I’m Standing With the Ones Who Wait

Babies, it seems, are everywhere I look. I wish I could tell you that I am 100% happy and content in this current season with both of our careers, surrounded by family, and enjoying our freedom and independence. I wish I could tell you I didn’t want kids just yet. But I can’t.

When my husband and I first moved back to the States after living in Venezuela I knew it was not the right time to have a baby. We needed to get settled, to find work, to take care of a thousand other things. I knew it wasn’t the right time, but oh how I wanted a baby. I spent many a weepy evening crying.

One night over dinner I finally talked to my husband about my frustration with waiting to move into this next step in our family life. I had a long list of things that needed to be settled before we could start thinking about kids and Brandon surprised me by asking, “Why do we have to wait X amount of time? Says who?”

He reminded me that while we had plans, sure, we could also change those plans. I was delighted thinking that the waiting was finally over. But it seems that God’s plans are a little different than mine. There is still no baby in sight. I have no idea when it will happen or if it will happen. You can’t will yourself pregnant.

If I’m honest, each day is a struggle to believe that having a baby is even possible. It’s hard to trust and have faith and to reconcile this desire and God’s goodness with God’s silence in the waiting. Each day I have to choose not to be frustrated or give up hope when the road is dark and bumpy and it’s not what I wanted at all.

I have this dream to be a mother and right now I can’t live it out. Maybe that’s your story too? Maybe there’s something else that’s good and life-changing that you’re waiting for and the road is taking much longer than you ever imagined. I know the struggle. I know the sadness and the moments of panic and wondering, “Will this be forever?”

I do not know the future. I do not know what will happen in the next week, month, year, or years for you or for me. However, as I have spent day after day, month after month in the kind of desperate prayer I do know one thing: Your story is your own.

While it may appear that everyone else in the world is getting married and having babies and doing this and that, that is not actually the case. I have never met two people who have had the same timeline of events in their lives. And I’m willing to bet you that you haven’t, either.

One of the most dangerous pits we can fall into is thinking that, “Everyone else gets to have this but not me. God has forgotten me.”  I promise you this: God has not forgotten you. As I’m in the middle of this season of waiting and wanting, I would give anything to fast-forward to the part where I get what I want. But I know I need to trust, and thank God for working on it, and be open to what God might have in store. God has made everything beautiful in its time.

I promise you this: God has not forgotten you.

I have to hold on to that truth or else I keep falling back into that pit of despair and doubt and self-pity where I’m stuck, unproductive and truthfully, a kill-joy. In the waiting, I have to remember that God is well aware of what is going on. I need to stop focusing on my plans and instead pray a simple prayer, “But in the meantime Lord, what?”

It’s not wrong to dream. I believe that God wants good things for me, and for you too. Wherever you are right now, whatever dream you might be hoping and waiting for, you are not alone. I can promise you this: there is beauty in the way that is unfolding, not shame, not regret, beauty.