“Oh magnify the LORD with me and let us exalt His name
together”
(psalm 34:3)
“For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to
him"
(1 Samuel 1:27)
Yes, that is us in the picture and it does mean that I
am pregnant and we are expecting a baby in December! December 25 or 26th
that is. Yes, I know that is Christmas. At first I had pretty mixed emotions,
“Their birthday will be overshadowed for their whole life” but then really in
the scheme of things it can be a really neat thing & we will cross that bridge when we get to it. What we
really care about is having a healthy baby, so if that means delivering on
Christmas day, then praise Jesus!!
The journey to here hasn’t been the easiest. I wrestled with
even sharing it, but Seth and I both agreed when we started this blog that we
wanted to be transparent and the only thing holding me back from sharing our
journey would be my own pride.
Everyone has their own story, none is better or
worse than another’s- just different…this is our story. So in that case, here
goes…
We were like a lot of newly married couples and talked about “when we were going to have kids”. We started off saying “2 years into our marriage”…2 years came quick, so we bumped it to 3 years. That was when we thought we’d be saying in IL to have little ones. Once we joined FamilyLife and knew we were going to be moving for a year (at that time we only thought we would be gone one year) we decided to wait to start a family. Last July we went to a Staff Conference for Cru out in Colorado. One morning I was doing some quiet time and talking with God and all of a sudden I heard him tell me that we are supposed to start trying for a family next month (august). I talked back and said “no way God, that doesn’t fit with ‘our plan’ because I wanted to be by family when we had kids” and the persistent answer I got was “Trust me”.
Honestly….it really wasn’t
just the fear of being away from family. The truth is, I didn’t want to start
trying for fear that it might not be possible for me to get pregnant. I didn’t
want to face that pain or impending trial. I didn’t want to go through that, I
didn’t feel brave enough or strong enough. I wanted it to come easy. But in the back of my mind I knew
God was wanting to teach me something and that terrified me. I didn’t want God to
teach me anything else, I knew everything I needed to know- right?! Haha, right Angela. I asked God if this was
going to be really hard & emotionally painful but I only heard “Trust me”.
Trust
Him. Okay, I could do that, I mean the good LORD has carried me through much
else, I could surely take a month or two of trusting Him in this journey,
right??
I shared all of this
with Seth and he told me to not be afraid and to not worry about something I didn't
even know if it would be a trial. I tried whining and complaining that I just
reaaaally didn’t want this to be one of those
trials, you know, the kind that you can’t wait to see the end of?
So began the journey and let me tell you, I had a lot of
work to be done to my heart. Who would’ve thought that God would use something
like trying for a baby to tear down some of my strongholds and inaccurate thoughts
of Him? At first it wasn’t so hard, the disappointment, the “better luck next
month”, etc. But then it got hard. The pain of discouragement, hopelessness,
“what’s wrong with me?”, “is God punishing me?”, “I
just want to quit”, and on and on. It’s an emotional rollercoaster month after
month and as much as I tried staying hopeful and positive, it was not fun. Just
to be honest. I started convincing myself that I needed to do something to
please God OR that I wasn’t doing something good enough. Guess what I learned
throughout this journey- neither one of those are true and neither one of those
reflect the character and heart of our God. I was shocked to realize how many
lies I had been believing and how easy it was to believe them, it was almost,
in a weird way, some sort of comfort- because I if I could blame “something” as
the problem then I could fix it, or
so I wanted to think at times. God helped me sort through how wrong that thinking is. Whew. I didn’t think that this would turn into
such a spiritual refinement. And I am still in the process.
Anyways. On the medical side of things, I went to a doctor
here and she talked to me about starting a pill to help me become pregnant.
Part of me thought that was a great idea and another part of me didn’t know if
I was ready for that yet & didn’t quite have a peace about it (disclaimer:
I fully believe you should do whatever God leads you to do and taking a pill is
NOT a bad thing so don’t hear me say that
AT ALL through this!). Later that same day I had an appointment with a
chiropractor. Don’t ask me why I thought a chiropractor would be able to help
me, in fact I didn’t think that she would, I thought the idea was kinda crazy.
