Wrestlings

Many of you know we have been trying for baby #2 for quite some time now, really it's been a year at this point.  I have struggled with this journey once again.  I thought that because we had gone through it once God would be gracious and allow us to have a "normal" experience this time.  Well, I guess that is not how He is choosing to show us His graciousness at this point.  I have really struggled and continue to do so but truly want to have faith and believe.  I am weak and even though I have seen God's miracles, specifically through Eliana, I am still weak.  

During the night this dream was crushed again, if you know what I mean.  I had some good prayer time this morning and wanted to share with you my thoughts and wrestlings with God.  These aren't all the thoughts that go through my head but it is what was on my heart this morning.  I hope it will help you to understand better what women in my position are dealing with, help you to see that you can cry out to God and let Him know what you are thinking and hopefully encourage you in whatever trial you are going through.  I know His plans are best but man, it is hard to understand them and walk in faith.  I covet your prayers!  Hold me up before the throne when you feel led!

March 11, 2013

Lord, I am tired and I am frustrated this morning.  You know my heart and my thoughts and where I am right now.  I want to trust you and believe you and have a good attitude but I feel like my hopes and dreams and prayers are being thrown in my face.  I am sorry for having a weak faith and a bad attitude.  I know I should just move on and believe but I don’t want to.  I want to complain and get answers from you.  I want you to tell me why I am waiting and hurting and why my desires aren’t being fulfilled.  I want to know why you bless so many others with such great gifts of children and not me.  Why doesn’t Drew get to have another child and Eliana get to have a sibling, who she would love!  I don’t even know all that I want to say right now.  My heart and my mind do not understand.  I do know I am not alone.  There are others who have this struggle as well.  I know this.  And deep down, not even that deep down, I know that you are enough.  I want you to be enough.  I want to believe what the Psalmist said when he said that you are a fortress and refuge in the day of his distress.  I want to believe that.  Help me Lord!  Help me Lord!  Show me that you are there and that your plan is perfect.  Show me that you have my back.  Show me that I can believe you.  I know I have my precious, precious Eliana.  She is evidence that you can do it.  Why not do it again?  Why not blow us away again?  Why not do another huge miracle?  Is my faith so weak that you need to keep testing it?  Make it strong so this testing can be over!

Lord I know I am going to be okay.  I know that you ordained all my days before any one of them came to be.  I know you have ordained all the days of my children before they came to be.  I know that the testing of my faith develops perseverance and that perseverance must finish its work so that I may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.  Help me to consider this trial pure joy.  I don’t want this trial.  I want to see happy things but I guess that my character is more important.  Well, I know it is more important.  I just have a hard time seeing that Jesus.  I’m sorry for being so stubborn and hard to get through to.  I want this work to be complete in me, whatever that is.  I also want to have another child.  Children are good- a gift from you.  I’d love to have another child.  Help me see the good things in my life, the amazing blessings you’ve given me.  There are so many!  Help me Lord.  I am begging you to change my heart.  Take my desire for more children away…no, perhaps I need to ask you to make my desire for you so big that my desire for children pales in comparison.  That would do the trick and is ultimately what you want from me. 

Help me to not compare my life to the lives of my friends and those around me.  To me they seem to have it so easy.  Why isn’t their faith tested?  Why do they get to feel and know a baby is growing inside of them, why do they get to fulfill their role as women, why do they get the joy of having loads of babies and I get endless cycles of pain and annoyance?  It doesn’t really matter.  You love me the same as you love them and this path is best for me.  I do not know why but it is best.  Keep growing my faith.  God you are the one who can do immeasurably more than I can ask for or imagine!  I don’t know what that looks like in my life but I am praying for that.  Help me believe!  Help me believe!  Help me believe!

Give us wisdom also to know how to move forward.  What do we do next?  What does “trying” look like for us at this point?  Should we change our expectations?  Is there something else we need to do?  Please show Drew and me and give us unity as we make these decisions.

Thank you that you listen to my heart’s cries.  You know them already but I thank you that I can say them and know you are listening.  I know I cannot do this without you.  Keeping strengthening and fortifying me Jesus.  I need you!  O God, you are my God!  Earnestly I seek you.  My soul longs for you.  My body thirsts for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.   (Ps.63:1) I will sing of your strength.  I will sing aloud in the morning of your steadfast love, for you have been to me a refuge and a fortress in the day of my distress. (Ps. 59:16).  The Rock, His work is perfect and all his ways are justice.  A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He.  (Deut. 32:4)