Thursday, May 24, 2018

If I Had Known....... Beauty in the wait

   


When I cried and begged the Lord to bless my womb, I could not imagine what he would have in store for me.  I did not imagine that the journey to conceive our rainbow baby would include two miscarriages and a failed adoption.  I did not know that there would be days of seeing the dream that I felt entitled to end up in someone else's lap, time after time. I did not believe that I should have to endure the heartache of infertility and uncertainty, because I am a good Christian woman and I should not have to endure such a thing, right?  False. I did not know that my faith would be rocked in this area, because although God took me through many growing seasons, I did not feel like I needed growth any further in faith.  False. I did not know that I would find myself wishing that I could send the "stork" our location via iPhone, because clearly he must have been lost. Ultimately, I did not know that God was preparing me for something that I did not see coming. God was stripping some things from me in order to prepare me for what he was about to do.  A sermon that I heard a couple of years ago had me in tears as I realized that God did not owe us anything. He did not owe us additional children outside of the beautiful Bonus daughter that I already have. He did not even owe me the numerous blessings that he already laid upon me over the years.  His grace and mercy are sufficient.

     We were going through an adoption process and had a bad "break-up" with the agency over philosophical differences.  We were devastated and could not understand what it was that God was telling us.  Everything that we had tried ended up in utter disappointment. Was he telling us to surrender our dreams?  Was he showing us that we are not in control?  Was he telling us to put our focus back on him?  Just a few days after our departure from the agency, we found out we were pregnant.  The initial part of the pregnancy we really did not rejoice, because of the disappointments we had just been through (and because of my extreme sickness). Yet, in the depths of my being, I had a peace that although we had been disappointed before, I knew that this little baby would be alright.  And she was.  Nine months later, coming out at 6 pounds and 11 ounces, hollering and screaming, we welcomed our little Alayna.  As we were basking in the joys and sleepless nights of new parenthood, the Lord reminded us of his abundance when we found out we were pregnant again just six months later. My cup runneth over.  Now we have two beautiful babies, Alayna and Yazmine, and mama hasn't seen a full night of sleep since 2016.  Looking at the journey to get to this point, has me thankful for all of the nights crying out to God.  I did not believe that he heard, but he was preparing me.  Now as I look into the face of our toddler who has redecorated the kitchen floor with a bag of flour or our infant who insists on doing acrobatics in her bassinet, I am reminded that the Lord was preparing me for such a time as this and I am loving every minute of it. . . . . . . . . Now it is time to go clean up this flour off the floor.

2 comments:

  1. This is so beautiful and encouraging!😊

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much. I am glad that this was encouraging!! We don't go through growing pains to keep our testimonies to ourselves. I pray that this encourages during the tough journey of infertility.

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