Infertility Restored...

I have never had a baby bump.  I have never had a baby belly.  I have never had a baby.

I have had just days of holding the miracle inside. I have had miscarriages.  I have had moments of sitting in the midst of baby world (OBGYN offices) where I thought I might either pitch a fit on the floor or grab a baby and RUN!  And I have had restoration from some of the deepest pain and rejection I have walked through.

From the time I was a small girl, I knew I wanted to be a mother.  I walked around "feeding" my babies on my tiny ant bites of boobs.  I fed them three times a day.  Thankfully... they were plastic and survived the absence of nutrition.  But they were loved... and my desire to be a mommy was fed and grew... the desire to nurture, to give life to, and to love.

You know that moment... that moment where you and your husband decide to have a baby?  Yeah.  We arrived there shortly after 9-11 and the TRYING began.  At first it was fun.  I mean really... lots of "that" was fun.  And the hope that we were creating life added a sweetness that was seriously cool.  But month after month, period after period, the coolness began to fade.  I started reading books, making "cute" little charts and bought THE thermometer.  Dots started being added to my chart and sex started becoming a monitored, timely, and desperate act to MAKE something happen.  Sadness.  Not so cool.

On one occasion, I was two weeks late.  I had been making myself wait until the two weeks late mark to take a test... as I was often late.  We should have purchased stock in E.P.T. sticks!  We'd be set for life.  But we didn't.  I decided I was late enough... said a prayer... peed on the stick and I left the bathroom. I walked the well worn path up and down my hallway.  I pleaded with the Lord.  I begged.  My heart beat quickly as I thought, "This is it... I know this is it."  I had been feeling not so great in the mornings and my boobs were, well, SORE.  I waited a whole ten minutes even though the box asked for just two.  I wanted to be REAL sure that extra little pink line had time to come bursting forth.

I walked into the bathroom... and I reached for it.  There it was.  One line.  Again. One Line. One line of rejection... simply present as if it had no idea what kind of blow it had just made to my heart... my spirit... my entire being.

I THREW it in the trash can and started sobbing. Wailing.  I was so mad at myself for allowing hope and I was so mad at God... for keeping the gift.  And then I started stomping.  I remember stomping my foot into the floor so hard... it felt like it was on fire.  Stomping was followed with yelling... crying out... WHY... WHY...WHY NOT?  WHY NOT ME?  WHY NO?  WHY NO AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN?  WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?  WHY AM I NOT WORTHY?  WHY DID YOU GIVE ME A HEART TO BE A MOTHER?  WHY WON'T MY BODY DO WHAT YOU MADE IT TO DO?  WHY???????????? WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME????????????

So then I didn't want to have sex anymore. (TMI alert)  I just saw it as further rejection.  Not from my husband by any means... but from God.  Feeling rejected from God is some seriously deep rejection.  And it is a lie.  It is a lie orchestrated to wound us so deep... so very deep.  With every moment of intimacy  came the question and slight whisper of hope... and then each monthly period brought the sting... again... "you are a failure."

I felt rejected by my own body.  I felt betrayed by the very meaning of "woman."  I felt worthless.

I had never even thought about fertility problems.  It had never crossed my mind.  I was the oldest of five... and I was going to have six.  That was the plan... my plan.

But God knew.  He saw it.  He thought about it.  And He did something so very sweet.  He gave me the heart for adoption in the tenth grade.  He stamped it right on my heart and planted the seed deep.  So His water came to bring it forth and I remembered... I saw it like it had happened that very day.

I was 16 years old.  My economic class required us to write summaries on current events on Fridays.  "TIME" and "Newsweek" magazines were passed from person to person throughout the day as we scanned articles during study hall.  I was handed a magazine at my locker and sped off to class... as if it was any other Friday.

As I looked through the magazine, the pages opened and my heart skipped 20 beats as horror rolled through me like waves of an angry ocean.  It was a two page photograph.  The bottom half of the photo was a street.  In the middle... a sidewalk with a bicycle rolling past, the bottom half of a woman sweeping out the doorway of her store front, and legs of people walking by.  There were no faces.  Yet in the bottom right corner... there was a little body... a tiny naked body of a newborn baby girl... laying dead in the gutter... right there... right... there.  And life was going on all around her.  No one stopped for her.

