a small miracle...and another mountain

God has a funny way of getting our attention-huh?! I'm sure many of you have experienced this...but, it's almost hilarious that, in the middle of God teaching me something, I am surrounded by reminders of what He is doing...whether it be through sermons, words of encouragement from friends, blog posts, songs, happenstance encounters or random visual reminders...I sometimes want to say--"ok! I get it...THIS is what you want me to process through/deal with/pray over." :)

I really thought that I had dealt with the grief of our infertility...but, as I've previously stated, the circumstances of the past month have brought up painful reminders of the difficulty we have had growing our family. When we felt the call to adopt we had such a peace (and still do)...but, I fear that peace and excitement we had of growing our family through adoption may have covered up the lingering pain of our infertility. I was so focused those first few months on steps we needed to take in the adoption process, that I may not have realized I still had some scars related to our infertility. (Can you tell I'm a therapist??!)

However, I do think I need to deal with these scars. I don't want to feel this way, or be dealing with this, but as of late I have become increasingly sensitive to these issues...I really thought the emotions tied to our infertility were long gone...I thought they had left when our hearts desire to concieve was placed with a desire for children to love...which is when the peace to pursue adoption came. Nonetheless, here I stand again...faced with the pain of our infertility...and desperately desiring to be healed of this grief surrounding our current inability to conceive.

Though I feel this has been under the surface for a while, God used some strange things to grab my attention...it all started last night as I was reading a magazine in bed (**side note, while it takes Warren two seconds to fall asleep, it usually takes several pages of a book or magazine for me**) and came across a page telling of an LA based sylist who was pregnant. Obviously, I do not know this person (though I do watch her reality TV show), but my heart sank..."How is she pregnant and not me?" All the questions of this being "unfair" surfaced---over a celebrity!!

**here is where the small miracle came into play---I began quoting (in my mind) 1 Peter 1:6-7 which I have been claiming:

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

...and I went right to sleep (usually this would have triggered a night of insomnia)!*** This scripture is really meaningful to me right now...it gives me hope that all of this pain and waiting is not pointless. These things have come to strengthen our faith, make us more Christlike, and bring glory to God!

I then read this blog post from a birth mother and my heart broke. I was convicted. I want to address and deal with the issues surrounding the grief of our infertility so as not to carry them into an adoption situation. It is our heart's desire to have as much of an open relationship as possible with our birth mother...and I do not want anything to get in the way of that becoming a reality.

So, this may be another hill we have to climb...and that is ok. Even though it is painful and difficult, I long for God to work these things out in my heart. So, please continue to pray for us...please pray for the journey my heart is on to find healing and grieve our infertility. I don't want to hide any longer...I want to be someone that is honest and able to say..."This hurts...and I'm not over it yet..."--but, I also want to be a person who continues to work through struggles in order to become a better person, wife,...and ultimately a better mother!