On expecting
In these “reflections”, I revisit past journal entries for new revelation, insight, inspiration and comfort. I’ve found that by considering the paths I’ve tread and dwelling on the things God has done in my life, my faith grows, and I’m able to take on my present—and my future—with hope.
Journal entry 4.14.13
Lately there has been more of a “sting” than a simple trust and hope regarding this waiting period - waiting to get pregnant and add to our family. And I feel angry, hurt, passed over. All my close friends are pregnant. Praying through it this morning, I know it comes down to my pride. I just feel painfully exposed at an identity level. I feel prickly and resentful, especially as I have symptoms indicating another month of being ‘passed by’. I just want to sit here and pout...to say “Lord, haven’t I been faithful to you? Don’t you care that this hurts?”
Ecclesiastes 11:5 comes as a word of reproach this week...and I know it: God’s ways are not my ways. I confess my sin of holding God to my expectations, of trying to control his gifts and favor. I’m sorry Father, would you shine your light on me? I turn and go in the other direction...would you light that path - fill it with your love and your presence? May I be able to say “where o death is your sting?” because life in you IS life. And on the other side of the cross, death to sin is not actually painful…?
I ended that lament in a faith-filled declaration, but sneak a “?” on the tail - perhaps a remnant of doubt? Faith is faith because “facts” are lacking.
Eight months prior to this journal entry, we experienced our second miscarriage. One miscarriage could be a fluke. Two felt chronic. In between those two losses, we welcomed a highly sociable son and resumed making plans in our hearts for a bigger family, only to face more heartbreak and waiting. However, I’m not here to chronicle those events today; they are the backstory to the one I’m pressing in to share today. But one point is crucial: God ministered greatly to me immediately after the second miscarriage with the following scripture (Colossians 3:3-4):
“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
So began a journey of redefining “living” according to Jesus’ life in me. I had fresh hope, not dependent on answered prayers for a family or for health. I was transplanted from a reality that was dependent on my circumstances to feel alive or to perpetuate life.
That was August 2012. By Spring 2013, I wavered.
Through the pain, in the two months that followed that journal entry, the Father began to fine tune this place in my soul that desperately needed to abide in His life. There were ugly, angry moments but leveraging a thread of belief that the only suitable answers were with God, I pressed in for honesty with Him. I found myself praying through scripture and grasping for His ways to redefine my ways. Rather than suppress the ache—the hunger!—I waited for Him to satisfy.
I can’t wait to unpack the ways God met me in that 2013 season here in this series of reflections. Spoiler: we named that answered prayer—our son—Oaks. When we dedicated him to the Lord, our pastor declared that his name is plural because the fulfilling of the promise wasn’t just for our family, but for many.
This work is ongoing. It was seven years ago this spring that I started writing out my desperate prayers in a new blank journal. I stumbled upon the journal within days of the seven-year mark of my first entry, when my hope was again wavering in this season of exceptional discomfort (anyone else?). I felt stirred immediately to share the journal here because as alone as I felt in spring 2013, and as singular as the answered miracle was, our 2020 reality is communal.
In the Bible, the number seven stands for ‘divine perfection’, ‘rest’, ‘spiritual completion’, ‘blessed’, and “full and satisfied’. I believe God is inviting me (and you!) to believe and declare that this testimony of God’s ways of meeting His kids’ needs is for all of us: Abiding Trust, Bold Faith, Expectant Prayers. His miraculous work is often both instant and long.
Photo by Stanislav Kondratiev on Unsplash