Rollercoaster Ride

Warning: this is the most personal post I've ever written. Please don't run away when you see how crazy I am! I feel like I'm on that lovely emotional rollercoaster again and I just want to get off. This week, I found out that not one, not two, but five friends are pregnant. That brings the total to about 20 since Alex and I started trying to have a baby. That's not an exaggeration. Don't get me wrong, I am genuinely happy for each of these couples and wish them the very best. I'm just struggling with a million things. There's work stuff, church stuff, marriage stuff, friend stuff, some positive, some not so positive, and I want to run away from half of it. I honestly don't want to be pregnant right now until some serious issues are resolved in my personal life. I want to be on the same page as Alex and moving together in the same direction. I don't want to bring a baby into the world and have these issues be unsettled.

I'm praying for breakthrough, trying to find scriptures that speak to my situation that I can use as weapons of spiritual warfare, but there's still some fear in my heart. What if I have to pray for a really long time before God decides that the time is right for change to come? I recently spoke with a dear friend who is going through exactly the same thing as me and she told me about a woman who prayed for eleven years before God answered her prayers. Right now, that seems impossible. I would give up long before then!

God, you put the desire to be a mother in my heart from the time I was a small child. Please don't make me wait eleven years, or seven or even four years to have a baby! I don't want to have my first child at 30 years old or my last at age 40. I want to be young and energetic and not have sit by watching everyone else decorate nurseries, read bedtime stories, go to story time at the library and play dates while I'm working at a job that I don't want to do for the rest of my life, pining for the day when I can stay at home and change cloth diapers and go to play group, too. I want to sew bibs and burp cloths for my baby, I want to sew stuffed animals for my little one, I want to take the wonderful hand-me-down maternity clothes, highchair, pack-n-play, car seat, swing, boppy, clothes and toys out of the closet and attic and put them to good use!

I know that breakthrough is coming, and yes, it will be in God's time. I cannot lose heart, I cannot lose hope. Our pastor has been teaching on hope recently and the theme keeps coming up everywhere I turn. Maybe I need more hope. Satan can't get the best of me. I won't let doubt and fear win. I will not be a nag to my husband, I will honor him and keep praying for change - not only in him, but also in myself. When the time comes (and please, God, let it come!) for us to become parents, I want to be a stronger woman, a better wife, a more devoted follower of Christ so that my children will grow up with wise, godly parents. I want to run this race with perseverance and not grow weary and lose hope. God's plans cannot be thwarted and He does have a plan and a purpose in all this. I cannot put faith in myself or in others, but only in God, who comforts me and loves me despite my many shortcomings.