How Can I Be Thankful?

I'm going to be honest; at the beginning of the month when everyone started posting the "Day1: I am thankful for..." November routine, I wanted nothing to do with it. It's great that everyone else is thankful but living in the dead of night with no morning in sight just continuous mourning in my heart, I rejected it and this month of Thanksgiving.  My negative attitude stayed with me all month until God used beautiful Lizzie Wallace to give me a big slap of "seriously" in the face. As I sat visiting with her two Mondays ago, we were discussing life and that Stephen and I had reached the end of our journey of trying to conceive. She looks at me and says, "I can't have kids either."  The weight of that statement hit hard. It was in that very moment the floods of I am thankful for....came to the front of my thoughts. Lizzie helped snap me back to reality. Yes infertility is awful BUT look at what I do have:  the love of an amazing savior who allows me to be a selfish ungrateful "b" as I go through this process of mourning and loves me none the less, an amazing husband who has put aside his mourning to be my rock, a family that while they often don't know what to say or do are just there to love us, my health (let's be honest a barren body is nothing in the grand scheme of things!) an amazing church family, choir and Sunday school, along with numerous friends new and old, a house, a college community group with amazing students (God knew I would need them this year) and the list goes on and on. I now realize that in my mourning I have actively been rejecting God's blessings. So thank you Lizzie Wallace for slapping me with a HEAVY dose of reality and helping me to slowly move forward. There are more good days than bad and I am grateful.

As we head into the Christmas season will you please keep us in your prayers. I don't know why but it is always a hard time of year. Everything seems to revolve around families and children.  Pray God will continue to grant me mercy for my attitude. Pray that I will feel whole and  complete with my family of two. Christ is my foundation and I know he is here and will never leave me. Pray I will lean into him with my grief rather than away from him. I cannot imagine what these past four years would have been like without his love and  mercy!  

Finally, I pray for you. I pray that you too know His love and mercy in the middle of your struggle, whatever it may be.  

Joy Comes In The Morning?

They say joy comes in the morning. I don't know that I will ever see the light of day.  

Things I'm most sad about right now...

I will never know what it's like to feel a baby move inside me. 

I will never have stretch marks I can wear with pride. 

I will never know what that moment is like when the labor has finished and the baby is placed in your arms. 

I will never see the look on my husband's face as he sees the first glimpse of our child. 

I will never look at my child and see my genes. I will never look at my child and see Stephen's genes. 

I will never have nine months to prepare. 

I will never be able to control the circumstances of my baby's conception or prenatal care. 

I will have to prove I am fit to be a mother. 

I will have to prove my home is safe for a baby. 

I will have to subject myself, my home and my family to the judgmental eyes of others just to be given the chance to possibly be chosen and seen fit to be given a baby. 

These are just a few of the things I'm grieving right now as this chapter closes. I don't know what's next and I don't know where we go from here but I do know I am heartbroken and only God is going to be able to fix this.