Infertility

One of my very favorite passages of scripture is Isaiah 43. It's a really beautiful passage talking about how the Lord is with us through everything. I flipped to it in my bible the other day and found a question that I had written on a sticky note and put near the passage that just said "What does it mean to trust God?" Doing the math, I must have written that note about two years ago. I grew up in church. I knew I was supposed to trust God and I knew he was my savior, but what did trusting God REALLY mean? How was that supposed to manifest itself in my life? Little did I know, that God was about to answer that question in a big way. 

There has never been a time in my life where I did not want kids. I had so many dolls as a child and constantly practiced being "mommy."  I remember when my first nephew, Sam, was born. Suddenly, there was a kid that I was related to and I just could not get enough of him. Seeing him figure out the world and learn the Truth about who God is was life-changing. As more came along, I saw that if I loved these kids as much as I did, I would absolutely love my own children more than I could even imagine. God implanted in me even more the desire to raise up little disciples of Him.

When Josh and I first got married, we said we would wait 3-5 years to have kids. However, I was 27 when I got married. Pretty quickly, the desire for kids was getting stronger and stronger. Ask anyone close to me, I talked about it ALL the time. I remember one night having this realization that having kids was not just something I wanted to check off the box on my life's to-do list. Being a mom was something that I felt the Lord had called me to do, something that was part of who I am.  I also felt so strongly that it was something that God had called Josh and I to together. We went on a trip to New Zealand and Australia around our two-year anniversary and had decided that we would start trying to get pregnant after that. It's a subject that most people don't talk about publicly. People tend to keep quiet when they are starting to try to get pregnant. Not us. We were pretty vocal about it, at least with our close friends and family, right from the beginning. 

A few months passed and nothing. I don't think I fully thought it would happen right away, but I didn't think it would take a long time. About 5 months in, it started getting harder and harder every month when I would learn that I was once again, not pregnant. The comments of people asking when we were going to have kids really started to sting. It bothered me when people complained about their kids and when people condesendingly told me that someday, I would figure out how hard it is to be a mom. (Side note: I have absolutely no doubt how hard it is to be a mom, but at that time, what they were complaining about was what I wanted more than anything in the world and since I just lived in my own pity party at that time, it hurt.)

It was around that time that my four-and-a-half-years-younger sister-in-law got pregnant very quickly (which was absolutely the Lord's plan and perfect timing for her and I could go on and on about how much the Lord has already used that little boy in mighty ways) and I started to think that there must be something wrong with me. I started believing the lies of Satan that I was not good enough to be a mother, that I was being punished for whatever mistakes I had made in my past, and that the clock was ticking.

Around the one-year mark of trying to conceive, we went on a trip to Israel.  We were in the Word for 12 days straight, soaking in story after story of God's faithfulness and exploring the land where it all took place. I remember being on the Sea of Galilee and the Lord so clearly asking me "Lindsey, do you want my best for you or your best for you?" I remember standing on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which is the same spot where Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice him and again, God spoke almost audibly saying "Lindsey, I'm asking you the same question. Would you give up kids if I asked you to?" He made it pretty clear to me, even in the significance of what happened in that spot thousands of years before, that he wasn't asking me to give up children (as he didn’t actually ask Abraham to give up Isaac), but would I if he asked me to?  After that trip, I came to such a sweet place in my struggle. I trusted that God's plan was the best plan and would ultimately bring him the most glory, even if that meant us never having kids. 

This next phase is the one I refer to as God twisting the knife a little bit, making it a little harder to bare this struggle, and seeing if I would still trust him in it. It's the phase where the majority of my close friends were getting pregnant. I know that I wasn't, but I felt like I was the only young married woman in the church that was not getting pregnant. Between the time that Josh and I started trying and then, EIGHT of my close friends or family had gotten pregnant, not to mention numerous other women that I know. Thankfully, the Lord was super gracious and despite being sad for myself, he enabled me to be super excited for my friends in that time.

It was around this same time that God started putting it on both of our hearts to be even more open with what we were going through. Josh preached in church one day and opened up to the congregation about our infertility struggle. I've never been a "lay all my emotions out for the world to see" kind of person. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with people seeing me very excited about things, but far be it from me to let the world see me cry. I felt like God was ripping open my heart and forcing me to just lay all my insecurities and hurt out there for everyone to observe.  I knew it was what the Lord wanted us to do, but it was still incredibly hard. The nice part was that it stopped all the "when are you having babies?" questions.  Kind of humorously, it also queued some really weird conceiving advice from people in the church that I had never even had a conversation with. On the other hand, though, it also caused a lot of really sweet conversations with people who had dealt with the same thing or people that just wanted to voice their love and support of us. It's an incredible thing knowing that hundreds of people are actively praying for you. 

Up until that point, there were so many times that I would just sit during worship and cry...full on bawling tears in church. I tried to hide it really well because, again, I don't like to let people see me cry. I was suddenly very aware when I would sit and cry during worship that the entire church knew exactly why I was crying. One week recently, I had just learned that another month had gone by with no pregnancy and I was singing in church that week. I was asked to lead "It is Well" during worship. I completely messed it up during the first service and I remember realizing that it was because at that moment, it was not well with my soul. You would think that it would get easier month after month, but it really did not. Every single month, I had to mourn and one of the worst parts is that the nature of finding out I'm not pregnant also means that my hormones are going haywire. I remember thinking so often that if I was a good Christian, then it would be a lot easier to just trust God and not get so upset over this.

