every day gets harder. i don't know if i can really do justice to the combination of aching, longing, frustration, and many other feelings that fill my heart all day every day. i wake up thinking of our baby, and i go to sleep thinking of our baby. she is in every thought in every moment of my day. it's a curious thing to love someone so deeply whom you have never met.
i've had a really hard time lately. trying to be hopeful. trying to be patient. trying to be faithful. trying to trust god. i don't know that our faith as believers is ever so tested as it is when god says wait. for a while i really did well. i busied myself with the nursery. i was teaching. i started grad school. now it's summer. and i'm home. and i see the nursery all day every day. i've closed the door, and i'm afraid that is somewhat symbolic for the status of my heart.
i watched a video yesterday about a couple who struggled for years with infertility and eventually adopted. their wait was long and hard. the wife said something that resonated with me - something i have been thinking for a while, but that i haven't wanted to say out loud. speaking about her desire for a child and her still empty arms, she said, "it just seems so mean of god."
it just seems so mean.
yes. yes, it does. it seems mean and unkind and pointless. god could give me a baby right now - today - if he would. but he doesn't. and it hurts. it hurts my heart in ways i never knew it could hurt. the grief of infertility mingled with the agony and yet hope of adoption is a near constant turmoil that i walk.
choosing to have me remain childless while granting babies to everyone else in the world just seems cruel. it makes me question his love for me. it makes me wonder what i'm being punished for. i know he is good. i know his love for me is immeasurable. i know i am favored by him through the blood of christ. i know these things. but i don't feel them right now. it makes it hard to crack open my bible. it makes it hard for me to speak to him. it makes it hard for me to listen to my favorite worship songs. i am sure there of those of you who can hardly believe that i would admit that, but it's true, and i believe there are more of you who can relate than those who cannot.
i'm tired of people giving me alternative methods for how i could get pregnant. i'm tired of people telling me that we'll adopt and then i'll get pregnant. i'm tired of people asking if we have heard anything, and not because i'm annoyed that you care - i hate having to give you the same answer, because i know that you care for us. i'm tired of saying, "we'll have a baby by then," because the reality is, we do not and we may not. i'm tired of watching the days tick by with no calls, no emails, no babies.
but then there is the other thing the wife in the video i watched yesterday said. "what i saw as him not loving me, was in fact him being the most loving he could have been." here in this journey, however difficult and long it may be, he is writing the story. he is writing the story of our family, and he started writing it even before kenny and i met. he is writing the story that we could never imagine for ourselves. he is at work for our good and for his glory. we don't want just any story; we want the one god has written for us. we want his best for us, even if it means waiting. and as elisabeth elliot wrote, "god's stories never end in ashes." when all that i have left of my hopes and dreams are their burned remains upon the altar of my heart, he is not finished. he promises beauty from ashes.
in all of this, there is still peace, somehow. there is the joy of the lord and there is the promise of strengthened faith, developed character, and good things to come. we cannot claim to know the outcome of our journey to be parents. we may become parents next week, next month, or next year. god may answer our prayer, "yes." but even if he does not, he is still good.
but even if he does not.
daniel 3:18
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