Answering a Tough Question

Recently, I read in a fellow blogger's post, a question about how my particular belief system had influenced my journey in becoming a mother...I have been pondering this since then and have come up with this:

My mother was brought up as a Bap.tist, by a woman who was a single parent for the better part of her life. My grandfather was taken by cancer when my mother was only 9. Grandma didn't remarry until my own parents had been together for almost 9 years. My grandmother was an amazing woman, fun, energetic, and the kind of woman who truly was spiritual, not just religious. She had faith and she lived it evey day of her life.

My father was raised in an Italian household in New York...you do the math on that one. His family is Catholic. He went to a Catholic Prep School with kids that had more vowels and apostrophes in their last names than most people will encounter in their lifetime.

When they married, my father wasn't practicing, and left the religion to my mother. We attended a local Bap.tist church in the town in which I grew up until I was in the 1st grade or so. At some point, for some reason I've never quite learned, we left that church and took some time away to find a new one.

A minister preached at my oldest brother's high school baccalaureate and my mother was thrilled! Beyond his knowledge and Bible preaching, they were planting a new church that would be meeting in the high school until they could buy land and build a building of their own! We started attending that church the summer before I started 3rd grade, and became members before school started. My father and my oldest brother were baptised in that church before Christmas, and we were a changed family...

My parents had always been close, affectionate, really in love with each other, committed to each other...but after my dad was baptised, things really changed. I didn't really notice a difference, being that the only way I remember my dad was as a Christian.

I was baptised when I was 10, by my oldest brother.

I attended a Christian college my freshman year. I did all the things a good Christian girl was supposed to do...I went to youth group in junior and senior high, I went to a small group, I went to summer camp, I sang in the choir, I read my Bible, I went to Sunday School, I took notes on the sermons...

It wasn't until long after college, sometime the summer before Farmwife married Farmboy, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong on that one Farmie), when I visited Farmwife in her little town, and we road-tripped to see the Queen Mother, Pa, Bubba and Princess. While there, we visited QM and Pa's church, and it was there that I really got it. I totally understood what it was I'd been doing, why I'd been doing it all along, and everything was suddenly very real to me.

I can't explain in words what happened during that service, and I don't know that I've ever told Farmwife that things changed then for me...or how much I owe her for letting me invite myself to visit.

After that visit, for the last 11 years, I've really been living my faith...having a relationship with God, in which I talk to Him several times a day about everything that I'm thinking, feeling, wanting, struggling with...He knows, but I still tell Him, ask for His help, guidance, wisdom, peace, understanding...

When I met and married BB, I never imagined that I would be sitting in a doctor's office being told I'd likely never have children, let alone the things that followed.

We talked a lot about our options, BB and I. Never once did I feel that assisted conception was something we shouldn't look into and pursue. I was more worried about the hormone therapy that they wanted to do than I was about the prospect of harvesting eggs, mixing up a little "baby shake" and having IVF done.

I have never struggled with the technology that is available. My philosophy has always been of the "if God didn't want us to do things this way, He never would have given someone the thought that it could be done". I do realize that just because we can doesn't mean we should. Which is something of a paradox.

The question arises though, just how did my beliefs see me through the journey from hearing the words "never have children" to holding that pregnancy test, and seeing in disbelief the "pregnant" flashing at me, to hearing my son cry for the first time in the hospital OR after my C-section...

Well, that's a complex and not easily explained answer...it goes something like this:

We told a lot of people that we were trying and could they please pray for us. I never once asked people to pray that we'd get pregnant but that we would know God's will regarding our family. That we'd have peace, and be able to move to the next step at the right time.

We saw a naturopath, we saw an accupuncturist, we took pills, we did injections, we did tests of every kind, and I think I probably have more doctors on the Front Range that know what I look like, inside and out...

I cried oceans of tears, until I thought I couldn't cry anymore, only to wake in the middle of many, many nights with more streaming down my face...I came to hate the days when I'd feel the blood seeping out of my body, knowing that it meant there was no baby this time.

We had people from coast to coast and halfway around the world praying for us. Somehow, knowing that, knowing that there were people that we knew, or that knew of us through someone else who were beseeching God on our behalf made a difference.

Sometimes, the difference was that of sweet peace, knowing that there were prayer warriors the world around pleading our case before the throne of the Almighty...and sometimes, it made me feel even more pressure to succeed.

You see, I've never been good at letting folks down, disappointing them...and I knew that if, for some reason, God really did want us to not have biological children, it would be because of something I did, or didn't do, or didn't do well enough.

Some days, I would catch myself thinking "Well, if I can't have kids, then why stay faithful? No one would know..." or, even worse, "What if we decide to adopt, and I end up with a child like my sister?"

But somehow, through it all, there was always that voice in my head, stilling my thoughts, bringing me back to level, calming my fears, soothing my soul...and I'm reminded of the story of the still small voice...that came after the storm, after the fire...in the calm, in the innermost part of my being, I heard God saying "Peace, be still...I know the plans I have for you...I knew you before you were born, as you were being knit together in your mother's womb...trust in the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul...and He will grant you the desires of your heart..."

And I knew, that no matter what, baby, no baby...healthy, unique, special, whatever came, God was God. God is God.

He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is the Creator, the Redeemer, the Great Healer, the Wise Counselor...

I cannot explain any better than that, that knowing, deep in my soul, that God would take care of BB and myself. That He would provide for us all we ever needed...

I would never have imagined in a thousand years, that I'd be sitting here, telling a story in which the ending is not happy...happy is temporal...but joyful...for joy is eternal...joy is not contingent on anything...joy is a choice...happy is circumstantial...

And I sit and say "Faith is the certainty of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen", and I know that God has plans which I cannot comprehend, nor do I need to...

For me, that is all I need to know.