I'm sure most of you have seen by now, but just in case you haven't, God has granted us the desire of our hearts with a precious, developing little baby. He/she made their first cameo yesterday morning, much to our overwhelming joy:
The nursing staff kept asking us, "So, is this your first?" We were just that excited--it felt like we were seeing an US image for the first time. There is nothing like seeing a tiny, human form emerge from the grainy, indiscernible images of one's abdomen, a fluttering butterfly-like light coursing relief through your emotions: all is well. There's a heartbeat. Life is thriving within me. Who am I to be such a vessel, Lord?
And who am I, indeed? This girl who did not trust You, who railed against Your timing, who demanded, tried to control and manipulate her situation according to her own desires? I have been thinking on this a lot in the past weeks...
The last negative pregnancy test I mentioned in my previous post, the one that nearly sent me over the edge into pure neurosis, and yet the one in which God led me to tremendous peace, was actually...false. I can laugh now at it all, especially from a Cosmic perspective: God looking down on me, already knitting together this beautiful baby in my womb, and me, staring at yet another single line doubting His plan, His love, His favor. And then it occurs to me that God allowed me to see the negative first...and to wholeheartedly believe in it...and yet still have peace, be whole, and be restful in the gift of His Presence with me.
But I was sick. So sick. So pregnant sick, though daring not to hope for that reason. So I scheduled a doctor's visit, which they, in turn, ordered a pregnancy test. I sat in the sterile, white exam room coaching myself with, "You already know you're not pregnant, and that's ok. God is with you, He has a plan," while at the same time trying to suppress this wild, surging hope deep within me, that Hannah-hope that trusts God for the impossible, while praising Him in the serenity of deprivation.
The door opened. The doctor, a family friend, came in, lifted the flap of my file, and casually said, "Well, it looks like a faint positive!" I promptly burst into tears.
Through all the joy, the relief, the utter bliss of the days that followed, one theme kept running through my mind that I feel is imperative to share with you all: God's Presence was enough. He had allowed me to face my lowest moment, another stark negative, allowed me to feel and confront some of the deep-seated fears of my heart, and then gifted me, not with answers, but with Himself. And though the desire was still strong within me for a child, His Favor on me was His Presence.
And here is my ultimate point: the reward was not pregnancy. The reward was Himself. The gift of life is unconditional. Plenty of God-fearing women, full of His peace and Himself, are unable to bear children. Alternatively, scores of women who do not seek God, do not trust Him, are blessed with many children. This is a reality that I cannot explain beyond this: we do not seek Him to be rewarded with material blessings, with the achings of our hearts; we seek Him to be in relationship with Him, in deeper and deeper levels of intimacy. This is what fulfills us. That Psalm 27:4 all-encompassing desire that knows in knowing Him, we are filled to the fullest. Peace is not a magic formula to pregnancy (or whatever else you desire); peace is His gift to us, a fruit of the Spirit within.
I see this new life as a new calling, a new leaf turned into a new chapter of new anxieties, fears, and perplexities. If I saw this baby as a my reward, then I would go into this without God--yet again. But if I see God as the reward, then I go into this chapter, not authoring it in the madness of my own control and wisdom, but resting in His lap as He reads each day's wonders and trials to me, holding my hand, empowering me with the strength to move forward. As our relationship with Him deepens, the more we see Him as our Father, the quicker we crawl into His lap "just because," and not because we're driven there by pain and the brokenness of our own strength.
I so long to be there. I so need to be there, especially with #2 on the way. More grace will be needed, and I want His Presence to follow me and fill every page of this new chapter. Because He is not only "enough"...my cup overflows.
So I've broken one of the unspoken blogging rules. Already. Only my third post in, too. Supposedly posts are supposed to be somewhat, well, consistent in their frequency. I was aiming for once-a-week-with-a-miss-here-and-there but have landed just shy of did-she-drop-off-the-planet-or-what status.
I prefer to see my absence as an interlude. And yes, I'm probably just couching it in more satisfying terms, but really, I knew what my next post needed to be and I just wasn't ready to write it.
But now I am. Not because it's any easier at this point than before, but because I finally let God get to the deep down root of it...and then dig a little more. He's not done, by the way, but signficant roots have been exposed, and I think blogging about it will help unearth a bit more.
