Do I hold the desire to have children and be a mom in a healthy way?  How do I make sure that it doesn't and hasn't become an idol in my life?  There is nothing besides you Lord that deserves my praise and adoration...but do I worship the affections of my heart in your place?  Do I put too much hope and longing into my desire to start a family? I know that this desire has been placed in my heart by You.  Have I made it more than you intended it to be?  Are the tears I have cried and the pain I have felt...the disappointment and frustration and jealousy of others...are these things understood by you?  Have you covered me with Your grace while you have watched me walk this journey?  I pray that my life would be honoring to You.  I pray that You would be my everything....that You alone would be enough.  Satisfy my heart, encompass me in your goodness and your grace.  Sweep though me with truth.  Give me peace Lord, moment to moment, breath to breath.  Be my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.  Be my all in all.  Take away from me the ways that I feel wise in my own eyes....the plans I have that I believe are best....and allow me to rest in You, the author and perfecter of my faith.  You have carefully thought out the plot of my life...the way each chapter fits together.  You have designed each and every season in the perfect way...in the way that will bring You the most glory.  You have chosen me to represent you to the world and to test my own faith, and you will use each and every event in my life to accomplish Your eternal purpose.  You look after the birds of the air...you make sure they don't go hungry.  You look after the lilies of the field and make sure they are clothed.  I know that if You give that much attention to detail that my life will not be overlooked by You.  Be near to me Lord....allow me to trade lies for truth.  When I want to believe that You have forgotten about me remind me that You will never leave me or forsake me.  When I want to believe that life isn't fair remind me that You have worked out all things for your glory.  When I want to give up speak to me.  Where else would I go?  What else would I cling to?  You are a good and merciful God.  You formed me before the foundation of the world.  You formed our children before the foundation of the world.  You know exactly when the time will come for us to be parents, it has already been decided.  Why do I have to worry?  What is there to burden me?  I have you...and that is more than enough.  I am in a place that you are forcing me to realize that YOU are all that I need.  My husband is working long, hard hours and isn't available emotionally.  My friends aren't calling.  My family is far away.  Most friends have entered the world of children or are pregnant.  I feel so alone sometimes.  You are all that I need.  You alone.  Thank you for never leaving me...even when I am deserving of being left alone.  Thank you for the trails Lord...thank you for the storms...thank you for giving us what we can't bear.  These are the times that we understand your grace and your goodness.  Without you all of this would be impossible.  Thank you for giving me your spirit and for allowing me to believe in You.  If I didn't have You to cling to I don't know where I would be.  I will trust in you, especially when I can't see...because You know where I am heading and you know the ending.  I will trust that You, O Lord have written this part of my story just the way You have planned.  I only hope that I can make You proud as I turn each page.

Can I just tell you how I really feel?!

It helps me to be able to write my thoughts out...somehow it is healing to put the words somewhere I can see them.  Thoughts fill my mind constantly...fears, doubts, lies...all trying to take over the truth I know to be true.  Learning to control my thoughts and my mind is probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do.  I think of the way that things should go...the way that I believe would be best...the road of least resistance.  You bring us through our lives in the way that is best for us...but most often not the easiest.  I can understand that in order for us to grow that we have to be tested by fire...we have to endure the tough stuff in order to learn to trust you.  In order for us to know you we have to need you...we have to be humbled and brought to the place that we know you are in control.  I guess I just wish I could sit here with my cup of coffee and you with yours and ask you WHY.  Why Lord?  Why is this the best plan for my life?  Why does this have to hurt so much and be so hard?  Dealing with my parents divorce and my dad leaving us...and the brokenness of my family...the dysfunction that I am a product of...the heartache that I am working though.  Is that not enough of a hardship?  You are asking me to simultaneously deal with not being able to get pregnant.  Without exaggerating I have sat by and watched almost every single one of my friends conceive no problem while I am back at the starting line.  It feels like torture.  It feels like you have forgotten me.  It feels that you want me to turn my back on You.  These days are dark...they offer little hope Lord.  You want me to praise you...to give you the glory....and deep down I want to too....but I feel that I don't really have a whole lot to give you.  Breathing...existing....waiting...hoping....crying....fighting....wondering...wondering WHY.  Day to day...month to month...have you any idea how hard this is Lord?!  I am broken....I am devastated....by a mess of things.  And I know that you won't leave me and you won't forsake me...and you are writing my story perfectly...but WHY is this the road?  Why is this the way?  WHAT ARE YOU DOING????????????????????  Tears fill my eyes because I am FRUSTRATED.  I am sad.  I am angry.  And in my heart I know that you are holding me...telling me to trust you...that you do have a plan.  To not give up...to endure the pain.  My prayer is that you make beauty from ashes Lord.  Do something mighty.  Do something great.  Make me better because of this...not worse.  Align my thoughts and my ways to your truth.  Don't leave me or forsake me.  Give me what I need in order to continue to walk in You...remind me that you are there and that you love me.  Help me to keep my thoughts at bay...that when they try and consume me that I would remember You. 

remembering you....

