It's not a Curse, It's a Gift!

This week is spiritual emphasis week at school. It's amazing to me how God places in our lives exactly what we need and when we need. I'm almost guilty even saying that, though, because He is all powerful, all knowing, all wise... we should expect no less.

Today's lesson was on three attributes of God from Psalm 145. #1 His greatness, #2 His graciousness, #3 His goodness. God is good, all the time. Ken Rudolph is our speaker for the week. He is dynamic and his way of presenting truth is phenomenal. He has this way of grasping students attention and keeping it for his whole message. Praise the Lord, for the blessing of having him with us this week.

Ken told a story of a young girl who, with her family, volunteered at a summer camp. This girl was born with no hands. Her parents had two choices at her birth. They could get mad at God for what they had been dealt, or they could choose to accept it as a gift, knowing that God is good and had their best interest in mind. They chose to accept it as a gift and have taught this young girl all along that having no hands was a gift from God and that He would give her opportunity to use that gift. She is an excellent artist, she saddles and rides her horse by herself, she speaks with other students in similar positions to teach them about the gift they've been given. What an amazing example of courage, faith, and trust in our amazing God.

I tell you this story because as I sat there listening to Ken, I realized that our infertility is not a mistake. It was designed before we were born. It is truly a gift from God. I choose today to treat it as that. God is good, we know this truth, we read about it in His Word. There is nothing that He does that is bad. That means, that the gift of infertility from God must be good for us and we have this gift because He had our best interest in mind.

Father, I thank you for this gift. A gift that others would see as a curse. A gift that sometimes doesn't really even seem like a gift at all, but a burden. You know what you were doing, though, when you gave this gift to us. Use us to be a light to others who struggle with infertility. Help us to grow more and more in our trust in you. When things get frustrating remind us of How great, gracious, and good you are. We love you and we trust you.

I Am Blessed

We had a message at church yesterday about how blessed we are as Children of the one true God. We are chosen, adopted as sons, and redeemed. What more could we want? As we listened to the message, my eyes were drawn a note I had written much earlier in the text of Ephesians 1:3-14. It reads "You are blessed no matter what you don't have." What a constant reminder. This journey we are on is far from over...it's mostly just getting started. We feel confident though, that even if our journey ends without a family, we are still blessed. The promise of blessing does not get rid of the emotions we feel as we press on. We are still overcome at times with where we are headed and what the outcome will be. Our God is a loving God, merciful, just, faithful, the list goes on. Above all, He knows what is best and for that we are so thankful!

I had a kind of frustrating small group last night. We have been meeting for about 6 weeks now. I feel like we've finally settled down to a core group and we are getting to know one another. It has taken us that long to feel comfortable sharing that we are struggling with infertility and to ask prayer. Finally deciding that we would, I was all prepared with what I was going to say when the teenagers in our group began praising the Lord for their teen friend who will soon be a mom. Another joins in and says how excited they are to be godmom to their friends baby that will be born soon. I was struck by the flippant way they were treating such a serious fact of life. The thought that went through my mind is that they weren't excited about having this child, this precious life, but were excited at the thought of playing house. It only took a couple of minutes of discussion on this topic to decide that we were not about to share our struggle with infertility when there was such excitement over children that are being born to teen moms.

The teen mom discussion did quiet down after a while and we decided to go ahead and share our struggle and ask for prayer. We did not go into detail, but I promptly started crying. As I looked across the room, I looked straight into the eyes of a young girl, who is 8 months pregnant. Her eyes said everything. She needed no words to express the heartfelt apology she uttered to me. This girl is one I love. She is one that I have worked closely with on our Bible quiz team in the past. She is strong and loving and energetic and she has been forced to grow up so quickly by her choices. She, however; has become stronger for it. She has shown great maturity and responsibilty and I have no doubts that she will be a great mom.

I am still blessed. No matter what I don't have, no matter the frustrations that continue to pile on. Every morning, every afternoon, every evening, I am blessed with a Father, the ultimate Father, who chose me, adopted me into his family, and redeemed me from a life of turmoil. Oh, how I love Him!