Tears started flowing and the story entwined me with rage and fury.  Baby girls were being killed in China in mass number because residents were allowed one child and everyone wanted a boy.  The horror stole my breath as I read about midwives drowning baby girls in buckets seconds after being born, smothering them with pillows, and even worse.  I went to the teacher's desk gripping this magazine in anger.  "Does our President know this is going on!?" I asked in complete innocence of the darkness that grips so much of this world.  He glanced at the article and then back to me and answered simply, "Yes."  I walked back to my desk in total disbelief.  How in the world can people in authority know this is going on and do nothing about it?

I stared at that picture... forever etching it on my mind... and I decided right there... right then... I would save one.  I knew I could not save them all.  But I knew I could save one.  And adoption became part of my tapestry.  God knew.  God had a plan.  A mighty plan.

As I remembered this moment, I began to think that God wanted to us adopt first.  I had always imagined we would have a couple children and then adopt.  But I started thinking God wanted to reverse my plan... adopt first.

I started researching adoption online and we were led to the agency that led us to Abby.  As she walked around the corner of the hallway in the orphanage... my answer came.  "WHY... WHY...WHY?" echoed in my memory and the sting in my heart erupted into joy and the answer spoke so loudly... "THIS IS WHY."  As she bravely walked towards me, turned around and sat in my lap.. the weight of her little body caught me so off guard.. the weight of her presence... the realness of the child God had placed on my heart when I was 16 years old.  This child was alive the very day I stomped my foot... and cried aloud in disappointment.  She was here.  She had been given to me.  She had just sat down in my lap... clutching cookies in each hand.  Abigail... "Her Father's joy."  Abigail Grace... "by His grace He led her to us."

Restoration was in process... but not complete.  After Abby, there was another miscarriage.  After Abby, there was more pain and feelings of failure.  I still held on ever so slightly to the "you'll get pregnant after you adopt," comments.  But it never came... the baby bump... the baby belly... the baby.

I sat in the OBGYN's office... in the midst of that baby sea.  There were women with babies in arm, stroller, and belly.  There were kids with baby in belly and grandmothers on arm.  There were couples sitting in that glow of beaming love with baby in belly.  And I sat there... empty... barren... crusty and dried up... as I like to call it.  This particular time I was just overcome with it... the "screaming emptiness" of it... the "rejection to the club" of it... the failure of it.  I thought I might explode.

My name was called, praise the LORD, and I ran to the back room.  Broken.  I was broken.  My body was broken.  My heart was broken.  My hope was broken.  My dream was broken.  My doctor came in... and she held me.  The Father's arms held me.  And I let it go.  I let go of the hope.  I let go of the pain.  I let go of the fake happiness I wore as friends announced their second, third, fourth, and even fifth pregnancies.  I let go of the hope of a baby belly.  I let it go.  I let it go.  All of it...

And the emptiness was replaced with His love and affirmation: "I have chosen you to be a mother to the motherless... your womb has never been and will never be empty... it overflows with life you give to children for Me. I have called you to this... to adoption... to child advocacy... they will know My love through you... I love them that much... and I trust you that much.  I have given you my heart for them and you give them My love... you give them Me!"

I was restored.

My heart, my womb, my body, my "woman-ness", my purpose... restored.

I have never felt pain or faked happiness at the announcement of another pregnancy since.  I have never seen a baby belly and been struck with sadness since.  I have never felt like I was drowning in the OBGYN's office since.

I overflow with joy as child after child find their forever family through the calling God has given me.  I rejoice as my husband shares that calling.  I am deeply touched as I look at our family and see God's hand on every single moment of every single child.  I am humbled to my face as I watch hope given to others through the life of this barren yet restored woman... this mother.

And I am encouraged to know that when I can not see clearly, my Father can and does.  And He is in control.  And He is good, faithful, loving, patient, and sovereign!

As I look at my life and see several areas where I still need restoration, I praise Him and am encouraged in remembering the gift of this one.  It did not happen over night.  It was hard.  The journey was hard and often ugly.  But that allows restoration to be all the more beautiful!

Be encouraged sweet friends.  Our Father is the Master Restorer and is always working on us!  And we are in GOOD HANDS!

Monday Blues... But You Are ALL Winners

Who knew that in the midst of "restoration" I was going to be in such need of it!?  I guess God did.

Abby has had seizures two days in a row.  That is a bummer.  I took the first one fine but the second hit me below the waist.  I hate it when that happens.  And to top it all off, our precious dog we have been fostering will be leaving for her forever family soon.  My heart is thrilled we were a part of saving her but I am going to miss her more than I can even say.