I navigate uncharted waters.  This path is a new one...not one that I took intentionally or am particualariy happy to be on.  Things here are unfamiliar and I have to rearange what I know...all my past experiences and what I believed to be true about the person you are.  I am learning that you are not who you said you were.  That my entire life I believed you were someone you aren't...and you are proving to be someone I never knew before.  But because in my heart there are so many things I treasure about who I believed you were...it helps me to think back on the things that have caused me to love you.

There are things I miss...things I see that remind me of you...the you that I always thought you were.  I see your hands on a man sitting next to me on a plane.  I see you in a movie...as a man who has no idea who he is.  I am reminded of you when I eat hot tamales.  I think of you when I see a baseball game and how you know the game better than anyone I know.  There are things I want to tell you...things I want to talk about....mostly just things that I know will spark your interest.  Nothing deep...nothing about the way I feel since you have removed yourself from my life...just small talk.  I wish I could give you a hug and tell you how much I love you and how much I miss you.  And why I want to do that really makes no sense at all...because you have abandoned me...but still I wish I could.  I think of you when I talk to your mom.  I wish I could tell you what I've been doing lately...about my dreams and the things I love.  I wish I could tell you about my dogs and hear about yours.  I wish I could talk to you about baseball and make plans to go to a Rockies game.  If only you knew how often I think of you...how many tears I cry wishing you could find the one thing in your life that would change everything.  If only you knew how much you have hurt me.  I can't stop loving you even though it would be so much easier if I could.  I wish you cared about me more than you care about yourself.

And I am grieving.  I am grieving not because you are dead....but because you have chosen to remove yourself from my life.  I think that is harder than if you were truly gone.  Because if you were gone there would be no choice in the matter....and I would have to move on knowing that you were never coming back.  Right now I am moving on not knowing if you'll ever come back...and if I should ever let you.  Dads are suppose to be heros.  They are suppose to be the parents...not the children.  You aren't suppose to leave no matter how old you are.  You aren't suppose to hurt me.  You aren't suppose to lie to me.  All I want is to admire you, to look up to you, to want to be like you.  To be proud of where I come from.  But I don't.  You see...I don't know who you are...and I realize that you made a fool out of me.  You're my dad...of course I wanted to believe you.  Of course I love you...and of course you could make me believe you were whoever you pretended to me.  You didn't have to earn my love like most everyone else I have in my life did.  The love I gave you wasn't earned....I love you because I don't know how not to.  And you had a responsibility to cherish me.  To protect me...to care for me....to love me with the kind of love a father has for his daughter. 

So where do I go from here?  Well...I move towards those who I know love me and won't ever leave me.  More than anything I cling to my Heavenly Father who holds my heart, my hopes, and my future.  Who hears my cries and knows every tear I cry.  And I am forever grateful that on days when I feel I don't have a father...He reminds me that I do and that He will never leave me.  I hold on to hope that you will someday want to be a healthy, sober, responsible person who owns up to the mistakes you have made.  I move on with my life...without you in it.  I can't take responsibility for you anymore because you have to want help.  I have to let go of thinking I can love you enough for you to change...because if you are determined to fall...I am not going down with you.  I know that I'm worth more and I deserve more than the way you've treated me.  And although I do miss you and I do want you to be in my life...having a dad the way you are isn't fair to me.  I hope that someday soon you will find the peace that surpasses understanding.  And I do hold on to the things that once defined my idea of you.  Because thinking of your notes with smiley faces, and your TTU hats, and you blue eyes, and your slip on shoes, your windpants, and your obsession with 100% cotton...those things bring a smile to my face.  They remind me of the man I love.

He knows....

