never forget the outcome from specialist. All the appointments themselves kind of blur together; but it was the moment alone at home after all the chaos that has stuck with me through all these years.

I've found that moments of emotion left unchecked can scar;

but moments of emotion before God leave memorials of worship.

I didn't know at the time, this moment would be one of those memorials.

We had found out that there were problems on both ends, for Brandon and for me, and that between the two - it wasn’t likely - according to doctors - that we would ever naturally conceive a child of our own.

I went home, collapsed in a mess on my bed, and for the first time in my life to that point, I scream cried every bit of my heart out to the Lord.

No holding back. Just raw emotion and questions spewed out to Him - all the while with an underlying confession of His sovereignty - but also a very honest offering of my questions. And in His grace and patience and love - He listened.

Through heavy tears, and into the temporary comfort of the blanket I had clung to, I mustered out an incredibly honest and broken prayer to the Lord - that was likely indistinguishable to anyone other than Him - of just exactly how torn apart my heart was, how defective I felt, how confused I was, and how much I believed His promise that He loved me - but I really didn’t feel it in that moment.

I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to raise a child. I wanted to teach that child who He is, and I wanted to share the journey with the man I am madly in love with. To not have those things felt like a piece of me was being ripped away - it felt, unfair.

Oh how little I understood about fairness in those moments. The mercy I have received goes far beyond fair.

But in my confusion, I coupled my confessions of hurt with acknowledgement of who He said He was and asked Him to remedy in my shattered heart how my circumstances and His goodness overlapped. Because I knew they did - even if I couldn't feel it.

And we spent hours there together in the tension and the longing and the wrestling of my heart - as He worked to break my mindset from earthly to eternal focus.... a process I believe He will still be working in me for the entirely of my life.

And that afternoon is one of my prime memories of heartache, but it is also one of my top most identifiable moments of comfort and peace that I can reach back and still feel.

I spoke (wailed) and He listened.

I emptied my heart out; and I wasn't left empty handed.

I was given direction - that included pieces of motherhood that I still needed to have redeemed in my life;

as well as a promise - that regardless of what the doctors had said;

We would have children. But not yet.

And for the next five years - He showed us mercy and grace in the journey that we could have never deserved. 

We pressed in to Him earnestly, yet imperfectly, in an attempt to know his truth over the painful lies that come with an seemingly infertile journey.

We prayed for direction and tried our best to follow.

We ask for boundaries and paid close attention to where He gave green lights and where He said no.

And the common theme - the common crazy grace that I still can’t remedy in my mind - is that in all our failures and our doubts and our humanity - He never stopped speaking into it.

His voice was never removed from our journey. We were never without His presence in the fight.

Over the course of that five years we would pray about children and consistently hear from Him that same answer - “not yet”.

We would pursue treatment and watch Him close the doors. We were offered procedures which He said were unnecessary.

"I will. But not yet"

So we waited on Him.

And every so often along the way; usually right about the time that deepest pains would creep back in - God would send people into our lives to encourage and uplift us.

And over the years several consistent warriors of intercession, who prayed, would reach out again to say that God told them once more that we would be pregnant.

And they would continually remind us, in completely Spirit-birthed moments, of those promises.

So we would wait.

And in the waiting - a few years back, He took us on a detour out here to Virginia.

(That’s a story all on its own. It's a different blog post. Check out others to read that beautiful and undeserved rollercoaster of surprises and grace....)

But we got here; and in His sovereignty, He allowed us to be a part of a church plant that gave us glimpses of the Kingdom.

He allowed me to take a position in building and leading the youth ministry here - again, completely undeserved grace that I cannot explain - but in that process we had so many moments of seeing the beauty there is when God withholds.

He allowed us to make a home and put the coolest roots down in a place we didn't know existed.

We have been allowed, and daily enjoy, the front row seat to watch His hand in the lives of teens; changing and transforming their journeys with His same redemptive love.

The twists are never without purpose, and no season is wasted in His hands.

We realized quickly that we would not have jumped into this role within student ministry - wouldn’t have had our whole lives and hearts changed by His students and His families - had it not been for the withholding of what we thought we wanted in that moment.

Because He said "not yet" to pregnancy;

that meant He had an alternative.

And His alternatives are never lesser; because He is the creator and sustainer of our hearts; and no one knows better than Him what we need.

We need this.

