Different Mother's Day

I saw this picture on Instagram and a handful of ladies popped into my mind. 

God's timing is so different for everyone. 

I know of many women who long to be a mom, but aren't because of infertility. 

Or maybe they have one or two babies already, but are wanting a big family and struggling to get there.

 There are also many women who want to be a mother, but haven't found a partner to share that with.

For whatever reason, that feeling...that longing is very sorrowful. 

When Jeff and I got married we knew we wanted to wait a couple years before having kids. We were young and naive, but thought we had the best "plan" for ourselves. We wanted to experience life with just us for awhile. We wanted to finish school. Or at least have ME done with school before having kids. 

We got to a point in our lives where we felt good to bring a baby into the equation.

After some months with no positive pregnancy we were sad. Again, we were very naive in our sadness, because it had only been a few months....

Did we think it was just going to magically happen?

After going to the doctor and finding out that I have PCOS we saw that actually having a baby was going to be a little tricky. More months went by and I did everything the doctors told me to do. I was taking medicine that was supposed to help. I thought I had it all figured out. 

And more months went by, still with no baby. 

We were young.

Very young, really. I was 23 and Jeff was 25. 

So many of my friends were having babies, having second babies....having no struggles. 

It seemed maddening to our young selves.

We were oblivious to the suffering of other people and really clueless of what it was like to go through that trial for ourselves. 

We had a hard time with it, but I had a harder time with it. 

How can such a righteous desire be overlooked and not fulfilled? 

Wasn't I going to be a good mom?

Am I good enough to be a mom at all?

I found out that as we were trying to force this stage on ourselves, God had a different plan.

He wanted us to learn something from waiting. 

He wanted us to know that His timing is perfect. 

When I look back at it now.......4....close to 5 years later if you count the pregnancy in there....

Everything happened at the best time for us. 

We gained experiences along the way that we never would have had if we would have gotten pregnant immediately when we wanted to. 

We were better prepared. 

We grew closer as a couple.

Our struggle was short compared to many. It only took us a year to get pregnant with Grace. 

I know of many people who have been trying for much longer than that with no success. 

So while I might not have the a full sense of what that feels like to go through years of longing to be a parent, I was able to see a glimpse of that in our wait. 

Our wait was significant to us. And I know it was significant to our Father in Heaven, because I have felt that. 

Without the knowledge of eternal families, I don't know if it would have been worth it. I probably would have moved on, at least for awhile, and tried to forget about wanting a family for myself. 

As we went through that process of waiting I was bitter and mad. 

Jeff didn't know how to help me and would often ask how he could help me feel better. After time and time of hearing him ask that I would get frustrated and ended up having the answer of: "You just need to let me be sad. It's okay to be sad sometimes. I'm not going to be happy again until I can be sad first."

That's a lesson that I know God hand picked for me from that year of waiting. 

I had never thought that being sad about something was okay.

I was always under the impression that it is best to just suppress as much as you can until the negative feeling subsides. 

But guess what??

Sometimes that negative feeling will NEVER go away unless you just let it be and mourn over it. 

Without the mourning you aren't going to appreciate the joy later on. 

Without REALLY feeling that sorrow, you're not going to see what it's truly like to be happy.

I had to learn that for myself.

I know I did! 

I know God wanted me to learn that, because really it has helped me through many other trials I have had since then. 

We don't know what other people are going through. We might never know what some of our friends and family go through on a daily basis. 

But....

I know this....

I know that God loves all of His children. 

If He didn't we wouldn't be here. 

But since we are here and are given the chance to live this life, that will forever be a sign to me that we have a loving Heavenly Father who wants the best for us.