Learning to Wait

This is from a scrapbook page that I wrote in early 2006.

For as long as I can remember, I have known that I should be a mom someday. My picture of the future has always included a husband and children.

After college, it started to seem that my dream would never come true. I went for several years without even one date. That was a very hard time, at least in the beginning. However, those years were invaluable to me. It was during this time that I learned to grow as a person on my own. I found a way to serve God and be part of His family where I was and how I was. It wasn’t until after I was completely comfortable with this role that Brent and I started dating. When I wasn’t even looking for anything or anyone, God sent Brent to me.

After we had been married for about a year and a half, we decided to start trying to expand our family to include children. Remember, I had always wanted to be a mom, but after Benjamin stayed with us for the first time, I started telling people that I had found the job that I was created to be, and that was to be a mom. It has been nearly four years since we decided to try to have a baby. It has been a huge struggle to see, month after month, and year after year, that my prayers are not being answered. At least not in the way I wish them to be. It is also a struggle to not be jealous when I see so many people around me welcoming precious new babies into the word, but, somehow, I have still been able to rejoice with each one of them.

I thought that I had come to an acceptance of the possibility of never having children. After I had surgery in October 2005, though, I got my hopes very high very quickly, especially when so many people told me of their experiences and getting pregnant the month after surgery. My doctor is not so optimistic and does not think that I will get pregnant unless we do in vitro. Now I am facing the possibility of my never being a mother. Can I handle this if it is God’s answer? It is very hard for me to accept that thought. What I need to remember is that God can and will use me wherever I am, and that I need to be able to say that where I am is enough as long as He is with me. I’m not there yet. I can accept that I may never have children, but I can’t say that is enough for me. It still feels like there is something missing.

In trying to comfort me on Christmas day, when I had just found out that I was not pregnant, again, someone told me that even if I don’t have children of my own, I will always have children around me. That did not help at all at the time. Since then, however, I have found myself thinking about that statement more. Maybe she was right. I do have the blessing of nephews and nieces and my friends’ children in my life. I have to decide to work with and be thankful for what I do have rather than wishing for what I don’t have. I have to allow God to be ENOUGH to fill me completely and then I will be complete. Then I will have learned how to wait on the Lord.


Some things have changed since this was written, but I still need the reminder to allow God to fill me and to wait on Him.