But I went because it was an open door and a free consultation so what did I
have to lose? She told me she could help me and was so full of hope and
excitement that I decided to give that a try and hold off on the pill for now. We
changed our diet quite a bit and went whole food. We used a lot of organic
produce and meat without hormones added to it. We cut down a lot on
grains/wheat and sugars (haha, however once I started getting morning sickness
all this went out the window and I started craving my childhood foods- pizza
rolls, potatoes, and mac n cheese- good old comfort foods). I can’t & won’t
say that going to the chiropractor is what got us pregnant. It is purely up to
God and His timing, but I do believe He uses tools and people to accomplish His
plans sometimes. I don’t think it was one
specific thing.
The day I took the test I was pretty nervous and pretty
doubtful at the same time. I mean, heck, after you take so many negatives,
what’s one more?? It’s an emotional rollercoaster,
that’s what it is!! So I took the test and started walking out of the
bathroom before I even waited for results, I just figured it was negative…but
as I was walking out I noticed something that’s never been there before—two
lines. Now it doesn’t take a nurse to figure out what that means…but even as a
nurse I doubted what that meant. I think I ran in and out of the bathroom about
20 times in pure shock. My thoughts went something like this… “Me? Pregnant?
Seriously?! No way. But maybe, I mean there are two lines! But maybe the test
was a false positive (really, Angela??). No I think it’s really
real! Oh my word, I’m pregnant! What do I do? I have to tell Seth!” I ran
around a few more times and then texted Seth I needed him to come home, but he
was in meetings and couldn’t & frankly I think he was a little baffled that
I needed him to come home so urgently during a work day. So I went shopping and
bought a onesie to surprise him with. I made him a card that said
congratulations daddy & set it all out on the table. When he got home from
work later, he took one look at the card and said “are you kidding me?!”
“nope!!”. He picked me up & spun me around. I loved his genuine &
authentic excitement!
In the middle of the journey, I didn’t see an end and I
thought it would be like this forever. I wrestled a lot with God and journal-ed
out my feelings a lot. If you are going through something similar I would
recommend journaling and being honest before God with what you are feeling and
where you are at. He met with me countless time after time speaking His true
promises to me so I could hang on to them and have hope in Him alone. He didn’t
want me to hope in the doctor or in the chiropractor or in a diet change or in
anything we thought might help….He wanted my heart to hope fully in Him that He
is a good God and He has the perfect plans and the perfect timing for our
lives. He didn’t want me to compare my life to a friend’s or a stranger’s or
even to worry if it was possible. He wanted all of my trust and He wanted all
of my faith to be in Him. It was a daily give-it-over-to-God. A daily
surrender. He wanted to be more than enough for me- He wanted to be all that I
needed. He also taught me that nothing is impossible for Him and that if I call
to Him, cry out to Him, that He will tell me great and unsearchable things that
I couldn’t even imagine! Why would I put my hope in something on this earth
when God was up to something far greater than I could comprehend? So what
started as a journey of being terrified and dreading what was potentially ahead
turned into something so beautiful that only God could do. He took a trial and
peeled back some of my layers of doubt, misconceptions of Him, strongholds, and
even idols in my life and revealed His pure and perfect love for me and taught
me how to trust that no matter what He is good and has good plans for His
children…and it’s all in His timing & His ways. It’s still a hard concept to grasp when
you’re going through something. I’m sure the next time I’m in a trial I will
struggle with understanding His timing, but I have this look back at and
remember that He never left my side, He continued to whisper great and precious
promises to me, and He loves me. We can’t let our experiences skew our view of
who God is- He doesn’t change- He is who He says He is in His Word and He will
always be. He’s got a love for us that is far deeper and far purer and far more
passionate than anything we can even imagine.
I think this may be long enough. I could write and write
what I’ve learned, but you get the idea.
Also, I was listening to this song the other day as I was
reflecting on God’s faithfulness throughout my life & specifically this journey and figured if it could
help me, I know it could help someone else too…It can relate to any trial you’ve
gone or are going through...big or small…whether you have been deployed, lost a
loved one, final exams, infertility issues, marriage struggles, disease or
sickness, bad days, difficult employers, disciplining children, and the list goes on! So for whatever
you are or have or will go through- this song is for you! (Matt Redman- Never Once)
I do have to confess that when my parents, my brother & his family, and Seth’s parents came to visit- I intentionally left out some pictures on my blog because that is when we told them all we were pregnant, so now I’ll reveal the pictures.
That's our baby!
Thanks for sharing in the journey with us! We look forward to what's ahead and know we have a lot to learn :)!