In our quest to achieve pregnancy I have found this to be a very lonely time.  The only perspective I have of mommyhood ended all to quickly when I miscarried at 9 weeks.  It's hard to believe that almost 2 years have passed since that day.  Time does heal...it takes the initial sting away...however the pain of that memory is just a part of the pain this journey has brought.  After the miscarriage I was terrified of going through that experience again...so we took some much needed time to heal and put our hopes of having  a baby on hold for a while.  When enough time had passed I decided that even if I had to go through loss gain, my desire to have a baby outweighed that fear.  Considering we got pregnant on the first try the first time around I figured that in no time we would be sharing our news with friends and family.  Well...9 months later we still have no baby news.  Month after month I get my hopes up only to have them come crashing back down.  It has been a rough ride:( 

Surrounding the ups and downs this journey has brought...I have had to deal with having many women very close to me delighting in the birth of their own children, or the announcement that they are expecting.  No one prepared me for this part of life.  The part where your heart aches to have the very thing that it seems everyone around you has.  Joy, excitement, thankfulness all mixed with jealousy, envy, bitterness, and anger.  It is impossible to describe unless you have walked this road.  I can't handle anyone else telling me to "just relax", enjoy the time I have with my husband, be patient, "trust me it's all it's cracked up to be", or "you can borrow mine", or even asking "are you pregnant?" every time they see me.  NO I'm not!!  The truth is my arms are empty and my heart longs to hold my own children. 

 It has been hard to understand God's plan in all of this.  Why people who don't even want children have an oops and have a baby.  How I see women in public every day with children they don't even seem to want.  How someone can have a God given desire to be a mother and cannot get pregnant, or who only knows the joy of motherhood for 9 short weeks.  Tough sledding.  Trust me....these are the thoughts I live with every day.  All while asking God to still my mind...remind me that He is good even when things don't go my way...and to help me to trust Him with my future.  I truly feel that the days of anger and unrest are on their way out.  Praise God!  I am beginning to learn to praise God for this trail, knowing that He has CHOSEN me to endure what most don't have to face.  That He has entrusted me with a tremendous opportunity and challenge to honor Him with.  He must have plans far beyond what I can see...and I pray He uses this season in my life to bring Him glory.  And one thing I know for sure....I am gonna love the hell out of my babies when they come and truly appreciate the gift of children!

I have prayed so many times, "God you just don't understand.  You say that you know how we feel and how we struggle in all things.  But you didn't carry a child...or loose a baby before you even met them....or grow a life inside you".  I wrestled with anger because I knew the desire to be a mom came from God and if He would give this desire then why wouldn't He bless us with a baby.  I sometimes feel like the stork is dropping off babies at everyone else's doorstep and didn't get the memo with my address on it.  For real!  What gives??!  I would cry out to God telling Him that I couldn't handle another one of my friends announcing their pregnancy.  I was mad....and sometimes I still am.  But the thing that has put a damper on my temper tantrum is knowing that God does know the pain of loss.  He gave up His only son.  And not only gave Him up...turned Him over to the hands of death.  For all for us.  How I pray He can forgive me for ever believing He didn't and doesn't understand.  He knows the pain of loosing a child.  I imagine this same pain encompasses longing for children as well.

The thing is that although my perspective is beginning to change...there is no certainty in the outcome of this whole thing.  I sincerely pray that the outcome is that someday soon I will hold our babies and see my husband take on the role of the most amazing father of all time.  But because I don't know what the future holds I cling to the promise that I know who holds my future.  And as I stumble through this trial....I know I will have tough days ahead and days that I will fall short.  Days that I'll trust completely in the goodness of God who plans to give me a future and a a hope.  And days that I will allow anger and bitterness to reign in my heart as I work out all the ways that this "isn't fair".  Psalm 73:26 sums this up perfecting: "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."  And as much as I look forward to being a mommy and holding little hands...I look forward even more to kneeling before my God and praising Him for all of eternity!!!

Speaking of Rainbows....

It is no coincidence that I wrote my first blog about a rainbow.  Last weekend there was a crazy storm here...everything from wind to rain to thunder and snow.  It was wild.  Wind that was so strong, blowing rain and snow sideways.  And cold.  I kept peeking outside to see if it was on it's way out since my puppies were getting tired of being pent up and were ready to go for a walk.  We had  been sitting inside most of the day curled up on the couch listening to the whipping wind and the rain beating against the windows.  Just as it sounded like it was settling down, things would pick back up with an unbelievable intensity.  After hours of this I wasn't sure the dogs and I would make it out at all.  Slowly but surely, the clouds moved out stopping the rain and snow and all that was left was the wind and the cold.  I could bundle up and handle that.  I finally decided that it was decent enough to get out of the house and get some fresh air with my dogs.  The poor things had been giving me puppy eyes for hours.  I peeked out the window from the kitchen one last time and caught a glimmer of a rainbow.  I thought to myself, "a rainbow in January....how weird".

