A few weeks ago I found this pin on Pinterest:
I never did look up the reference for myself, but I kind of took this to heart, although in a different order
I started praying. More. I feel that since James died, I have been praying so much, but so often it's asking God for what I want. Now, maybe I'm just slow, but I realized: Jesus, when he prayed, did not just pray for things he wanted, but for what GOD wanted. And, you know, some things he wanted. So instead of praying, "God, give me what I want now, because I'm tired of waiting and I just want what I want and I want it now;" (only slightly more maturely than a five-year-old...), I started just talking to God. Telling him about how hard I've been struggling; asking him for his help, praising him for what he's done for me and in my life. Asking for faith, because faith is a gift, and I have been very low on faith lately.
I started thanking him. I have been trying so hard to focus on thanking God for what I have, and trying not to focus on what I don't have. I think I mentioned it before. But I've kind of slipped away from that. Well, a few weeks ago, I remembered the orphanage that George Muller had back in like the 1800s or 1900s in Germany. Sometimes he didn't have breakfast for the orphans, but they would sit down anyway, and give thanks to God for what they did have--even to the point of thanking him for their breakfast, which was not there. Invariably, someone would stop by with food shortly after the prayer. Those children never went hungry. That lesson was important to me. I started thanking God for the children he would someday give me. This took a huge leap of faith for me. How can I be thankful for something I don't have, yet? How can I rest assured in God, in this, the biggest desire of my heart? But I did it anyway. I don't know if it was heartfelt at first. But God is so much bigger than our infertility issues. I prayed with the faith; the hope; the longing; the desire that God would answer.
And I [tried] to stop worrying. God has perfect timing. God is teaching me something. This is outside of my control. I've done all I can to get pregnant, and I have to give it to God. This one, too, is hard, and I'm still learning, still working on it.
Jon and I have been waiting to do IUIs. We haven't had the money. We want to. I want to. But we did not have the means to pay for the procedure or to take out a loan. We had to wait, and to trust. I again thought of George Muller. He would receive monetary donations for the orphanage; usually people did not specify where the money was to go, so it would go to some certain fund, I don't remember what. (Feeding the kids, or clothing them, or some other necessary area like that.) But sometimes, people would put a specific purpose for the money. Now, George did not go out and advertise that he needed $27.43 for new school shoes for the children, but whenever he prayed, trusting that God would answer his prayer, he would get a donation for $27.43 "For School Shoes."* So I started praying. I told God that if he wanted us to be able to do IUIs, he was going to have to provide the money, because we didn't have it. And it wasn't just that we would be able to penny pinch for the money. He needed to provide the funds and explicitly say it was for the IUI. We did not tell any one this. The following week I was talking with my parents and they asked how much the IUI would cost, so I told them. They asked when we would do another, and I had to say we didn't have the money yet, but when we did we would do one. A few days later, my mom texted me to tell me she and my father had set aside some money for us to do an IUI.** God does, indeed, answer prayer.
This whole thing, the entire time I've been going through this adventure listed above, started just before I ovulated this last cycle. I ovulated on a Sunday, and we did not have the money to do an IUI, although I didn't tell anyone that. It was a week or 10 days after I ovulated that my mom said she'd pay for our next IUI. I am currently 13, almost 14 days past ovulation. I have never had a luteal phase longer than 11 days. Pregnancy tests so far have been negative, but I'm having a hard time not getting my hopes up. I think I'm pregnant. I want, so badly, to be pregnant. But even so, I am praying, thanking God for the children I will some day have. For the peace, the comfort, the hope, that God will give me the desire of my heart; that I just need to wait on his timing; learn the lessons he wants me to learn; fight the good fight; and keep the faith.
My God is surely the sustainer--the sustainer of hope, of faith, of joy, of strength. Without him, I am nothing. He is my rock; he is my salvation. My salvation from sin, yes; my salvation from damnation, yes. Even more, right now, he is my salvation from sorrow, from desperation, and from pain. He is the reason I can say all these things, the reason I can still have joy in the midst of this heartache. He is.
Disclaimer: I did not have the paragraph about needing money for an IUI to pull on your heartstrings--or your purse strings. I simply wanted to tell it like it is--to give you a clear account of what I've been going through these last few weeks. I AM NOT ASKING FOR YOUR MONEY. I am asking you to see the goodness of God, and the fact that HE EXISTS AND IS INTERESTED AND INVOLVED IN OUR LIVES ON AN INDIVIDUAL LEVEL. These posts are to bring glory to the Lord Most High.
*Not an actual example; one I made up to get the point across.
**Several days previously, I had mentioned that we wanted to do an IUI but that we might need help paying for it. But I didn't ask again; they brought it up. So, this might not be as "drastic" as George Muller's examples, but I still think it counts.
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