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Matt and Emily Sitting in a Tree...

Hey guys!  I know it has been a long while (over a year) since I posted.  God gave me this idea for the blog post weeks ago.  This is me procrastinating to get it done.

So we all remember the childhood song.  Matt and Emily sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.  First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.

Yeah, that one.  You remember.  It was so embarrassing to have your name in the song as everyone else was singing it, right?

For ten year-old girls, this is how they think life works.

Love.  Marriage.  Baby carriage.

One of my (almost) four year-old nieces told her mother tonight, "That's not how life works."

Oh the truth of her statement.  She may have been talking about her mom buckling her carseat, but that truth holds for so many ideas that we have when we are young.

We think, Oh, I'll get married.  We will spend a couple/few years together before we decide to have children.  We will try for a month, maybe two, before we find out that we are pregnant with our precious baby.  A boy first, then a couple years later, a girl. Maybe one more along the way sometime after that.

Or I did, anyway.

I was diagnosed as a teenager with a medical condition.  The doctor told me that I may have trouble getting pregnant.  Okay.  My God is big.  He will just knock that diagnosis out of the way and allow me to get pregnant right on time.  My time, ya know?

This week in our women's bible study, the teacher spoke about how we plan and prepare, but how God sets the plans in stone.  That's not something we can do.

As I sit there, crying silent (or not-so-silent) tears, I realized that this was my plan.  To be married and get pregnant as soon as we started trying.

My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for over two years now.  There's still no baby.

I'm reading a book right now by Laura Story called When God Doesn't Fix It.  You should totally read it, but that is besides the point.  Laura shares in the book about how God uses our stories as an offering back to Him and to others as encouragement.

My best friend said the same thing as she taught that class Wednesday night at church.  She also said that maybe God doesn't have our baby ready for us yet.

This road of infertility has been the hardest trial I have faced so far in my life.  There have been a few days where I wanted to quit God.  I had to think through whether following Him was worth it to me anymore.

There have been lots of bad days, but I have decided that it is worth it.  Even if I don't have a baby naturally.  Even if God has other plans for us, whether that be adoption or whatever, I had to chose.

These past few weeks have been filled with good days.  For that, I am thankful.

I'm sure there will be more bad days to come.  But I have to remember that my God is faithful.  He may not answer my prayers exactly how or when I want Him to, but He is answering them.

For now, I have decided that what God has already blessed me with is enough.  Even if He never gives me anything else, He has already given me so much.

God doesn't need my help in laying out or planning my life.  He wants my trust, my faith, in Him.

As I struggle to trust God and His timing, He still fills me with His love.  He still speaks His truths into my heart. And His Holy Spirit still fills my life.  I can pour out the hurt and the pain back to Him because He is big enough to handle it.

I am thankful, as the old song goes, that He is still working on me.

I don't know where, when, or if we will have children.  But I do know that God is good, even on my bad days.  I know that He is an awesome, sustaining, loving God that has my life laid out so that I can best serve Him.

I know He will work through the hard things in my life and use it to encourage others.  I know that I will look back someday and say, Okay, God.  You knew what You were doing after all.

For now, I am just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to follow Him as best I know how.

My life hasn't turned out like the nursery rhyme, but I know God is still at work.  Perfect lives wouldn't grow our faith.

I hope you found some encouragement in this.  I am just allowing God to pour into me that I can be poured out for Him.

Thank you for reading.

In God,
Emily

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