All of my Life, in Every Season {Part 2}

Today I continue my series on “All of my life, in every season”.  On the eve of my very first chemo treatment for breast cancer,  I’m reflecting back on another desert season the Lord walked with me through:  infertility.   God was with me through infertility, just as He’s with me through cancer.  Chemo is from 8 am – 4pm tomorrow, and I’m excited for this first step to God’s PERFECT healing! His grace abounds…in EVERY season!  

Thank you for your prayers, love, support, messages, and comments. I read each one and they each encourage me in a special way in just the perfect time that I need an uplifting word.  THANK YOU…thank you for journeying with me. 

click here to read Part 1

Part 2:

I’d always heard that it’s darkest just before the dawn.  My darkest days of infertility were during the summer of 2009.

I was having tough talks to the Lord about what life would look like if having children was not in His story for me.   At that time two of my very best friends were pregnant.  As they prepared and planned to bring home their babies, I planned their baby showers.  As my dearest friends prepared their heart to mother, The Lord was preparing my own heart to surrender completely that I may never get the chance to biologically mother. 

That summer we vacationed in Hilton Head with my family.  My quiet times on the beach that week in June have been the most amazing times of communion with God I’ve ever experienced.  I was in the middle a hard wrestle of full heart surrender and that was such a difficult place to be.  I was starting to fully release my future to the Lord, and God met me morning by morning as I took my coffee, bible and journal and sat on the sand, in awe of His creation as I watched the sunrise.

One afternoon, as I sat side by side with my sister in lounge chairs, toes in the sand, we shared the sweet conversation that only sister friends can share.  We are close in age but closer in heart and how I was so cherishing that time with her.  Just as we were about to pack up for the day, she lingered, and then hesitantly shared the news that she was unexpectedly pregnant.  That week, a confusing combination of joy and heartache stirred inside. Surely the Lord was meeting me in those days, but no doubt the days were hard and I had to walk through conflicting emotions.

with my sister, Liz (she will always be “Elizabeth” to me)

I want to be REAL with you and not gloss over this hard. I wrote in my journal:

“while sitting on the beach with my sister, she shared with me that she and Jon are expecting.  It was and still is definitely a shock.  I have so many thoughts, feelings and emotions flooding my soul.  feelings of joy and blessing for them,  mixed with the wonder of “Lord, why not us?”

Psalm 40:1 says “I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry.  He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock making my steps secure.  He put a NEW SONG in my mouth. A song of praise to our God” 

Lord, this is my prayer! Put a new song in my mouth! Remove all songs of bitterness and disappointment…remove and destroy the song of sadness Lord, and put a NEW SONG…a song of your  hope, faithfulness and grace….so that “many will see and fear and put their trust in you, Lord.

Psalm 30:11 says “you have turned for me my mourning into dancing , you have clothed me with gladness.”  Lord I pray that even in this time of waiting that THIS song of gladness would be on my lips.  Lord I don’t have to be a mother to be clothed with your gladness!  I want to be genuinely happy for my sister, but I feel as though these days are the darkest yet for me.

Lord YOU have to put this joy in my heart. Lord change me from the inside out!  Lord as I write, your sunrise is speaking so much to me.  A beautiful glorious sunrise behind the clouds….the skies dark above me, but the sun is ever present – far behind the dark clouds. . This reminds me of your faithfulness, that every day you are the same no matter what is going on in my circumstances, no matter what dark clouds are covering my days. Praise you Lord!” 

This was the start of a remarkable shift the Lord performed in my heart.  Through that week on the beach, God began to impress upon me the importance of hope, and more importantly hope rightly placed.

“Desert Song”, by Hillsong became my infertility anthem.  Each verse of the song is a prayer for a specific type of trial we might encounter as we journey, a prayer for the desert, the battle, and the fire. These words of this song resonated so deeply within me, as I felt elements of the desert, fire and battle during the heartache of the waiting season. And finally, the last verse says “This is my prayer in the HARVEST, when favor and providence flow….I know I’m filled to be emptied again, this seed I receive I will sow”

I would exuberantly sing that last verse about the harvest season as I awaited my own season of harvest.  I mistakenly understood MY harvest season to mean bringing home a baby.  Finally becoming a mother.    

All the while, I was trying to reconcile the fact that there was no guarantee that I ever would get pregnant.   Romans 5:5 says that “hope will not disappoint us”.  I read this in scripture,  but month by month I felt the sting of disappointment when yet again, there was that one, lonely line on the home pregnancy test.  As I journalled, after some time God started doing major and much needed heart surgery inside of me, and eventually revealed to me that my hope was misplaced. I finally recognized that I couldn’t put my hope in the harvest of my desires, but my hope has to be in Christ alone.  Finally I understood Romans 5:5 – hope would never disappoint, as long as my hope was rightly placed.  

2 Cor 4:16 came alive to me. It reads :  “So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day”  Outwardly my circumstances were seemingly wasting away, but INWARDLY I was being renewed day by day.    My hope shifted from hoping for a baby to hoping and BELIEVING that God’s plan for my life was better than I could ever ask for or imagine! (Baby or no baby!)  Ephesians 3:20 in the message translation says:  “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.”

I started to understand that even if His story for my life did not include for me to bear biological children, that His ways were better and higher than my ways, even though I could not understand.

But what did that mean practically? For me, it looked like daily coming to the Lord, lots of journalling, being real with Him and myself about the true desires of my heart. BUT coming to  Him with palms open, as an act of sacrifice and worship.  When my heart was aching, I would cling to His promises. Such as  Psalm 103: “Praise the Lord O my soul, praise the Lord and forget not his benefits- who satisfies your desires with GOOD things” and Romans 8:28 “All things work together for good for those who love God”. 

The Lord had to bring me to the place where I trusted in His sovereignty and His goodness, and that it is possible to  have joy and fulfillment in Him ALONE, no matter what happens in my circumstances. If His answer to my prayers was NO, that He had a better YES.  This is not a place that I believe any of us can persuade ourselves into being – it has got to be a shift of heart from the Lord.

God spoke – Hope not in the harvest, but hope in Him alone. 

Consider this, friends…. what “harvest”, other than Christ Himself, are you putting your Hope in today?  Allow the promises in God’s word to wash over you and remind you that Christ in Enough for your today.  In His presence there is fullness of JOY! 🙂

CLICK HERE to listen to “Desert Song”