For a long time, I had convinced myself I had nothing to say. Rather, I had a lot to say, but it made my brain hurt a little bit trying to connect it all. And if I couldn’t fully understand it, how could I articulate it in a way that anybody else would? I had...
Category Archives: Our Story
All was quiet in early September 2010. The 30-year-old me, who had recently discovered her first grey hairs in the mirror, flipped through the last pages in a book on insecurity. We were four years into our wait, and I was thinking about my biggest fear right then. Missing the window. Waiting too long.Being an...
Our entire house was entirely packed up the week before boarding a one-way flight to Maui. Ten years of life and marriage and memories were neatly sorted and labeled and boxed away in a single twenty-foot storage unit. I managed to find a moment alone on that last day, just before we left our high-desert...
It’s impossible to articulate the kind of mind-wrestling that has taken place these last six weeks. The constant back-and-forth and checking in and “do we? Don’t we?” questioning and pros and cons lists. When it came down to it, we had two choices: we could believe God to make a way where there was no...
Last night was restless. Our babe was in bed with us by 10, restlessly whimpering every ten minutes from an unknown sleep-interrupter. My legs were pregnancy-restless. And my mind was moving-restless. Or maybe it was analytical-restless, taking all these mixed emotions and turning them upside down and sideways, trying to find a way to compartmentalize...
You just don’t know…your words, God’s Word, the revelations of truths I had heard a million times (I am a Preacher’s daughter) yet never comprehended. I’ve not suffered the long waiting journey of delayed fertility; I have 4 amazing young adult children. But I know where your words come from. I know the depths of aching and sorrow from delayed answers. I know the angry tears, the moments of feeling so lost that you may never find your way back, the setting aside your Bible because you just can’t….. And I know, God. Is. Good.
Thank you. For being a conduit of God’s “pull my hair back whispers” and gentle nudgings back to where it all started for me. Where I allowed the numbness to provide a layer of protection against the disappointments and the pain. Where I stopped being a conduit for those I could be reaching because I had let my well run dry and had nothing left to give.
It is a process, this coming back to the ground level of loving God and letting him love me. But He is so faithful. I am overwhelmed with his patience and grace.
I have learned more from his Word in the few months since I’ve found your blog than in all the decades I’ve been a Christian combined. Thank you Jane, for your love for God, your heart for others, and your generosity in sharing your story, the ups and the downs. I feel like we could have been friends if I had not grown up on the east coast and you on the west. You are a kindred spirit, without even knowing it, and I am thankful for you.
Misty, the feelings and disappointments and numbness you described – I have fought such similar feelings, and I found so much encouragement from your reply to this post. God has been gracious lately to remind me of the journey we’re all on and how similar our griefs can feel. There’s so much hope in that and so much community – knowing that we’re all hoping and hurting in so many similar ways. So thank you for sharing that!
And JANE. Your words never cease to remind me of God’s never-changing goodness despite the pain and confusion we feel. You have no idea how much hope your words bring. I am entering into a similar waiting season to the one you’ve described here, and it brings me so much encouragement to see how you fought to seek and believe God even on the days when the tears won’t stop flowing. Thank you, as always, for your honesty and for the truth you share here.
So glad you did!!!
Jane, first I adore everything you have written!! And I soooo could have written those first sentences!! I just cannot get it from my head to the page!! Thanks for so much good solid teaching and encouragement!!