I seriously have the Monday blues today.  I am making potato soup for dinner on this dreary gray day and hoping to have some time to restore tonight.

I drew the winner this morning, in my high tech way of writing names on slips of paper, and Sue T won the gift package!  But I like to give... really like it.. and since there were so few of you who entered... the rest of you will get a pair of  handmade earrings too!

So email me your addresses to allfromhim@comcast.net and I will get them in the mail (or slip them in your mailbox if you are local! :0)

Thank you for walking with me.  I hope to BE BACK tomorrow. :0)

Much love... Dawn 

A lifetime of restoration

Adam and Eve WALKED WITH God in the garden of Eden.  They lived in harmony with His creation and with Him.  Life was perfect.  Satan couldn't stand it... such intimacy between man and Holiness.  And he entered into the picture, lied, tempted, and stole.  Sin was birthed and left it's ugliest mark... separation between God and man.  But a lifetime of restoration was set in place.

Restoration: a bringing back to a former position or condition.  What was the former condition?  Perfect relationship with God.  All of time, until Christ returns, is a bringing back to our former position.  Whether we are in need of restoration in our marriages, in our relationships with family members, with our churches, with our friends and loved ones, with our children, with anything... it ultimately gets back to restoration with God.  If we are restored with God, if we are in right relationship with Him, everything... everything else will fall into place.

Restoration is one of the main themes of scripture.  All throughout the Old Testament, we see God in a constant attempts to bring His chosen people back to Him.  They walk with Him, they turn away from Him, they come back to Him, they fall away from Him, they repent and come back to Him again, they rebel against Him again.  Over and over and over this plays out.  I am ALWAYS AMAZED at His patience, His love, His mercy, His faithfulness, and His forgiving nature.  And I am also struck with the intensity of His discipline.  Even in His nature of LOVE, real, true, unconditional love, He can deliver a smack down when they rebel.  One of the biggest of those smacks being His scattering of 10 of the 12 tribes.  You might say, God said, "I've had it... go have at it."

Scripture tells us that God divorced His people.  THAT is pretty powerful.  He refers to His people as a whore.  THAT is pretty powerful.  And yet... His love can not keep Him away from her forever.  Isaiah is a beautiful book that captures this as is Hosea.  God wants His people back.  His love is too strong.  It's who He is... love.  According to scripture... that He set into place... when a "woman" is divorced, she can remarry only after her first husband dies.  God came in the flesh, as Jesus Christ, to restore His people.  And He died... fulfilling the law set against her... and He is gathering His bride, whom He scattered, and will marry her again!  The Bridegroom cometh.


In the New Testament, Christ is sent as the Redeemer.  He is sent as the Restorer.  He offers restoration to God in Himself.  Through Christ we are restored to God.  Yet Paul shows us over and over in his writings that man STILL falls away, still steps off the path, and still needs restoration from time to time... to time.  "Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted."  Galatians 6:1~

Over and over Paul writes to churches who are not walking in the restoration they have accepted.  They are prideful, they are preaching other doctrines, they are participating in sins of the flesh, they are twisting the truth, they are participating in traditions of the pagans... they are in need of restoration. In the first few chapters of Revelations, we see churches in need of restoration.  They have lots of things right but God wants them to get it all right.  Very powerful scriptures with an important message... don't become complacent.

Restoration is something I seek often... actually... almost daily.  My salvation is in the Lord.  My salvation is secure.  But my personal, intimate "walking with" God can get off path.  I like "walking with" God.  I love intimacy with Him.  And I hate it when Satan comes to try and steal it.

We will be walking through praying for restoration for the next few days.  I am so glad you are here.  I can not even tell you how glad.  You encourage me just with your presence here.  Your emails and private messages have encouraged me so so much as you walk in a prayerful November with me.  

Start praying today that the Holy Spirit will bring to your mind areas in your life where you may need some restoring.  One that comes to my mind FAST is my personal time with Him.  I KNOW how vital it is to DRINK from His fountain and to FEAST on His Word... and yet I can go for days without doing so... leaving myself half starved, weak prey to the always stalking enemy, and depleted and not so great for my family.    
  
Pray He might bring people to mind you need restoration with and write them down... on a slip of paper... a post it note... or in your journal and commit to praying for that person and your relationship for the next five days.

One of the things I take away from "watching" Israel in the Old Testament is how faithful God is to take them back... over and over and over.  I find so much encouragement in that.  He IS THE RESTORER of our soul... we need just ask.

"He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake."  Psalm 23:3