I do want to give a word of warning--this is a personal post. And it's long. Tread carefully.
When we got pregnant with Esther, it wasn't immediate. I agonized for what seemed like ages, and then, just two short months later, became pregnant and forgot about my previous agony in the face of heartbeats on an ultrasound and the imminent reality of sleepless nights.
It took me a long time, much longer than most of my peers who had their first babies when I did, to feel "ready" for baby #2. I knew we wanted more than one child, but my incredibly selfish, sleep-loving, schedule-craving nature was winning out in the desire barometer.
But as her second birthday drew nearer, I felt a familiar little itch in my heart that rapidly grew into full-blown expectation. What had started as God-I-want-more-but-seriously-can't-imagine-doing-it-again-anytime-soon quickly shortened to just God-I-want-more....NOW. Remembering our experience getting pregnant with E, I didn't expect immediate, but soon-ish was definitely the assumption.
Month one came and went and since I wasn't expecting a double-line to appear, it didn't phase me much when I was greeted with a stark negative. A friend of mine became pregnant and I sincerely rejoiced with her.
Month two, the magical month I had conceived Esther, came and my hope grew along with a delusion of a growing abdomen. I was so expectant, so subconsciously sure, that I couldn't even wait to go home from the store to use the test--I ripped it open furiously in the Kroger bathroom, waiting and waiting in the handicap stall for the second blue line to appear...because, of course, it was going to. I shook it like an Etch-a-Sketch, but still, just one little mocking blue line. I optimistically assumed a false-negative. But then, a few days later, Aunt Flo visited to tell me otherwise. And though I don't usually greet my period with enthusiasm, I was devastated.
But even then, a little positive thinking and reasoning coached me back to functionality and I set forth in high hopes for month three.
Month three came and we decided to try ovulation strips (and just as a disclaimer, I see NOTHING wrong with using those). It seemed like a sure thing to me, what with a handy little test telling you exactly when conception was more favorable. I rested. I relaxed. Things were gonna be ok now.
It's amazing to me how we can dread something one moment, and then, as soon as we perceive that something as being withheld from us, we go into deprivational panic. Like dieting, for instance. Never does a food sound good as when you've decided it must be cut out from your evening snacking. You spend the rest of the evening on the couch fixating on it, eating hundreds of calories around it, resenting your decision to trade in carrot sticks for chocolate.
But I digress. Needless to say, I was so sure of it that month. And I realize that many of you, especially those of you who suffered months, years, decades trying to conceive, and even those of you who become pregnant easily or "accidentally," will think me silly or dramatic for responding this way. And perhaps I was. But it was a painful reality that God allowed for me to walk so as to teach me the serenity of deprivation.
It was Christmas Eve. Terrible backpain ensued, and I was hopeful. Implantation cramping, perhaps? Nausea set in and my hopes soared. I probably used the bathroom fourteen times in one morning, anxious to confirm my deep-set suspicions. I even told Andrew, "This is the month!"
Then a familiar feeling began to creep over my abdomen: cramps. My monthly bane. Sure enough, no baby. Just blood. I felt as if my very heart was bleeding as my knees gave way and I collapsed onto the bathroom floor. Someone had punched me, I was suffocating in an atmosphere unsustainable for life, at least life as I wanted it.
Fears began to assault me almost immediately. You're infertile. You'll never feel the precious movements of a baby in your womb again. Never again will you hear a tiny heartbeat on an ultrasound. Esther will have no siblings, or if she does, there will be a HUGE age gap between them. And on and on. They seem so irrational now that I type them out, but that day, they were daggers to my soul.
That night, I awoke at 3 a.m. with a start, and the first thing that came to my mind was, "You're not pregnant. You used ovulation strips, and you're not pregnant." The suffocating feeling returned, my chest weighted down by grief, and I began to hyperventilate. Something that I hadn't given into in years, that I thought was safely in my past, began to take over: a full-blown panic attack. Fear after fear, anxiety after anxiety, assaulted my mind and heart until I felt I would black out.
If not for Andrew's words and prayers that night, I just may have passed out. But God used his calm, reassuring manner to help me relax, rest, and ready myself to celebrate the Savior's Birth. A Baby. God's Son. The Baby not withheld from Mankind, willingly sacrificed for our justification. Believe me, the significance was not lost on me this Christmas.
