Weakness

I hate being weak. I mean I really hate it. I love being strong and in control. Those are two things that I am absolutely not right now. In no way am I strong and in no way am in control. This week however I have seen in my heart that I'm playing the part. I am pretending that I am strong and I'm pretending I'm in control. No matter where God has me in life, whether everything is going great or my whole world is falling apart, I am always weak before Him and not in control of the situation. So I'm pretending.

This week I asked God to help me to embrace my weakness. Even at times when I have been so down, I still wanted to be strong. To fight my way through the lies and press on to know the truth. And that is good, but I need to be weak. I need to embrace the fact that I am weak and beg God for His grace in my life. When I am acting like I am strong, I am saying that I can do this on my own. I can believe the truth, I can get through the day without crying, I can do it. The truth is I can't, even if I think I can. I am weak and I need to embrace that weakness. It's in my weakness that God is able to show His power (1 Cor. 12:9) I'm missing seeing God's power in my life because I won't embrace my weakness.

I see my weakness so clearly when I think back to before I was a Christian. I was absolutely powerless to save myself. God had to do it. He had to open my blind eyes, He had to pour out His grace in my life, He had to give me the grace to have faith. I was weak. There's a song called "All I Have is Christ" and  one of the lines says "if you had not loved me first, I would refuse you still." That's hard to swallow, but that's my weakness. If God, in His power, had not loved me first I would refuse Him to this day. That's weakness. The gospel causes me to embrace my weakness. It's okay to be weak and let Him be strong. I am weak and He is strong-no matter where I am on this journey.

Evidences of Grace

So after last week you all probably thought I was spiraling downward into a dark oblivion. You know, sometimes you just have those weeks months where it's just hard. One thing that Heath and I have both noticed this week is that we were laughing. I know that sounds weird, but I don't remember the last time we laughed as much as we have the past few days. I am thankful for that. I am also thankful for God's grace in our lives during this time. Monday night we spent some time listing some of the ways God has shown His grace to us during this season of infertility. By no means is this a comprehensive list, but I just wanted to share with you how extremely gracious our Father has been to us in the last several months (most of these revolve around infertility and we realize He has shown His grace to us in lots of other areas too)

The Evidences of God’s Grace in Our Lives January 12, 2012

• Heath has a job

• ML has a job

• Sustaining us through this difficult time

• Being part of a great church

• Having a strong group of believers around us

• Our relationship has strengthened

• Having friends that we can be open and honest with

• Insurance to help cover our medical bills

• HSA to cover medical expenses

• God’s changed our hearts towards adoption

• Carlee (adoption consultant) being in my BSF group (If we 

   decide it's best for us to adopt down the road)

• Having a hopeful heart during this time of disappointment

• Being able to be excited for others when they are pregnant

• Continued to walk with Him though this

• Supportive family

• Health

• Medicine that’s working

• Doctor’s wisdom

• Balance each other (when I’m weak he’s strong and vice

   versa)

• A pastor we can meet with that points us to truth

• People all over the place praying for us

• Able to be open and honest before God and others

• Our communication has gotten better

• We are still laughing together

• Friends who ask how we’re doing regularly and really want to

   know

• Meeting other people who have struggled or are struggling 

   through it

• Able to be honest on my blog about our struggle

• Ability to still give our lives away in some capacity

• Using a sermon we heard to remind us of the cross

I encourage you, no matter where you are on your journey, to reflect upon the evidences of God's grace in your life. You will be blown away!

Questions

I honestly don't even know what to write right now. I usually have some thoughts or ideas or something, but today I just don't. This week has been rough, I mean really rough. The past two nights you would have found Heath and I laying next to each other both crying. I'm not sure really what's going on we are just not doing well. We honestly don't know how to trust God or walk by faith in this, or maybe we do but it's just hard. How do you continue to fight the lies when you're tired? How do you not feel discouraged by your own lack of faith? How do you not think about it every second of every day? How do you not just turn your mind off when you have some down time? How do you know when it's time to move a different direction? How do you continue to have true intimacy when you have to have a schedule for intimate time?
How do you explain all of these thoughts to others?

So many questions, so little answers. But we will keep fighting! Our God is good-always, no matter where He has us on our journey.

Tired

I'm not even sure where to start. I guess a good way is to sum up the last 3-4 weeks: not good. For some reason the last few weeks have been such a struggle for me. I am tired. I'm tired emotionally, I'm tired mentally, I'm tired spiritually and all that combined leaves me tired physically. I feel like all day every day I am constantly having to battle lies: God doesn't love you, He's not being good to you, He's not faithful and on and on it goes. These of course are just what I said they were: lies. None of those things are true, not even a little bit. It's amazing how when you are struggling Satan is relentless in his pursuit of you. There is great hope though because God is more relentless.

I know I have talked about this before, but intellectually I know the truth of who God is and what His character is, but it's so hard to really believe those things at a heart level. Like I said, this has been a long few weeks. I have felt consumed with thinking about infertility and the desire to have a baby. A lot of friends have asked if I feel that way because of the holidays and I really don't think it is. I think Heath and I are just tired. It's been 18 months now since we have been trying and it's just hard.

