Barren and Blessed

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. - Psalm 37:4-5 To those who are struggling, I hope my last post came across as somewhat encouraging (and maybe a little challenging) for your walk of faith. Every once in a while I can really feel (and articulate) how God has worked in my life, but that doesn't mean I always feel or live that way (ha, I wish). I constantly need to meditate on the verse above and remember that the desires of my heart need to be God himself. H is actions and gifts may not be what you'd expect. He may see that your shell needs to be emptied before it can be filled again. But what He will fill it with will be so much better. He may or may not change your situation, but he WILL change your perspective of it. We really shouldn't compare spiritual journeys, but they can be humbling and inspiring if we look at them correctly. Whenever I'm tempted to judge som...

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him. - Psalm 37:39-40 I was still in my pit, desperately trying to climb my way out. I took refuge in my Savior, for a while. And then I got angry. Again all the questions of why this was happening to me, only now with a more sinister hint to my thoughts. They threatened to pull me back down into the abyss. Didn't God care about my suffering? He is sovereign so why was he doing this to me? How could a good God let this happen? Sound familiar? Such common questions. But I was forgetting again that I'm not the center of the universe. Suffering is a guarantee for Christians walking the path of life in obedience to God's word. Intellectually I knew that. I needed to ask myself: How do I measure what is good? Can suffering be good? Suffering exists because of sin, whethe...

For God, who said,  “Let light shine out of darkness,”  has shone in our hearts to give  the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. - 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 Giving up the illusion of control is hard. Actually admitting that I'm not in control and that I'm ok with that is even harder. The real power for my success (and failure) does not belong to me. Oof. Once we had everything squared away for our "special circumstances" and received my very expensive medications, the IVF process officially began. If you're not familiar with the long and complicated process, here's an abbreviated version. I did hormone shots for a month to produce multiple eggs then had the surgery to remove them (and for some unknown reason didn't get as many as they would normally expect). We used 2 fresh eggs for fertilization. I took more pills. They...

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. - Psalm 139:13-16 Fair warning, this post has a lot more questions than answers. And a lot more technical details than the wise (read: fumbling) theology of some previous posts. After gathering our information and choosing our doctor we were faced with more complicated decisions than we ever imagined. We are both very much "pro-life", in the fullest sense of the word. All life is precious and created by God. So life begins at the moment of conception, right? Easy. Or not. That's a question I came back to quite often, and sti...

“Thus says the  Lord  of hosts:  Consider your ways. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home,  I blew it away. Why? declares the  Lord  of hosts. Because of my house  that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house." - Haggai 1:7,9 The time and context of the above verse is vastly different than my own, but the principle is the same. The Lord's house, His temple in me, was being steadily ignored while I busied myself with my own practices and desires. Such labors are in vain, and I ought to have known better. (Ps. 127:1) But I didn't, and so here is another reason why this trial was necessary for me. After much careful research, prayer, and debate, we decided to try a "modified" version of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Some part of me still blamed my husband, and that made me feel like I manipulated him into choosing IVF. But who cares right? I needed to be in control and I needed to DO ...