Miracles

My first little miracle. Waited for. Prayed for. Cried for. Pled for.

We went to visit my new little neice last Saturday. She got me thinking about what it was like to become a parent for the first time. Being the cousin of my own children, she bore resemblance to my daughter when she was a newborn. It reminded me of all the feelings that surrounded that birth over three years ago.

I had wanted nothing but to be a mother from the time I said "I do." It was a few months before my husband felt ready, but then I thought that everything would work out just the way I envisioned it. God had other things in mind.

For eighteen long and arduous months, I spent time in the class of patience, taught by the Lord Himself. I had to come to the place where I asked all those hard questions. "What if I am not able to bear children?" "What if I finally do become pregnant and then I have a miscarriage?" "What if I have to wait years and years before it is my turn to be a mother?"

I remember the excruciating pain of watching my friends at church become mothers. I felt out of place. Like everyone else had something that I was missing. It seemed like the only conversations that other women wanted to have involved the antics of their babies. I don't think there is another time in my life that I have felt so incomplete.

I prayed so much during that year and a half. I wrote a lot of my prayers, and I now have a wonderful record of the path God led me through. I have an entry in my prayer journal that was dated to just about the time Hannah would have been conceived. In it I completely let go of my own schedule and accepted what God had - whatever it would be. I surrendered the worry and the disappointment and my broken heart and truly asked Him to use me however He would choose.

Why are we so mistrustful of God? Why do we always assume that He just wants to play games with us? Why didn't I realize at the beginning of that journey that He cared as much and more as I did about the children He was planning on creating from the foundation of the universe? He knew the exact time and place that it would take to create the life that would grow into my little girl. He didn't want me to miss out on the treasure and miracle that she is. He knew that we needed her in our family.

It makes me trust Him to remember what He's done. Maybe next time I won't be so quick to despair that He doesn't care. Maybe as each one of these lessons are learned in my life, I'll be a little faster in coming to the conclusion that God is all about miracles - in His time, and His way. I know I'll always look back and say that He did it best. And I won't ever give up on prayer.

You do it best, Lord. Help me trust You.