Coffee and a prayer seem to be what’s keeping me going these days. In this newborn, no sleep, a shower is a luxury..phase.
I remember all those years I was in (what felt like) a one on one fight with infertility and the longing to be a mama, my finger would roll up the screen as I scrolled feed after feed.
?Mama is tired?
It would be awesome if my baby slept?
?Ugh I am so ready for this pregnancy to be over?
?My children are basically horrible?
I wanted to scream, AT LEAST YOU HAVE THEM!!!! At least you are walking out motherhood and you have kids!!!! I would give anything?
WOAH sister, calm down.
We are 3 years in the future and I can finally see it. I can see how there is beauty and ashes in each and every season. I never knew why I couldn’t get pregnant. Why God gave me the desire, but not thegift? you know what Im saying? I was doing all theright? things. I was married before I had kids, I went to school, worked hard at my job, I wasn’t an alcoholic, I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t rob banks, and I had never been to jail. (because clearly those things are what give you the golden ticket to Heaven, I was on the struggle bus to get this heaven thing back then, be easy on me)
I was drinking my coffee the other day and things were quiet so I could actually think and like a train it hit me. God didn’t care about those things, in that moment, in that season He wasn’t worried about my societal status, He wasn’t watching my work schedule or waiting to see if I was going to do drugs or drink.
He was waiting to see if I was His. And if I’m being honest, I wasn’t.
Before April 16th, 2014 I was everyone else’s, but I wasn’t His. A lot of times people ask, If God is good then why does He let bad things happen? If God is good, then why aren’t you pregnant? If God is good, then why do kids get cancer and why did she lose her husband while having babies to raise up?
I think the other question we have to ask is, Are we here working for the better of Gods kingdom??
And if that answer isYES? then I think the next thing we have to believe is in order to do that we need to NEED God in a desperate kind of way. And if we believe THAT to be true, then we know we usually get there by going through a valley, a hard spot, a rough season.
I know I did.
So our personal heartache might be breaking our own heart, but how many hearts are we helping? How many people are we turning to the Lord for their strength? How many hearts are being saved? And when we think about all the people that are going to the Lord, maybe we truly can see purpose in our pain.
Before infertility I didn’t know the same God I know now. I knew a surface deep God because that’s all I wanted to know. I walked through years of waiting and in the waiting, He met me there. He met me, not with a baby wrapped in a bow?He met me there as a beacon of HOPE. He met me in the Hard and handed me Hope. Even though I couldn’t see it, I could believe it. And even though I couldn’t understand it, I could know it.
And I did. I KNEW good would come from this.
At first glance you might think myHallelujah Moment?are my 3 boys. And they are, but it’s so much more than that.
It’s the two beautiful women that birthed my first two sons. It’s them hearing about Jesus, it’s them feeling loved after a lifetime of maybe not always feeling that. It’s the NICU nurses that were touched by what God had done in our lives, It’s this blog that started out with 2 readers (thanks mom and Tyler) and now has thousands hearing and reading about what God has done and the love and comfort we find in Him. Those thousands might mention to their friends aboutthis story they know about infertility and redemption?. It’s my family opening their heart wider than they thought possible and loving my babies that were born to other women with unknown futures and health. It’s the very fact that in spite of all the details that my boys are here and perfect and worthy of it all. It’s a surgeon telling me that reading my words about what God was doing brought tears to his eyes, It’s friends privately reaching out telling me that they were falling in love with God because of how He had helped me through my sadness.
So you see, maybe I went through a period of sadness. Maybe at the time I couldn’t see why I had to walk that out. But, now I do.
A season of sadness brought about years of hope in so many others. Even if my story had just given hope to 1, it would have been worth it because sacrificing a season is worth it for a God that sacrificedforever?.
Your story matters friend.
Your sadness is not for no reason.
Your infertility is not without goodness wrapped in.
Your loss is not overlooked.
It might not be today or tomorrow or this year, but there will come a time when this season will all make sense. I am in a season of sleepless nights, dirty diapers, toddler meltdowns and still a young marriage, and gosh it is a good one. I am thefeed? that I used to scroll through and roll my eyes so hard at. For real.
It’s just a season, babe?. This is what Tyler says to me when I have punched my mom card for the day and I am DONE. And he is so right, so I better buckle up and enjoy it because in flash we will be on to the next.
XO,
Casey- The tired mama at Target with a Venti and yesterdays makeup on.
Adoption Story: Will & Brittany
