Saturday, February 9, 2013

Lack Nothing.

February 1st marked a change in me. A change, that I now realize, makes my life even harder than anything I have had to deal with before.

I have been through some pretty rough stuff in life. As Chuck Swindoll once taught on our Alaskan Cruise, "Everybody's been shot". As I do realize that everyone has been shot, I sit here wondering, how often, and if it is in the same place as others. Of course not. Everyone has their own thread being woven into the tapestry of the Lord. 

What I do sit here wondering even more than that though, is how often we love each other. How often we judge people on their actions, when we have no idea what God has asked them to do, what forest He has chosen for them to walk through. What storms in their lives they have had to endure. What valleys they have had to stumble through. What deserts they had to wander through. 

Then I found myself asking... WHY AM I  JUDGING?! I am judging everyone else for judging me! I am judging the way they act around me, without knowing what they themselves are going through. It makes my heart break that I am so angry at others, when I am doing exactly what they are...even more so. I am focusing on my own heartbreak and pain, without caring about them. Jesus sweat blood for me--he focused on the pain he would endure for a moment, then handed it over to his Father. He trusted his Father, that the plan His Father had, was greater than the pain he would ever have to go through.

I am not there. I wish I were. I hope to be one day. I pray that I can endure this to see the plan God has for Simeon and me. Right now, it's still this heart-wrenching, gut-tearing, searing pain. The best I can do right now, is ignore it. The best I can do right now, is avoid it. The best I can do right now, is pretend not to be bothered when others talk about their children, or soon-to-be children. The best I can do right now, is to ask God for sleep because I absolutely cannot think about our children, that we will not meet until we are in Heaven. 

Recently, Simeon and I have realized that we need help. We need counseling. This was a monumentally humbling decision for me. For years, I have had to go to counseling, because everything was my fault, because I was the problem, because my father abused me because of me, because I was a liar, because I couldn't handle things well. It hurts to go to counseling for those reasons. I have realized now, that yeah, I have had issues, but they weren't just issues that I decided to have. They are and were issues that were created by outside forces, ones that I acted upon. It was the moment I acted upon the actions, that created the problem. The realization that I needed help, because I cannot handle this myself, that I cannot keep taking it out on my loving husband, that I cannot keep looking at happy women and families with hatred. I needed help. I still need help. 

The people we have chosen to counsel us, are very dear and near to our hearts. They reached out to us with our second miscarriage, walked and prayed with us during our third pregnancy, and cried their hearts out with us during the miscarriage as well. They have been an unbending light in the valley of darkness. Something they said in the last meeting, was that God is preparing us for our family. That God was the one who put the desire for family into our hearts. 

This brought up a slew of questions I wished were answered. Does that mean that everyone else who is able to carry full term (I know there's hope, but I am looking at the track record right now) is prepared? Does that mean the teenagers who could care less about their child, are prepared? Does that mean that we are unfit to be parents right now? Does that mean God can't trust us? What does that mean?! Add these to all the other questions, and you can see why I am consistently asking God for sleep.

So aside from counseling, I have made some pretty drastic changes. For one, I got a Y membership. I even have a GREAT workout partner that asks me when we are going (Shout out to KIM!). I have a goal, to reach the healthy size I was when I met Simeon. I no longer want to blame myself for miscarrying on the health side of things. I am changing our lifestyle and recipes...healthier versions. We are fasting, reading, and praying...more earnestly than ever before and of our own accord. And, when the time is right, when we feel like God is telling us we are prepared enough, we will once again start to trust unwaveringly, and stop preventing pregnancy. We will find the plan God has for us and follow it through to the end.

Since I know this is already undyingly long, I will leave you with a verse that has really stuck with me. In the Amplified Version, Psalm 23:1 reads like this, "The Lord is my Shepherd [to feed, guide, and shield me], I shall not lack." For years I have read it as 'want', not really noticing that I was looking at it completely wrong, and years of others passing over it and looking at it wrong as well. It doesn't mean that I won't want for anything. It just means that my God will provide for me. That He cares for me and doesn't just give me whatever I want. 

Also, look for the next post! There will be a soup recipe with subpar pictures (seeing as I left my camera at church!)!

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