Thoughts From My Heart

Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is hard to explain all of the emotions we are going through. When asked how we are doing, Dan will say “depends on the hour.” I couldn’t agree more. There are times when we feel like we are okay, and then a thought comes to mind and we become overwhelmed with tears. Are we doing okay? I would say yes, considering the circumstances. We are extremely overwhelmed with our circumstances, but like the verse says up above, we TRUST that God will fill us with all joy and peace once again.

One of the biggest struggles we have is the fact that the gestational carrier process is over. We don’t understand. On Monday, October 10, 2011, our lives were given so much hope. Hope of the possibility of having our own biological children, as Tim and Brenda explained their desire for Brenda to carry our child. A few weeks later, it became children. It took us months to comprehend the full capacity of what that meant – that God was giving us another opportunity. To this day, we are still overwhelmed with that gift. For over 11 months, our lives revolved around making that process happen. All of the appointments. All of the number crunching. All of the conversations. All of the prayers. All of our desires to just follow God’s will.

We can’t help but wonder what went wrong? (That’s our human minds at  their best). In our human minds we ALL felt like this was so God’s will. And we know it was. No one can take that from us or tell us it wasn’t God’s will. If they do tell us that, we will kindly correct them. But we too, thought it was God’s will that we have children through this process. God thought differently. Sometimes I think one of the reasons losing these children hurts so bad is because we all felt we were so intuned with God’s will and His desire for our life, and then when that plan changed, it threw us into a whirlwind. Did God change His mind? No. God knew on Monday, that He was going to take our children home to be with Him. But were we prepared for that? No. It is hard to understand why God didn’t stop the process 5 months ago. Why He led us THIS FAR. Is there frustration in that? Oh yeah. Have we let God know that? Oh yeah. But we know that is what He wants. He desires for us to keep running to Him and like Brenda said a few days ago, “I would love just a few minutes of God’s physical presence so I can sort some things out with Him.” YES! Honestly praying is difficult for us. We sometimes have no words. Just tears for God. But we know God is intervening on behalf of those tears – whether words come out or not. Oh how we would love to just understand why God chose now. To just cry out to God and just ask why now? To just cry out to God and just ask what next? We have. And we know God is listening and God will restore our hearts with peace and joy someday.

God isn’t bound by a timeline. God sees the whole picture. Though we feel we are just being pushed through a timeline, God already knows what is next and what our future holds. I just sometimes wish WE weren’t bound by a timeline, if that makes sense. Right now, if you would ask us what our thoughts were about next year…we have zero knowledge of what that would look like. We have no clue where we will be living. We have no clue where we will be working. We now have no children in our picture once again. Yes, all Christians probably would say that they have no clue what next year looks like b/c God could change that in a second. But literally, we have no picture of what next year will look like. Is it scary? A little bit. We have realized that God could bring us around the world b/c we have nothing holding us back. Though we so wish we had children holding us back here, in the most positive sense. Our hearts just ache to know they will not be with us next spring and summer. We were planning our lives around them. But now that all of the plans we thought we had, are a distant thought, we realize that our hearts are that much more open to wherever God leads us.

Is God working good in this situation? Yes, in our hearts we know God is drawing us closer and closer to Him. God is ridding our life of everything comfortable and everything we “thought” we knew. It is so painful. We cry out to God…what next? What else are you going to take? Fear sets in. But we know God is being glorified through other’s prayers, that God is making His Name great by showing Himself in ways we never expected, and that God is showing Himself to us through other people. God is good.

On Thursday night we had the “cool peeps” (the group our age from our church) come over. They had asked if it would be okay and though we were in a rough spot at that moment, we knew it would be exactly what we needed. And it was. We were so thankful and overwhelmed with their hugs, tears, laughter, and meals. I almost didn’t want them to leave because it felt like the “church” had come into our house. I will never forget that night. God reminded us that we are never alone if we are part of the body of Christ.

Our hearts just want to love. We always said a few years ago that though we can’t have our own kids, we still had our youth group kids to love. They became our children. Now to not have them, it is an empty feeling. And now to not have our own children to love physically, our hearts just ache. Our hearts will always love our children – that will never leave us. Our hearts will always love our youth group kids. But it’s that desire to physically love on children, that we just pray God will fulfill someday.

Yesterday I headed up to Zeeland to eat lunch with my mom, grandma, aunt, sisters, and nieces. It was exactly what I needed. I was nervous to go because I just feel safe in our house. It is just the emotions of this all overwhelming me. But on the drive up, God calmed my heart. And as we sat and talked, it felt good to just talk about it all. Minimal tears, which felt good for once. Sometimes Dan and I have to wonder if we have any left, so when we don’t cry, it is relieving. There is just something about talking with family that is just so comforting.

This picture below brings so much joy, so many memories, yet some pain. It is pretty obvious that this picture was not taken in our hometown, but in Alaska. We had the privilege of having Tim and Brenda come as leaders with us on our youth group mission trip. We intentionally took this picture b/c we were in the midst of the g.c. process. It is a representation of the wonders God can do through another couple. We stand there as 4. Though our hearts ache that we will not stand as 6 someday, we know that we will ALWAYS stand as 4. Some have questioned what the loss of the babies would do to our relationship with Tim and Brenda. My friends, it is flourishing. It is beautiful. We cry together. We laugh together. We are getting through this together.

It is BEAUTIFUL.

We love you Tim and Brenda!