I didn’t want to be this old trying to have a kid quite honestly, but I guess my life isn’t set up like that… to just be perfect you know. Yet, here I am… TTC (trying to conceive over 35+ = geriatric pregnancy over here at 37 years old).
I had dreams and ideas of having kids… specifically a girl and a boy. Although my ideas and what I wanted was blatantly tampered with… I still had dreams of one day having more than one kid.
When I was previously married, I wanted to give my husband a daughter and a son… but by then my ex, already had a kid (and a few others) on the way… by someone else. Hence the term, “ex.” Anyways, at that moment when I realized that I would no longer exist in that relationship, I felt like my life was ruined! My plans of having an intact family was ruined! “He ruined my life” is what was written on the stone wall of my heart after he ‘ramshackled’ through it like a clumsy burglar. I was devastated… not necessarily to lose him and our broken marriage, but that the kids that I wanted to have would be no more… or so I thought.
Obviously God had has a different plan for my life, and I was able to get remarried, and this time to my best friend. When we started dating, we both wanted to have more kids. Deciding how many kids was something we tossed around until we moved to California. Then we painstakingly decided to put off having kids until we could afford it. We both didn’t want to be irresponsible in raising a kid… especially after having gone through an already traumatic experience with my daughter, and the realization that my husband had a son from someone else in a previous life. Our lives are just not set up to run smoothly as you can see… but one thing we both wanted was for God to be included as the bond that held us together. Having God in your marriage is not easy… actually, the relationship seems much harder when God is involved, as you can’t hide from God, and he doesn’t let you off the hook that easy… he makes you confront your issues, deal with your hangups, and drag the baggage out of the closet. It’s all for your good he says… and in hindsight, it really is… but it sure doesn’t feel that way when you are in the thick of things.
Now though… we’re much older, more wiser (well not really), and feel more prepared to raise another kid. We have more help, and my daughter is much more older and independent. Now comes the waiting game. One would think all things leading up to this point was the waiting game… but no, it wasn’t. Now I look around and cringe… what is God trying to tell me?? Everyone I know is pregnant but me… what lesson am I supposed to learn from this?? Why did I have to wait THIS long to get pregnant?? How come my life didn’t straighten up a few years ago when I was younger and more fertile??
Yesterday, I made it a point to stop looking at human ways to solve this thing and try God. Like seriously, TRY GOD. God has said over and over in his word to TRY Him… see that what He does is good and watch Him work and open doors! I want that, I need that in my life right now. But oh… here comes Satan’s funky behind creeping up next to you trying to encroach on your spiritual life and well-being. 
Satan has a plan to get you to believe his lies… and there are a few of them that I’ve (we all) fallen for, but not anymore. Not today!
Lie #1) If you haven’t gotten what you’ve asked for from God, then maybe you did not hear God correctly. I’m guilty of doing this… sometimes I just give up when I see a roadblock. When I don’t see what I’ve been wanting to see when I want to see it, sometimes I just throw in the towel thinking that I wasn’t supposed to have it anyways. Too difficult! During this time, what I should do is relive the times when God has provided! Reminisce on the good times in which God did bless us with things we’ve prayed for, and rejoice in Him for always coming through at the right time. “We may have to travel down memory lane many times during our wait” and ask God for clarity and assurance as we wait.
“Trust his delays rather than doubt His ways.”
Lie #2) If you are waiting and haven’t received God’s blessing, then maybe you weren’t supposed to have that in the first place or it wasn’t God’s will for your life. I’ve doubted, I’ve seconded-guessed, I’ve indirectly asked a question to see if the answer would pertain to my situation. I’ve asked this out loud to myself, “what if God doesn’t want us to have kids? What if we aren’t good parents and we don’t deserve to have kids. What if God doesn’t want us to have anymore because of the things in our past? Could this be punishment?” My mom told me during one of those inconspicuous questions about ‘is what I want a desire/will/plan from God or my own desires/will/plan’, she would often respond and tell me that God has a plan for all of our lives, and that if he has given you the desire, it will be just as he said, but when he says it. We should still continue to pray as the request hasn’t been fulfilled as of yet. We should pray without ceasing and that’s always a good step toward keeping our faith towards Jesus. We also should look for confirmation in God’s word! He will let us know if we are on the right track.
