Wow, I can’t believe this day is finally here! I’m actually able to do what I love and utilize it as a tool to reach so many! The amazement that I am experiencing today is similar to the amazement I’ve experienced in my walk as an “infertile myrtle”.
It all started as a young teenager. I never planned to have many kids. I always said I’d have maybe one or two but the thought never really mattered to me much. I was living for myself in a world full of self indulgence and didn’t want to be bothered with hinderances. That included kids and a husband. I wanted to live my life the way I saw fit and by golly that’s the way it was going to be. Anything to benefit yourself. My words and actions often demonstrated this and hurt others in the process.
Perhaps these feelings stemmed from my parents divorce (and all that encompassed), the abandonment of my biological grandfather, the pain caused by several males in my life – boyfriends mostly, who knows! But all it took was one simple decision for everything to change. Amongst all of the “no” answers I gave to the idea of kids, marriage, and fidelity, I said “yes” to Christ. From that moment, I’ve said yes to many things. YES to marriage, YES to fidelity, and not the least of these YES to a family of my own.
Saying yes to children was the easy part, but I never imagined it would be this hard to say yes to the endurance of faith. Never in a million years would I have thought Brooks and I would be walking this path. I will never forget being young in my faith and thinking – “ok, my hard part is over. I certainly don’t expect everything to be smooth sailing but from here on out I shouldn’t expect any major hardships”. My parents’ divorce WAS my hardship. Being dumped by my high school boyfriend (for reasons we won’t go into in this post) WAS my hardship. All these things happened B.C. (Before Christ) right? So no more major hardships from here, right??? Uh, wrong….
Being a Christian doesn’t promise an easy, stress-free life. It does, however, offer the promise of hope and a future. It’s ours for the taking. I did not handle my parents’ divorce well… At all. I found myself depressed, anxious, sad, angry {so, so angry}, and in a nutshell hopeless. In all my despair, I tried to end my life. That’s right, I attempted suicide. I was 14. I was not equipped in that season of life to handle hardship. I didn’t trust God in what He was doing. Not like I do today. I firmly believe, had I not said YES to Him so long ago, that I would not be here today enduring this journey. I’ve been equipped – with HOPE.
It is absolutely incredible how this journey has progressed. Almost 10 years ago Brooks and I made the necessary steps to start a family. But since then nothing has happened. Not one single positive pregnancy test. We are still hopeful that God will say YES! We have an awesome support group surrounding us in family, friends, & community. My prayer is that this blog will be a tool used to equip someone out there to take a leap of faith and say YES! YES to sharing your journey, YES to helping a loved one, YES to taking strategic steps of faith in their journey, YES to living life to its fullest, and most importantly YES to the endurance of faith.
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