So many of you connected with this post and shared it with others when I originally posted it. I thought you might like to read it again and check out an update below!

Praising the Lord in the hard days, the waiting days and the days full of JOY!

She’s incredibly private. And one of the godly women I am honored to call family. She’s my niece and her words are honest. They are raw, and they are powerful. I know they will resonate with others, whether facing this specific heartache, or something else.

Thank you Bradleigh for your vulnerability…

“I believe our first discussion about having kiddos was approximately one week after being married. 😜

We were both pretty smitten with the thought of little ones and always have been, and that hasn’t changed.

We’ve seen this desire only grow as the years have passed and yet still no little Thomassian on the way.

Not going to lie – I wish this was an elated pregnancy announcement, and I wish this post were on the other side of the waiting.

Honestly, I’m a pretty private person and I rather just post about the good news and what we’ve seen the Lord do once it’s done and we’ve got the answer we’ve been praying for… but I know there is something to share in the in between and there are sweet truths to be seen in the waiting not just the getting there.

The Lord has taught me a couple of things along the way and I want to share them with you, in hopes that you might find some encouragement in your own waiting, and especially so if you are someone “private” like me just struggling along silently in your fertility journey.

These lessons aren’t specific to waiting, or babies, or even fertility – but they are specific to the gospel and God’s revelation of it in the MIDDLE of my story – and that’s the best kind of truth anyway if you ask me.

In my young adult years, I’ve had a bad habit of taking God’s delays or his “no”s and making it about his character.

For instance, no baby after almost two years of trying and I translated that to mean God must not care or maybe He isn’t good.

Or when things have been way harder than I thought they would be in life, I’ve wondered if God really does know what He’s doing.

At times, it’s like I’ve given Satan a piggy-back ride and let him whisper lies in my ear… lies like— “God isn’t really good is He? I mean, look around, everyone else has a baby and they barely even tried.” “He’s forgotten you and taken care of everyone else.”

And for a time I started to believe this way.

Throughout this year, thankfully, God has really exposed these lies for what they are and showed me how I was processing these life events through a lens that was only going to hurt me more.

I think, as an adult, there are these things we can easily put above God, and children and marriage are probably at the top of that list for some. Jobs and wealth perhaps for others.

When God wasn’t moving in the ways I wanted Him to in those areas, I aligned that with His character when the truth is His character has NOTHING to do with my circumstances.

My life could fall to pieces and God would remain who He is.

Sometimes, I have been guilty of seeking God for what He can give me or bargaining with him like “okay I do this and you give me what I want”.

There is a lyric from a Matt Hammit song that I’ve loved for years that says “I don’t want to love you for a blessing I just want to know who you are.” And I want this to be true of me.

I don’t want to follow Jesus just because He can give me a baby or take care of my financial needs (although He can and often gladly does both).

I want to follow Him because He is God. Because He is worthy and beautiful and kind. Because He has never failed to show Himself faithful in my life. Because He gave me everything I could ever truly need when He gave His life on the cross—every other good gift is simply icing on the cake.

While this waiting has hurt, I am grateful for it because it has taught me where the treasures of my heart have been – often not on Jesus,Himself, but on what He can give me.

I don’t want to miss the glorious gift that is the gospel in my life.

Though there are days I’m tempted to believe my hands are empty, they aren’t. It’s just easy to focus on what we lack instead of all of the goodness I do have because of all that He has so freely given me.

It bothers me that this ends abruptly, but it’s also pretty fitting because sometimes there are just things that can’t be tied up in perfect bows in life and that’s okay – that isn’t our job …it’s His.”

Here’s an update !!!

hope