One of the greatest losses for me personally during the past year has been the loss of our plans to have children. While my husband and I are aware that we are not at ALL in control of the timing of conception nor birth, it was an ambiguous loss of the freedom to choose and talk about and “try” to start a family. It was the loss of our timeline, and the pause button we had to press on the desire of our hearts. Just one week prior to my husband’s arrest, we were getting into significant conversations about starting a family. We had just gotten out of debt and we were ready for the next step- BABIES! We had it all figured out financially- we were going to get out of debt and then start a family and then save up for a house and then by the time our first child was walking we would be in our own home. Yuck. That dream burst into flames in about two seconds flat. And I thank Jesus that so many of our sins were exposed and dealt with before we stepped into such an incredibly life changing role, however it was my most painful ongoing loss that continued to trigger much grief over the past year.
SInce the moment my husband and I fell in love, our children have been on our radar. I remember having a significant conversation while still dating in which we were seriously considering baby names. We have planned our financial lifestyle and goals around our children and pray for them consistently. We cannot wait to be parents and have anticipated this joy for years as it is a deep deep desire of both of our hearts. As soon as my husband was released from jail on bail the first time, this was one of the first conversations that arose. It was obvious that our plans of starting a family that were so pressing just the week before needed to be paused for an indefinite period of time, and this conclusion brought much pain and loss for us both. It was also then that we decided, once everything is finished, once he is sentenced and serves time in jail and is released, lets resume this conversation. Now of course we had no idea how long it was going to take to get a sentencing date; from the beginning we were told that this entire legal ordeal could take anywhere from 4-18 months. Our legal story just recently ended when my husband walked out of jail on January 14, 2013, so for us it took 14 months. To fast forward 14 months, my husband walked out of jail and we reunited and hugged and got in the car together. The first conversation that took place once we started driving home looked something like this:
Me: So are we really going to do this?
Husband: (Knowing exactly what I am referring to) Yep.
Me: Like are we going to start when we get home?
Husband: Yep.
Me: So we are going to start “trying”?
Husband: No, we are going to start trusting. We are not desperately impatient to have children, we are fully aware that this might not be the best timing, but we are entering a new story and a new season in which we will trust that God will create our children in His perfect timing. We are going to be open and if it takes two months or two years or five years, we are going to trust.
Me: Ok. I completely and totally agree.
Then I remember praying a good portion of the way home over such ideas, and that began our journey of trusting God for our family. I assume this bold action to move from inmate to dad or jail widow to mom could be taken in one of two ways: irresponsibility/naivety/impatience or faith/trust. Our heart was trusting. And as a dear mentor recently put it, “This child’s life was preceded with faith.” Before this child was even conceived, the decision to move towards the miracle of conception was made while standing OUT OF THE BOAT in faith.
This again parallels to the idea that we believe in the complete and total work of Jesus Christ. We believe in the sufficiency and sovereignty of Christ. We believe His word when it says, “my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19) We know this God that will make a way where there seems to be no way. We have just seen it in other avenues of our lives- complete and total supernatural provision. And in that place of faith, we decided to take the next step towards starting a family. My husband was one hour out of jail and very unemployed with an “only God” kind of hope for finding work. Most companies have a strict policy against hiring anyone with a felony on their record and we did not have any hopeful leads at that point. We were still climbing our way out of the $10,000 of debt that remained. We were living paycheck to paycheck and had been living on one income for almost a year.
But God.
Our faith was believing for that which we didn’t see, (2 Corinthians 5:7) and so this lack of seeing did not stop us from being open to God’s plan, God’s way. We brought to mind that this is a God who took five loaves of bread and two fish and fed 5,000 people. (Mark 6, Luke 9, John 6) This is a God who breathed into a valley of dry bones and they rose and formed into humans who came back to life again. (Ezekiel 37) This is a God who spoke the world into existence. (Genesis 1:3) We trusted God and we believed that everything would come together under His timing. Remember our pretty financial plans of how this baby thing was going to work? We released those plans and that illusion of control to receive Him and His unconventional ways.
I have learned to stop planning and start listening. To discern the voice and direction of the Holy Spirit. To submit myself under God’s plans. I grew up as someone who loved to have all of their ducks in a row. To illustrate, by mid February of my senior year of high school I already had most of my boxes packed and labeled for college (a good six months early), including shampoo and conditioner. I loved to have everything figured out and planned well in advance. I was a ducks in a row kind of person. And I had always been that way. And here we were, talking about walking into something so incredibly life changing that the repercussions of such a decision were so unfathomable, and not only did I not have ANY of my ducks in a row, but I had no idea where most of the ducks were nor the pond. And having this trusting mentality with our fertility and parenting and future was potentially the most freeing experience of my life. It required intention, but the fruit of freedom was worth the sacrifice of change. I had no plans, no timelines, nothing figured out. My hope was in Christ and nothing else. It is a testament to a God that can change people. He literally is changing the way I am wired. And it is an ongoing process that I hope and pray never ends.
This trusting and not trying mindset carried us through the month of February. We had a blast! We so enjoyed each other and being together again. Simple things like holding hands and driving in the car together and talking for longer than the ten minute limit we had set during his time in jail gave us such delight. We had one entire weekend of dates, surprising one another with new places to which we had never been. This has been a month of freedom and joy.
I remember taking one pregnancy test on February 18th, when I thought I would have known if I had gotten pregnant that first month based on the ovulation math. And it was negative. Not this month, we thought. We knew people who tried for seven years before ever getting pregnant, and we had heard it takes the average couple about a year. We were super open and very aware that fertility is not something to take lightly or take for granted or make any assumptions or plans as we have no control over such things. To be honest, our only assumption was that it would take us awhile to conceive because of the different ways we had sinned against our own bodies in the past. Between a childhood eating disorder, heavy young adult anxiety, and a former struggle with sexual addiction, my husband and I had both engaged in sinning against our very own flesh. While we were both walking in freedom from the chains that used to bind us, the Bible is very clear about how to live in obedience when it comes to our physical bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body. We knew with humble and broken spirits that we indeed had sinned against our bodies and against God which led us to approach conception and the incredible gift of child bearing with such humble expectation, knowing our only hope of conceiving was the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ Himself. And so we put all of our hope for our children’s lives in His hands and we prayed and prayed and prayed and humbled ourselves and simply trusted and let it go.
So in seeing that first negative pregnancy test, I simply pushed those emotions of excitement that has risen during the two minutes of waiting for the blue line to appear aside until next month. But then, over the next two weeks, my body was acting a bit “unusual” and had still not returned to it’s regular cycle. And then I started to get curious. I made myself wait until March 1st to take a pregnancy test again, assuming my body would kick back into gear and I would not need to waste the seven dollars on a pregnancy test. It was a wonderful time of training my mind during those two weeks to let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. I am not in control of it anyways. Trust. I had to activate and access all of my strategies for taking thoughts captive. Change the channel. Think about something else. Distract myself. Take the thought and throw it out of my mind. Sometimes minute by minute. My constant curiosity was very unproductive which created an opportune time to be intentional to trust and not worry or wonder or question or plan. And then February 28th came and went and those signs of potential life growing inside of me were still ever present.
Habit #2: Trust
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