Holiday Season

The holiday season always makes coping with not having a child much harder. I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it's all the family talk or baby Jesus, or all the adorable pictures of kids dressed up on Facebook (which I LOVE...but would also just love to be able to contribute to...more than pictures of my dogs with their reindeer antlers on!). Whatever the reason is, it is a constant stark reminder that we are missing out on something that what feels like the majority of the world has...and what my heart tells me I am missing.

This season has been slightly different, however. It started off the same....me crying two days after Thanksgiving and not really understanding why. Derek comforting me and explaining this happens every year and that it's ok to grieve that missing part of our lives. That weekend I had a very hard time getting my emotions under control and at church on that Thanksgiving Sunday they offered a time of prayer where you could come up to the front and there were people sitting in chairs that would pray for you while they played a song. My first thought was NO WAY! I am not going up there. How awkward and embarrassing and weird!! But then I felt God prodding my heart as He does and telling me to go up there. I fought Him throughout the entire song to the point that I was crying and shaking and feeling like my heart was going to burst out of my chest. So I made a deal with Him. (Yes, very mature of me I know) I said if they played one more song I would go up there (since they had already dragged out the first one so it seemed obvious they were done). Well the guy came up to the microphone and said, "We've decided for anyone out there who has put off coming up here for prayer we are going to play one more song, so come up here." Jaw drop. I turned to Derek bawling and said, "I think I'm supposed to go up there." He ushered me out to the aisle and I made my way up to the front and saw a woman I know from bible study and sat in front of her. I was crying so hard that I could barely make out any words and somehow managed to squeak out, "I think I'm having a hard time with the infertility thing!"

Now I would love to tell you I was healed on the spot and we got pregnant and lived happily ever after - but that's not the story exactly. It was, however, once of the most amazing experiences ever. Heather sat there hugging me, crying with me, and prayed over me. And it was incredible. Pretty much instantly I felt relieved of my hysterics, my heart calmed down, and eventually I got under control. Throughout the rest of that day and week I felt peace and a calmness I had not felt in a while as the holidays had been approaching. And it has continued thus far. I think the major difference can be summed up that it is the first time I really reached out and admitted I was having a hard time and couldn't deal with my emotions at that moment myself. God knew what I needed and He helped me to reach out to get it. I needed to open myself up, admit I can't handle things on my own, I need God to fill me, and thankfully He gave me the perfect opportunity. I may not have been physically healed on the spot but I was emotionally healed. It's not to say that I wont need that again in the future (because I'm sure I will), but for now I am just so thankful that God has given me this peace in this season because it is truly so unbelievable.

He has been filling me with a constant peace and reassurance that this is indeed His plan and He is in control. Allowing Him to invade my inmost thoughts and truly bless me with peace is incredible - there are really no words to explain it. I am in awe and shock at the peace and comfort He is lavishing on me in the midst of my deepest trial and pain. It's overwhelming and I am so thankful. He is good and He knows best and I trust that. Even in the pain, He is right beside me with comforting arms enveloping me and somehow I am at peace even in the pain.

My life is not my own, it's God's. And if He allows it then I don't want one ounce of pain or trial to go unused or be wasted as simply pain or a trial. If it can encourage even one person or give hope to one person who is struggling to understand "why" or trust in God, then it is worthwhile pain in my life. Regardless of even whether God wants to use my pain to comfort someone else, or to simply grow me better into the woman He created me and desires me to be and can use me to better other peoples lives, I am good with it. I am so thankful He has blessed me with the faith to believe and trust in Him, because I can't do that on my own.

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that."

James 4:13-15