It wasn't until I got the dogs loaded into the car and was on my way to the trail that I understood the magnitude of this rainbow.  It expanded high into the sky and outlined the entirety of the storm.  I can't remember ever seeing a rainbow in January.  I think back to my last post, "until I see the rainbow I will choose to enjoy the rain".  Immediately tears fill my eyes.  Thank you Lord.  I truly believe that I was intended to see this incredibly beautiful sign from God that stormy Saturday.  "I will never leave you, I will never forsake you" my heart speaks deep within my chest.  More tears.  "I am faithful...I have a plan for your life...take my hand and walk with me."  Tears run down my cheeks and my heart is full.  I am known by God.  I am loved by Him.  He hasn't forgotten about me...He spoke when for so long He has been silent.  It was one of those rare moments in life when I feel that maybe I'm not as small as I think I am.  I was exactly where I needed to be that day...and I saw exactly what I needed to.

The main thing I think I've been able to rest in since that day is that I serve a mighty God.  And I mean MIGHTY.  I don't have to worry because He holds my future.  And His plan for me in unique for me...no one else is on the same journey that I am on.  I can be pissed about that....OR I can be honored that He would choose to give me these challenges.  That He would trust me with so much.  How will I respond with the testing of my faith?  How will I honor Him with MY specific journey?  Will it make me better?  Will it refine me like gold?  Or will it make me worse?  Bitter...angry...jealous...hopeless?  Will it turn me into dust?  I pray that it makes me look more like Him. 

He has asked me to give Him two things nearest to my heart.  My dad. And my desire to have children.  Neither is something I can give over easily.  And neither has a safe outcome or a sure ending.  But He knows how the story ends...and that is all that really matters.  I will follow Him no matter what the ending looks like.  None of this is out of place...the questions...the tears...the pain.  It is exactly how its suppose to be.  And He is the author and perfecter of my faith...so I will give Him my whole heart.  As I let my fingers loose...I work at positioning the desires of my heart in the palms of my hands.  My fingers keep reaching back...fighting...trying to take back what belongs to Him.   My heart screams "What if"...."BUT"..."WHY"..."I'm scared"..."This isn't fair"...and it takes me filling my mind with the rainbow to quiet those cries and trade them for truth.  That I serve a mighty God who desires to give me a hope and a future.  As my grandpa always said as he faced his final days, "He holds the keys".  My heart is open...to whatever it is God is bringing into my life.  And I will work to live my life on my knees, palms up offering all that I am to my Father.

The Road

I don't want to be someone who always sees what is wrong in their life.  I want to be able to look out through the storm and still be able to see the goodness amidst the trials.  I want to praise my God for who He is...mighty...all powerful...omnipotent...merciful...gracious...and GOOD.  Lately at times that is all I can pray, "Lord remind me that you are good.  You haven't forgotten about me.  You have good things for me and for my husband and for our lives.  Help my unbelief...help me to know that you are a good and loving God."  This season of my life has left me with little to cling to other than the promises I know in my heart to be true.  It has required me to have faith...not because I see great things...or because we are being blessed...or because life is turning out the way I hoped it would....or that I feel that my prayers are being answered.  No....faith that is just that. Faith.  Faith that is unseen.  It is a hard thing to do to have faith when life looks so much different than you ever imagined it would be.  I'll admit...more often than not I don't have the kind of faith that hopes all things and believes all things.  Most of the time I allow my doubts, my worries, my disappointments, and my sorrow to reign in my heart.  I am my own worst enemy when it comes to having the faith I so desire.  The faith that reminds me that my heart and my life belong to a good God, that He has great things in store for me, that He gives and takes away at just the perfect time, and that EVERYTHING, every single tiny little thing is happening in our lives just as He has planned.  

So it is not a mistake that the road we are on is a hard one.  I can't see what is up ahead...and I don't get to know.  I have to trust that wherever it is that God is taking us will be exactly where He wants us.  And I don't get to know how long this stretch of road lasts either.  What I do know is that He will never leave me or forsake me.  That He will be willing to lead me by the hand...and He will...unless I refuse His hand and attempt to make it on my own.  But of course, if I insist on making it on my own I will realize I need Him and cry out for Him.  So I know that taking His hand really is my only chance at having peace during the unknown and the uncertainty.  So as I take this road unknown, for who knows how long, I will praise my God for the things He has done.  I will rejoice that I am known by Him and I don't have to worry because my life is in His hands.  And I will rejoice because of the husband He has given me...and enjoy the time that we have to be together.  I will rejoice in my health...the many blessings we do have (rather than focusing on what we don't).  And I will enjoy the time I have for myself...for sleep...for freedom...for spoiled dogs...and for the ability to be spontaneous.  After all, I am writing this from Utah because I came out to be with Jon for a couple of months. So while we wait for our rainbow...I will choose to enjoy the rain.