"Daddy? Is it true?!"

There is a Disney commercial on TV here that has home video recording of children's responses when their parents surprise them that they are going to visit a Disney Park. It has been an emotional week for me and as a cry-er on the most stable of days these commercials have been torture! But one little girl gets me every time. She looks up at her Dad and asks him with joyful and hopeful anticipation, "Daddy, is it true?" (I can't find the commercial to post it, but I will keep looking because it is precious)

After we had made the decision to start our family, I had complete faith that when it came time each month we would be pregnant. And for months this was indeed our experience. Even when the pregnancies ended early in miscarriage, every time we tried we could get pregnant. This felt like proof God was with us. The miracle that a baby was beginning to grow was a miracle, God was present in our life, and even in my body. With each miscarriage while we were sad and our heart's hurt but we trusted that God was with us.

Now with each month that passes with no pregnancy I feel distant from God. As each negative test gets thrown away with the trash I feel more numb. I have forgotten what it feels like to be pregnant. I have forgotten the hope that comes with the positive test. Now instead I have the expectation that we are not going to get pregnant. I look to the future and see IVF. I see empty, sad, confused years ahead. I don't know what happened. I have lost focus. I feel like a bystander in my own life.

I am trying to be present, and that can work for short periods of time. But then the thoughts return and the emptiness takes hold.

I cannot think beyond having a child. I have become that woman. The one I always felt sorry for, who had no other ambition in her life, who could not appreciate what she had because she wasn't a mother. But now I know that when you want something so badly it can consume you. It bleeds into every other aspect of life and it refuses to be silent. I am a mother, I just do not have a child yet. Something is missing.

Yet, I also have so much. It's a tough balance, and recently I have not been doing a good job at finding it. A really bad job. I know hormones change the way we view the world, and I cannot deny they play a part, but I do not believe they are totally to blame! I still have to fight for truth to be circulating in my brain instead of fear. Telling myself "I can". I think I needed to hit bottom this week to jolt me back to restoring some balance.

I want to be content, I want my hands to be open and ready for God's plan to come to fruition but I have forgotten what it is like to experience God's hand in my life in a way that makes me look to him and gasp, "Daddy, is it true?"
Sometimes it will he harder to do, some days will be hard and disappointing. We will be confused. But God IS good, all the time.

My prayer today, on this Good Friday is to again die to my own plans. To let go of the limits I put on God and once again expect and anticipate his goodness in my life; miracles beyond what I can imagine. Easter is a season in which we are reminded of God's perfect plans, His powerful love for us, His beautiful Sovereignty and the life he gives.

What a beautiful day. Let us not forget all Jesus did to give us abundant life. Thanks you Lord. Reveal yourself to us all anew.