The thing that has been the hardest for me during the last few weeks has been my heart towards God. My heart has been so cold and hard and distant from Him. I honestly don't desire to spend time in His word. It's tiring for me to even think about. When others remind me of verses my cynicism kicks it into high gear. When I pray it's mostly "God I'm desperate, give me your grace." I can just tell I am unresponsive to Him. I hate it. As much as a want a baby, I want my heart to be warm towards God more.

This past Sunday Heath and I listened to a podcast and one of the things the pastor said was something to this effect: You can't determine God's love for you, His faithfulness and goodness towards you, His kindness to you, etc. by your circumstances. You have to determine those things by the cross.  WOW! This has been so good for my heart. I can tell over the last few days my heart has been warmer towards God through meditating on that thought. If I want to know how loving God is, I just have to look to the cross where it was out of His love that He sent His Son to die for me. It's because He is faithful and good that He would sacrifice His Son. God didn't have to do any of that. My prayer is that as we go along on our beautiful (hard, tiring) journey that we would continually look to the cross.

He goes before me

The past few weeks have been just plain hard. Don't get me wrong, I so enjoyed seeing our families over Christmas and I was able to reflect on Christ and all He's done for me, but at the same time it's been hard. Intellectually I know that God is allowing me not to have a baby for His glory and my good, but it's just hard to wrap my heart around that. I confess I have doubted God's character so much in the past few weeks. I know the truth intellectually, but it's so hard to get it to translate down to my heart.

One thing that's been comforting to me during this is the thought that God goes before me. I know this to be true because I see it in my very salvation. I wanted little to do with God. I wanted to live my life by my rules and did not want to play by His. But God went before me, even in hard stuff. He was continually drawing me to Himself. There's a song called "All I have is Christ" and one of the lines says "and if He had not loved me first, I would refuse Him still." God went before me in loving me. He loved me and poured out His grace on my life thus drawing me to Himself. He has not changed. He is going before me in  this season of infertility. Even when I don't understand and I have more questions than answers, I can be sure of this. He is going before me. No matter where this journey leads, He is before me. I can take confidence in that.

Christ

This post has nothing to do with infertility, but since it's Christmas week, I thought I'd share what's been on my heart. Christ is the reason we celebrate Christmas. You're probably thinking to yourself "duh!" But this year it has been especially hard for me to focus on Christ during this season. I don't know what it is. Maybe because I'm use to being home with my family by this time and I'm not there yet, or maybe because I waited until 3 days ago to do my shopping (yes, I was "that girl"), or maybe it's because Heath and I have been working a lot. I don't know what it is but I am just not in the Christmas mind set and I am definitely having a hard time focusing on Christ.

It seems like I just have easily gotten wrapped up in the commercialism of Christmas-making my list for what I want, getting people things I think they want, going to Christmas parties. This is not how I want my Christmas to look. I want to remember and meditate on "The Word became flesh and dwelled among us." John 1:14. That is the reason we have Christmas, that is the real reason we celebrate Christmas. It is for me to celebrate the birth of my Lord and Savior. The One who knew no sin but became sin for me (2 Cor. 5:21) He came to Earth as a human only to die so that I could have life in heaven. Now that's something worth celebrating. I love this quote by Tim Keller "Christmas is telling you that you could never get to heaven on your own. God had to come to you." That' what I want to think about when I think of Christmas. 

I pray for myself, and for you, that this Christmas our focus will be on Christ. He truly is the reason for the season.

Faith

"Now faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see" Hebrews 11:1

Hebrews 11 not only defines what faith is, but gives us examples of men and women who have gone before us. I have to admit when I read Hebrews 11 I get a little awe struck. You have Enoch who is described in the words "he walked with God" and was called immediately into heaven. Then there's Noah who for 120 years built an ark even though he'd never seen a rain drop in his life. Moses who chose to be mistreated with his people than to be treated like a prince, led the people out of Egypt and parted the Red Sea. You can't forget Abraham who left everything he knew to go somewhere (he didn't know where he was going, he just obeyed God), waited years and years for a child and then was told to sacrifice that child (even though God spared him of that, he was still obedient to do it) And that's just a few of the people talked about. There faith was unbelievable.

Today though, as I was studying this at my weekly Bible study, I realized something-all of these people are just ordinary people who chose to believe God's promises and to be obedient to Him even if they didn't understand. There was nothing superhuman about them, there was something supernatural. That's when it struck me. I can do the same thing as them. I can believe God's promises and be obedient to Him even when I don't understand.

My biggest struggle through all of the infertility stuff has been a battle of unbelief-to really trust God and His promises. That's why this revelation was so sweet to me today. I pray that God will make me, an ordinary person, a great woman of faith. That I will really believe His promises and obey Him no matter what. I need God's grace to be able to do this. Will you please join me in praying this for my life and for yours? Let's be a people who take God at His word and act in obedience!