Hope or Fear?

My life has been at peace. Oh, there have been questions, and pain and occasional heartache, but I learned to turn it all over to God and be content with the life He has planned for us, without children. We are 43 after all. All of my friends are watching their nests empty. It won't be too long until I will watch them start to become grandparents. Here we are, facing whether or not God wants us to stay where we are or attempt to do what it takes to adopt two little ones. Do we dare hope? So much hope has been destroyed time and time again in this journey. It makes it very difficult to even think something actually could work out for us. It never has no matter how much we tried. I was starting to believe that God's message to me was that our infertility was his plan and that he would use me to minister to other women suffering from infertility. I still can and will, no matter what happens. I will never, ever be able to forget how this hurts. This ache that you feel and the anguish that it causes, I will always remember that. So, I can still love, encourage and minister to other women who go through that. I am just so confused about what God is trying to do with my life. So is my husband. We have always wondered what God is trying to teach us through this. We learned a lot about each other and how supportive we can be and how we will persevere in this commitment to each other. We learned to trust God, even when there are no answers and nothing makes sense. We learned to love each other when the hurt is so great that you sincerely believe you could die of a broken heart. I learned to advocate for us. That silent minority that sits in our church pews and hurts desperately every time the pastor talks about family and parenting. We learned that the miracle of God is not rescuing you from your pain, but holding you in his arms all the way through it.

So, infertility has grown our relationship and our character. I have said before and totally mean it...I am thankful we had to go through it. Isn't that crazy? But, I would not be the woman I am today if I hadn't. I would not know God the way I do if he didn't bring me through this. My husband and I would not have the relationship we have today if we hadn't gone through it together. That has been our reality and we were beginning to feel pretty okay with that.

What do we do now? We are both scared. Scared we don't have any time to prepare for this. Scared the court system will be broken and somehow return the children to a home that wasn't fit for them in the first place. Scared that we will begin to try to make this work and have another door slammed in our faces. Scared that it will all work and we will suddenly find ourselves parents and have no idea what we are doing, no finances to support it, or find out we made a mistake. We have a lot of fears. I am reminded of I John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear... Fear comes from Satan, not God. IF this is God's will and he works out all the many obstacles that are in the way for this to truly happen, I am sure we will fall in love with those children. And, that will rid us of all the fears that we have. Besides, we know that God is in control. Another thing we learned in the last 13 years of infertility. He is able to do anything, and through him, so are we. That includes handling the disappointment of another failed attempt to become parents. That is my hope right now.