Our hearts, souls, spirits, and stories - our marriage and the child that we would one day birth - needed the ministry that God had told us to dive into first.

Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus for knowing [so much better than I do] my yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows.

So we resolved to be faithful, as much as possible, with what He labeled right now.

And hopeful, as much as possible, with what He labeled not yet.

And then;

In April of this year we had a chemical pregnancy.

(That is a pregnancy that starts but doesn't stick; and it was only enough to spark a positive test and then fail.)

After 5 years of negative tests, we got a couple positives and I thought this was it... only to find out a few days later that it was not.

We were devastated.

We cried and we worshiped and we asked the same hard questions and demonstrated the same small faith that our God had so patiently began rewriting all those years ago.

And we spent an entire week together sitting in the confusing and helping each other to fall back into worship and prayer and the eager and desperate seeking of who God is in pain, again.

And what we found that week was His answer - scribbled in my prayer journals as promise from Him - that He was preforming a necessary healing of old wounds that could only be done by opening them again;

AND that He was simultaneously using that process to also bring us to a doctor that we needed to see.

So I called a clinic I had never seen, and scheduled with the first doctor available - who in turn -  told me of a medication that He wanted me to start.

I don't like to sugarcoat my spiritual ignorance; so in the spirit of full honesty - I spent about 10 days NOT filling the prescription and feeling like it wouldn’t matter, that my time would likely never come, and instead, considering calling in a request for birth control to ease some of the hormonal effects of my condition and give up on the child portion completely.

Luckily (by the grace of God) I have a husband who leads me to the Lord so well; and he recommended that I spend time in prayer before making that phone call.

And as I did, God gently yet firmly reminded me that He had allowed the events of the previous cycle to take place to lead specifically to this doctor and to this point in the journey for a reason; not for me to turn and run.

He said stay the course.

So, I began the medication. Not knowing that I had already conceived; and this medication would be used to sustain what was placed in my womb.

A couple weeks later Brandon and I took Joel (our brother, rarest and deepest kind of friend, and my ministry intern) and headed off to a retreat happening out in Nashville for an awesome organization, called Intern Academy, that trains up and equips seasoned leaders and upcoming interns for ministry leadership.

On the last day, a girl at the retreat who had heard my story came and asked to pray with me.

She said a couple years back at the retreat she had shared about some miscarriages she had; and someone prayed over her and asked the Lord for a child and she got pregnant that month.

It sounded like an awesome story, for her, but I can see looking back on that moment how incredibly hardened my heart had become to the belief of the impossible in my own life.

But she said all weekend God had been telling her that He wanted that for me, and that she needed to pray for me the way others had for her.

So I agreed, and she prayed, and she asked God for a child, and after sitting before the Lord in tears - and we all left.

That very night, I found out I was pregnant.

And every day since, the Lord has been teaching me new dimensions of His glory.

New truths about my dependence on Him.

New reminders that He is the giver and sustainer of life.

And sweet affirmations, even in the sin of my fear, that nothing is as fragile as He is strong.

I am 8 weeks pregnant currently. Which is sooner than a lot of people choose to announce - due to the rate of miscarriage before 12 weeks.

But what I have found to be true about my God overshadows the customs of our culture and enables me to proclaim His goodness in the moment; even if I cannot see around the corner.

My God loves me. And He gives incredibly good gifts - even ones that seem impossible.

And when moths and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal; He brings beauty to the darkest places.

So, I will gladly take you to the mountaintop moments with me;

and should I have to cross the valley -

I will vocally and publicly praise Him there as well.

My God is a redeeming God. Who takes the very worst things that could ever happen in life and somehow turns them around for His glory and our good.

It’s what He did on the cross for our salvation.

It’s what He has done with 100 different storylines in our journey.

And regardless of the timeline or outcome of this pregnancy- it’s what He will do here.

Because it’s who He is.

We are anticipating and expecting to welcome into this world - a child whose entire being will speak to the power and provision of God for all of eternity.

And however that looks; we can praise our God in the midst.

And we wrote this account, partially because we want you to know, of course, that we are expecting a little one to join us in January.

But far more than that we want you to know that there is no darkness that cannot be lit up by the God who is above all.

With Him - no thing is impossible.

Whatever we walk through; it’s for His glory.

And whatever He does; it’s in His love.

My prayer is that you experience and cling to both of those concrete truths in your story, as well.

Psalm 145.