I inwardly gave up. My faith in God's plan was utterly depleted. Friends around me were getting pregnant left and right, many saying "oops!" While I wanted to rejoice with them, I was so far from walking in the Spirit that the fruit of His joy was far from me. I was wallowing. And I was kind of enjoying it.
Let's be honest, there's something enjoyable about wallowing--something very gratifying about giving way to self-pity and grief. It is entirely pointless and the Spirit urges you to stop, but there is an addictive quality to it. It is that "familiar friend" David speaks of--a friendship based solely on familiarity and habit. It was the only coping mechanism I knew to deal with my anxiety problem. And so I defaulted.
The next month, God found me in this wallowing, miry pit kind of state. That's when I wrote the last post. He was teaching me that this painful, gut-wrenching, soul-tearing situation was an opportunity for growth and deeper intimacy with Jesus...and I was utterly and completely wasting it. The Spirit got me to the point where this thought grieved me more than my unpregnant-possibly-never-to-become-pregnant state. Real peace set in as I repented and as I said, "God, I still trust You. Though I don't want to step another foot in this new reality You're walking me through, I will do it anyway. I will keep going forward."
A few weeks later I was staring down the window of another pregnancy test as one lone line immediately popped to the surface, laughing at me, daring me to react. And just to testify to my utter humanity, I did.
And that's partly the point of this post. We are dust. We are humans, pathetically and fundmentally broken to our core. The only thing of worth in us is God. And being still very flesh-driven and anxiety-prone, I momentarily gave way to my fear and grief and felt another panic attack looming in front of me. I did not have a "perfect Christian" response, even having "learned my lesson" a few weeks before, posting it for all to see, for goodness sake.
But this time, I clearly saw the attack as in front of me. This time it was an option. That night, as I yielded to grief and disappointment, weeping in my bed, God met me even there. I have never felt so weak, so pitiful, so NOT like what I felt a godly person should be feeling at that moment. But still He met me there. I felt like I was on the edge of a precipice--my anxiety--but I also felt the Spirit compelling me, "You have a choice. Choose in my power."
And so I started praying probably one of the most incoherent, pathetic prayers of my life. Fear after fear came falling off my tongue, landing in confused and warbled sentences, but I knew that didn't matter. God asked me to say each one aloud, even the really frightening ones, the ones that kept me up at night with dread.
Soon, I came to the end of myself, the end of my fear, the end of every known anxiety I could conjure up. I lay there, feeling utterly spent and wasted, and sensed God ask, "And then what?" I had just uttered my greatest fear: that I would never be blessed with another child. And then what? Well, I would be so devastated. And then what? Well, I would be so crushed and depressed! And then what? Well, eventually I would adjust to the idea. And I know it would be an integral part of Your plan, that there would be some critical reason why I should only have one child. Perhaps our future work as a family would be hindered by more than one child? Perhaps you are preparing us for the incredible privilege of adoption? Perhaps...perhaps I'll never, ever know why You chose to close my womb. But...
God, I still trust You. The words of David came suddenly to me, "The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot." (Psalm 16:5 NASB). The LORD is my portion, my inheritance, my cup. Even if nothing forseeably good comes from this, if I never adopt, never know the reason behind it all, never see recompense for my grief, THIS reality will never change. This is the reality that truly sustains us in the long-run. God Himself is the reward of my suffering. God Himself is the goal, the power behind my striving, and the motivation to keep going. That night, He didn't give me answers, He didn't give me prophetic assurances, and He didn't make this path easy to walk. But what He did give me was Himself. Because no matter what lies before me, be it children or the lack thereof, He will always be the Presence that hems me in behind and before, ahead and beyond, and He Himself will satisfy...if I let Him.
You see, faith is not about always being strong and confident; in fact, images like that are often very man-focused. Faith is about God. Faith is a gift from Him when we ourselves are incredibly and utterly weak and faithless. Faith is realizing the magnificent Power and Personality of the One who loves us, resting in the knowledge that His good and perfect plan will be accomplished--whether we get to see the end result or not. He is the reward of our faith, because when we trust and rest in Who He is, we are filled to overflowing with Himself.
In effect, God trumps the second line.
