Longing For a Baby

 


“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because he has come to help and has redeemed his people.”  Luke 1:68

Not many people know this, but for a very long time, over a decade, I longed for another child. It was a deep and intense longing, one that never seemed to leave my mind. I couldn’t even walk past the baby department at Target without crying. I prayed, oh how I prayed! But in those prayers, whether I fully meant it or not, was the phrase, “Your will be done.”

It was not God’s will to give me another baby. In the spring of 2016 I had to have a partial hysterectomy that sealed that option for good. Of course God is bigger than all that, but He hasn’t given me any indication that He has growing me a new uterus as part of His plan!

I am so beyond blessed by my four children, and now their partners too. I have great relationships with them and enjoy every minute I get to spend with them. I am not lacking at all. In fact, in hindsight, I have no idea how I would have managed with more kids. My health began to fail for real in 2016 and if I was in the midst of raising little ones they would not have gotten the best version of me. God knew that. He knew what was coming.

The question remains, why was this desire so strong on my heart? The Lord knows I prayed to have it taken away dozens, if not hundreds of times. To this day it still lingers, even in my barren, exhausted state.

Zechariah and Elizabeth longed for a child. Unlike me, they didn’t have any children at all. Despite this, I feel like I can empathize with them at least a little. They came to a point where it seemed impossible. It seemed like God had answered their prayers with a, “No.” How loved baby John must have been! He never had to wonder if he was an accident or if his parents really wanted him. He was born with a purpose. God used him and his parents in so many ways. He had an intricate plan that required precise timing, and no one was going to pressure Him into playing it out a different way.

Here's the thing: God is outside of time and He sees the big picture. He knows what’s best, and when it is best. We can trust Him for His perfect plan and timing.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Next Crazy Thing

Image
Buckle in! This is a processing post so it is likely to be long and wordy and emotional and probably flawed in many ways. I thank you for your patience and anyone who makes it to the end gets bonus points in my book 😏.  Let's start with the info. I've been having progressively more intense, more frequent, and longer lasting migraines. Since my eye surgery in May, I've also been experiencing a great deal of nausea, almost daily. Sometimes meds help (with either), sometimes they don't. In addition, since the eye surgery, my double vision has intensified. My depth perception is shot, I'm regularly missing things I grab for, mistaking curbs for cracks in the sidewalk, bumping into walls or counters. Those are the three things that neurosurgery told us to watch for with regards to the shunt functioning properly: headaches, nausea, and vision changes. Now the vision changes were probably because of the surgery and the nausea was probably  because of the migraines, but th...
Read more

At least it's not bad news

Image
  Radical tumor removal is not always possible because of the critical brainstem or diencephalic locations of some tumors. Tumor progression and eventual death are likely in such patients. Stereotactic radiosurgery for pilocytic astrocytomas part 1: outcomes in adult patients Kano et. al.  So my posts are usually preceded by a scripture verse, often an encouraging one. Today I needed to give you an insight into what I've been experiencing. From the time I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, about a year and a half ago, I was reassured that it was a "WHO grade 1 benign" tumor. I, mistakenly, took this to mean that it wasn't a big deal. Even when I was told in June that it had grown "slightly," I thought that meant they'd zap it with radiation and that'd be the end of it. Guess what, I was wrong. When my June MRI revealed growth, I was referred to the Tumor Center for treatment. Fearing a long, drawn-out process, I was relieved when they scheduled all my...
Read more

When "Wait and See" Wouldn't Sound so Bad

Image
    Ten days after I received the call letting me know that they found something on the MRI I was sitting in the office of a Neurosurgeon.  I have no doubt that God orchestrated the circumstances that had brought me there, including a friend who is also dealing with a brain tumor recommending this clinic. But how could any of this be real? Only a couple of people knew what was going on, but there wasn't much to know before this appointment. All we had were a few key phrases on the MRI Study Result and our dear friend, Dr. Google.  I went into the appointment with the impression that the doctor would either recommend watching and waiting, doing another MRI in six months and seeing if anything changed, or taking it out right away.  In previous encounters where the option was to wait or do something I have vastly preferred doing something, but this time it was different. I had read about the potential complications of surgery and I was scared.  Not to men...
Read more