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...

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...

Hear my prayer, O  Lord ,      and give ear to my cry;      hold not your peace at my tears! For I am a sojourner with you,      a guest, like all my fathers. 13  Look away from me, that I may smile again,      before I depart and am no more! - Ps 39:12-13 Although seeing God's sovereignty and provision for me was a blessing and balm to my soul, it was not an immediate magical fix for everything. For example, Mother's Day. Oh how I hated Mother's Day. It became my least favorite holiday ever. There was just so. much. awkwardness. Often, people tried to sympathize and be helpful and sensitive to infertility. Like, oh all the women at church can take a rose on Mother's Day because you're all some "type" of mother. No. Just stop. I know most people meant well. But it bothered me because people thought they understood when they really didn't. And they usually wanted so badly to convince me that they "got it," ...

"In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." - Proverbs 3:6 Since we obviously weren't the magically fertile couple I assumed we would be, after that year of trying we decided to seek a medical explanation. I underwent every infertility test known to man/woman. Some weren't so bad, some were truly horrible. H ysterosalpingogram anyone? Worst. Test. Ever. Anyway, we found out that I'm basically fine and the problem was with my husband. We were given some holistic things to try but were basically told there was next to no chance we could get pregnant on our own. And that is where my dreams really started to unravel. What do you mean we can't? Why is this so hard for us and not for anyone else? I was confused, and frustrated, and devastated. Now what? We needed to decide what direction to take from there. I felt helpless because the problem wasn't really with me and there was nothing I could do to fix it. I was frustrated because...

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it." - Genesis 1:1,26a, 27-28a ESV First, just so you know a little about where this long story leads, my husband and I have now been married for almost 15 years. We spent the first 12 of them childless, and not by choice. So now I guess I'll just start our story from the beginning... We met as freshmen in high school and dated for 5 years before we got married right out of college at the ages of 21 and 22. He had a degree in Computer Science and I had a degree in Elementary Education. We both had cars and got jobs in our respective fields. So far so good. Go us. Then, after the "normal" amount of time prescribed by society (abo...

*Cue the awkward lame intro.* Hi, I'm Bethany and I am not a fancy writer; there, you have been forewarned. But to start us off I figured I'd tell you a little about myself and what I hope to accomplish with this blog. I'm a generally private, reserved person, as is my husband (although I feel like God has been working on me in this area). I'm awkward and not very good at talking to people I don't know, sometimes not even with people I do know! However, I am getting better at opening up to people as God puts more compassion on my heart for them. So, writing can be a blessing of communication in that I get a chance to see and reflect on what I'm saying rather than just blurting things out because I'm nervous. But writing is also sometimes a curse because it doesn't have the advantage of body language, inflection, and other social cues, especially since I often tend to be sarcastic and have a weird sense of humor. So, I apologize in advance if anything com...