Sometime during this process, I created a friendship with a girl who was also struggling with infertility (a HUGE gift from the Lord). One day she said something that so perfectly described how I was feeling. She said, "It's like constantly trying to learn how to walk in the tension of hope and disappointment." That's it! I was constantly so frustrated that I would get SO discouraged when just two days ago, I was filled with hope and absolute assurance that God had this whole thing under control.

Here's where I finally really started to see how the Lord was working... 

Everyone quotes Romans 8:28 that God works all things for the GOOD of those who love him. I am finally seeing what God's definition of good is. When I have to grieve every single month, I am forced to trust Jesus more. The grief makes me desperate for Jesus and THAT is SO good. That's how I know that my God is so good. I finally started focusing so much more on who God says I am than the lies that I was believing about my worth being found in being a mother. It has helped me to resonate so much more with the words of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3 when they are proclaiming that God will save them from the fiery furnace. I still believe that God will give us children, but I can now say, as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did that if not, He is still good.

God was even doing work in our marriage. The first year of trying to get pregnant, I was often so frustrated that Josh, though being in the exact situation as me, did not feel the month after month heart-wrenching pain that I felt. I often questioned if he even wanted kids because I was the one doing all the crying. What a huge lie that was that I was believing! Let there be no doubt in anyone's mind. Josh wants kids. He is going to make an INCREDIBLE dad. I often doubt what my abilities will be like as a mother, but I have never doubted for a second that Josh will be an amazing dad.

One day, in particular, I was struggling with this notion that I was hurting so much more than he was. I wanted him to feel what I was feeling so that someone could identify with me. It was a Sunday morning and he was already at church. I was running late so I came into church a few minutes late and it was hot, so I was very overheated. I remember running in and standing next to him and just saying "ugh. It's so hot." What happened next completely blew me away. Josh put his cold hand on my neck and with that motion, the Lord smacked me in the face with some really cool truth. Josh's cold hand cooled down my entire body. If his hand had been hot, it would have only made us both worse. When I'm hot and he's cold, he put his hands on me and we both feel better. He comforts me rather than commiserates with me. God has him exactly where he wants him to help me survive this time in the wilderness and continually point me to Jesus. That is not to say that this has not been hard on my husband. It definitely has been very hard on him. But I have always admired Josh's ability to completely trust God with everything and through everything. That ability is really being put into practice and God is using him mightily to lead us in that during this time.

From one of our very first dates, Josh and I have talked about how much we want to adopt someday. It's not something that we'll do just in case we can't get pregnant, it's always been something we felt called to. The Lord has been teaching me constantly that adoption is not a compromise. It's something so beautiful and an incredible picture of how God adopted us into his family. Maybe that desire is something God will use sooner than later, but I really don't know yet.

It's easy to look back and see God's perfect timing come together. There have been plenty of times in my life where I have been able to do that. It's easy to say that I trust God's timing in the waiting, but it's hard to lay all of my expectations and dreams for my life aside and trust that God's plan is far superior than all of those dreams.

I don't know how this story will play out. I don't know what the coming years of our lives look like as far as children (or anything else, for that matter). I know that years from now, I will look back and see how His plan came together. This waiting time is really really hard. However, I have learned more about who my God is and how he works during this time than I ever believed possible. I have already seen the Lord use our struggle. I have seen Him change my heart in so many ways. I have seen Jesus bring my husband and I closer together and strengthen our marriage even more. I don't have it all together by any means. Oswald Chamber said it best when he said "Sometimes God performs a miracle in our hearts over a miracle in our circumstances." If that's the case, then I have gotten to see so many miracles over the past two years.

There's two songs that have been wrecking me recently. "Who you say I am" by Hillsong Worship and "Not Today,"  by Hillsong UNITED. I listen to these songs and proclaim daily that I will NOT believe the lies Satan tries to get me to believe.

Satan tells me that I am being punished for sins in the past.

Satan tells me that I'm not good enough to be a mother. 

Satan tells me its my fault that I have not conceived, that I'm eating the wrong things or not exercising enough or exercising too much. 

Satan tells me that I'm worthless if I'm not raising children.

Satan tells me that at 31, its too late to still have all the babies I want to have.

Satan tells me that I am completely alone and that there is something wrong with me.

Satan has no power over me. I am a CHOSEN DAUGHTER OF THE KING OF KINGS! My Heavenly Father sees me, and he hears my cries. He knows me and loves me. He has a plan that is going to blow my mind.

So here it is, my heart. Jesus has been performing miracles and stretching me to trust him with everything. It's not easy. I don't have it figured out. Some days I'm full of hope and some days I'm discouraged beyond what I can handle. However, I pray that Jesus takes my vulnerability that he has pulled out of me kicking and screaming and uses it to point you to Him. Everyone's story is different. God uses different things to bring each of us closer to him. This is my story still in progress. This is what it means for me to trust God completely.

Josh and I listening to "Oceans" on the Sea of Galilee