It's worth it

Sew is becoming quite the celebrity on my blog. I promise that she isn't more important than any other reader- God's just using her for my inspiration lately!

Her last post was so humble and beautiful and provided much brain feed for me during my evening walk with Banana yesterday.

I was thinking about how, no matter what anyone says, I think that for me personally, if we'd conceived right away, I would not have fully understood what a cherished blessing a child is. Sure, I probably would have known superficially, but the depth of my comprehension would have been pretty shallow. I would only have had a stunted impression of the preciousness of life, through no fault of my own, I guess, and I don't think that I would know so deeply that life (yours, mine, anyone's) is a gift which is not guaranteed past this moment or promised for any amount of time. I'm pretty sure I would have thought "Oh, this is wonderful! How great it is that God would give us a child." And then I would have proceeded to think "I guess since we had no trouble this time, we'll be able to space our kids just like we want!" Thus completely missing the boat that we did not conceive easily because of anything we did, but that it was simply God's time to expand our family.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened, and I have spent the last 2 years praying my heart out for us to conceive our first little one(s). Through all the heartache, I have given up the notion that creating life is up to just us, and that we really need to rely on God for His providence here. It has been a grueling time, and it has been filled with many tears and many why's and many hopes-gone-down-the-drain-only-to-reappear-next-cycle. The struggles of trying for a child for so long have been massive and heavy, and there have been days when I want to give up. There have been days when I think it's never going to happen and why am I wasting all this time and money and emotional energy and missing out on my 2nd cup of coffee (haha).

But I don't give up, because we already know our first baby/ies (We would be totally psyched about twins from clomid, by the way!) are worth all of this suffering. That is how much we already love them. Even before they are here, we are saying, we will go through this dark, desert, isolated time just for you. It doesn't matter about us anymore. We will endure hardship and pain in the hopes and confidence that they joy you bring to us will be greater than sum of all the negatives. I am so glad and grateful for this glimpse of how "worth it" children are, even before we ourselves get to experience the elation of learning our little one(s) is on the way.

This morning in church, I was struck by a similar line of thought. God says to me, you are worth the suffering of my Son to me. You are so worth it. Jesus endured pain and darkness and disappointment and tears just for you. Even before God knew if/that I would serve Him on this Earth (I realize God knew all of this all the time, but for purposes of analogy, bear with me!), Jesus said "I am going to take the road that is not easy and filled with setbacks, but whose end is all glory to God, just so that A will be reunited with God in Heaven, because I trust that the joy and testimony that A brings to me will be far greater than my earthly suffering." (Again, I'm in no way saying that anything I do during my life can even begin to come close to comparing to the Ultimate Sacrifice of our Savior, but you get the point, right?)

That is kind of neat, huh.

It's these times that I really am thankful for this time before children and the growth of faith/spirituality that have taken place. I can almost guarantee that I would never have morphed into the person I am today without this cross to bear. Of course I'm praying that our cross will be lifted soon, but until then, I do my best to carry it and all that comes with it (the stares, the jokes, the awkwardness) because I have a deep belief in the joy that it will ultimately come because of it!