Lie #3) If you are waiting and not getting what you asked for, then maybe you haven’t prayed enough. Well for me, I know that I do pray for the desires of my heart, more so during the times of wait. I think that is human nature… however, we should be praying continually during times of plenty and during lean times. God is not a genie, and no set amount of praying will do the trick… God will not be used like that… he wants us to depend on him for all our needs, and that can be a struggle when you are in the land of plenty… we must always remember that God is the giver and taker of all things in our lives, and it is up to him to decide when and what we will have in our possession. So we should continue to pray, but pray for our resolve in the matter, not pray just to have things we want.
Lie #4) If you are waiting, then you must not have enough faith to get what you want. One thing that we must remember is that God is faithful despite our unfaithfulness, despite our impatience, despite our attempts at usurping what we want, despite the manipulation we do, despite our lack of action. God is using this time of wait to allow us to grow up spiritually. He is waiting for me to realize my need for Him. He is waiting on the right time to bless our family. He is waiting until I’ve learned my lesson that He wants to teach me. He is waiting so that we can grow closer to Him.
It’s not about me… EVER… it’s about God.
Once we all can see that and get out of God’s way, then he will open up the floodgates in our lives and bestow his wonderful plans on our lives for us… but if we keep acting and believing in the lies the devil tells us, all of our joy will continue to be stolen. Glean the lessons during the wait… don’t wait until there is no other choice. Do what needs to be done… but give the rest to God!
This year, I’m just tired of living in fear and I want to give up this fear and fake control I think I have. I want God to rule and reign in my life in all areas. Not the ones I want him to control, but every area. I pray that God continues to do a work in my life and that I allow him to be my God and not just someone I allow time to time into my life whenever I need him.
How do you handle things like that? I know in my earlier years I always had a quick comeback and snarky comment ready for those exact moments to use them. Other times I laid awake devising up a quip to throw back at just the precise moment to throw the proverbial pie in the face. Most often, I’ve had the chance to just be silent and let the silence speak for itself… ignoring someone who wants to do verbal battle gets under their skin just as bad as a severe tongue lashing throw-down. 
However, I have come to the conclusion where silence is golden here… however, my actions will be priceless. Here will be my opportunity to share the power of God… and I have to ensure that what I do next is impactful, in a gospel sense. Do I turn the other cheek? Do I feign ignorance? Do I respond tacitly with a cool response that will ensure they never speak out of turn again? Do I terminate the relationship because they have now disrespected me, and for that I have no tolerance? Was it all a misunderstanding? Should I even get clarification?? All of these things are running through my mind as I read and re-read the text message. Again, I need to be powerful with my actions… in considering, what would Jesus do in this situation? As I’m thinking about WWJD, I wonder how that could even apply because Jesus would know that person’s heart… he would know what their motive was… he would know more than I can know… and so it would be unfair to try and figure out what Jesus would do when Jesus would already know the past, present, and future of this person… but I digress… 
The Christian spirit in me wants me to forgive and forget. Brush it off as just something old people say, and move on. The parent in me wants me to say something, get clarification before I take something the wrong way and just gain understanding before making an assumption. The person I’ve become through my life experiences wants to immediately respond with such an articulated, grandiose, black woman educated vernacular (aka Angry Black Woman) that I don’t even think he would understand. I went back and forth on this decision all day to say or not say something… I conversed with a few close friends to gather more understanding because I could just be overreacting, so I waited. Silence. The next time I was supposed to meet him, he was there… and I found out that he was talking about doctors, not me… so my lesson is learned… take the Christian way… give the benefit of the doubt and follow up with clarification as need be… and save the scathing, well articulated, emotional tirade for something that is an obvious affront to my person. Sometimes it’s better to be late on the trigger than to give in to your hot emotions prematurely, which could lead to ruination to a part of your oikos without even realizing it. 
As I was contemplating writing this, a verse popped up today on my Bible App and the verse says, “Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall” (Psalms 55:22). I want to take solace in that… matter of fact I need to take solace in that because there is nothing else left for me to do. I am distressed when I read the news, I’m distressed when I check Twitter, I’m distressed when I see reposts on Instagram… and I deleted my Facebook app so I wouldn’t check it and get distressed from that. In all actuality, I would really love to live in a bubble… in a protective layer against all hurt, harm, or danger… but then I think about God’s word… and in the Bible, he says that he does not give us a spirit of fear. We are not to rely on man for anything because when we start to fear man, we are going down the wrong path. Man does not make the rules… although it may seem as if man is having his way with reality, but if we really think about it, man has no control over anything… he can’t control if he wakes up in the morning, and he can’t control staying alive all day… what man is doing is just abusing the assumed power given to him… but as quickly as that power came, it can be taken away.
In my weekly bible study group, we recently had this topic of conversation come up about why evil and suffering occurs in the world. As we were studying “Reason for God” by Tim Keller, we came to know the million dollar statement that most people say or think in regards to this topic: “I cannot believe in a God who would allow this evil and suffering to happen to me.” Enduring any type of pain, suffering, or evil is never easy and even harder to sometimes explain to someone who cannot see or refuse to see God’s purpose in everything that happens. Tim Keller suggests that we 1.) Listen compassionately 2.) Respond with empathy 3.) Do not give a reason for the pain, suffering or evil. Even with all of these protests and detainments in the airports, we have to remember to respond compassionately to people who have been affected by this evil and hatred. We have to put ourselves in their shoes and feel what they feel. We should never give a reason as to why this is happening because we honestly don’t know… we just have to trust and believe that God knows all and sees all, and he will not let the godly fall and slip.
God does care about what’s happening! We have to remember, God suffered the ultimate sacrifice of giving his only begotten son to be killed for our transgressions. He had to watch his son be tortured, whipped, prodded, stabbed, and killed without stepping in and taking it away… through that sacrifice, we were made whole! We were given a way into the kingdom of God, to be with him through all eternity. This earth is temporal. It will pass away. We should look toward the future of what is to come and what is in store for us in heaven… we should not give up on justice, fighting for what’s right and fair… but also know that God has our back! “Suffering drives us like a nail deep into God’s love and into more spiritual power than we can imagine.” (Tim Keller) Now that we are all in the same boat, let’s get close to God more than we’ve ever had… and lean on him for strength, guidance, wisdom, and comfort during these hard trials. God has never led us astray, and he never disappoints. 
Praying through difficult times can be virtually impossible sometimes. Praying at times where you are barely making it through each day is just a reality in many situations. Every new year, my mother and I choose a different name and attribute of God that we want God to manifest in our lives.
When something devastating happens, is your normal response to pray? Most of us pray because we want something to stop, turn around, or get better… Do we ever thank God for our devastating news or situation? Not really… in all honesty… why? Because it’s uncomfortable and goes against our human feelings… we want pain to stop, we want immediate alleviation, we want a healing, good news, and favor. We often think that God is distant and not hearing our cries. I recently had my mother tell me that she lost her job. That’s devastating news! I was speechless. I never expected that to happen because she was great at her job. Everyone had nothing but great things to say, and people helped her with everything to make her job easier. To hear in my mother’s voice a tremble as if she was holding back tears, that was hard to swallow. My mother is a very resiliant woman, but she seemed shaken. Shocked. Upset. Disappointed. Devastated. Although she may have said she was “fine” I knew she wasn’t. I knew she felt insecurities creeping up. I knew she felt some sort of self-doubt… that morning she said she prayed to God to direct her steps that day, “and that’s where he lead me”, she said… “right into being laid off.” I instantly wanted to make things better for her, and I tried to share words of encouragement and remind her of God’s promises… especially the names of God that she chose this year, and how He is moving in our lives, essentially because we prayed for Him to do so.
When doors close, we have to be prepared to pray through those trying times. We have to find our strength in God because only he can give us what we need to get through. When we branch out to other outlets we tend to have disarray and chaos and we make life much more terrible than it should be. God is the first and only one who can fix our problems, so why shouldn’t we rely on him only to make things better for us in his own time? We should pray for insight, for some wisdom, for some emotional stability, for understanding, for opportunities to share our heartache with another so that someone else can be encouraged and believe that if they just trust God, their situation will eventually turn around.
As the New Year have rang in, we sometimes look for this to be our motivation to restart, recharge, re-motivate, renew, start something fresh, purge, cleanse, destroy, rid, and devote more time, attention, money, cares to something we hold dear in our hearts.
We have to be careful because our lives can possibly bend and change as the wind blows. Being on an emotional rollercoaster like that is detrimental to our mental health! We cannot control other people and their responses… we can only control our responses. Our facial expressions. Our thoughts. Our behaviors. Our emotions. Our responses. We have to mentally and sometimes physically choose to do things different.
So my advise is just to choose “joy.” You can also pray to God to help you uncover the joy that you believe may be lost or you just simply cannot get past the disappointments in your life. He will be there for you and help you recover your joy. He will bring about a peace of understanding and you will be able to see for yourself how trusting God in all of your situations gives you joy! I’m a witness! Test God! He won’t let you down!
With Him We Grow 