It wasn’t the action of taking the birth control pill that God was after. He was after our hearts. We had to check our motives. Why were you doing what we were doing. I don’t know why God chose that one thing to relentlessly pursue us on. I think about that often. I mean there are many other things that I did and continue to struggle in where my motives were off. Where my heart was not after God’s. I do know that leading us down that path has really enabled us to pursue God in ways that I don’t know that we could have before. I have learned that being obedient to God results in eternal joy. The things that I was pursuing, the things that Ryan was pursuing were only temporal things. We now pursue our joy in God alone. And that’s all that He desires. That we desire Him. That we pursue Him. Not the things that He can give us or provide us, but He alone. Everything else is just a by-product of being in a relationship with Him. God has used my kids to teach me a lot about this application. How often do we have to tell our kids no or prevent them from doing something that we know is going to hurt them. Having such small kids this is so easy for me to see. Take Matt, the kid thinks he’s a mountain climber. He climbs things and he likes to fall back off of things. To him it’s funny but he can’t see that at 12 months falling off the bed or the couch is going to hurt. So I have to tell him no and remove him – and the kid gets mad. But I can see what he can’t see. It’s the same with God. He can see what I can’t.
Why is that when it comes to the bible, we are so quick to claim the promises He gives us but ignore the commands? And that’s kind of where we were. We knew deep in us that God was asking something of us and we fought and resisted. Thankfully God had enough mercy on us and gave us time to work through our motives and lay down our dreams and our hopes and our desires and say yes Lord, our hopes and our dreams are yours.
And we have four little lives that remind us of this every day. I am reminded every day as we pray with our kids. I am reminded everyday as they pray alone. Or tell us that “God has the power in their room” or listening to them say that “the enemy is not welcome here” and Morgan talking about the enemy as if he were a she. It makes me giggle everytime – we are building an army for Him. And I am humbled.
I will say that when we found out about Luci Grace, due here in a few weeks that I was a little angry. My dad had his heart attack on Dec 18th, I found out I was pregnant with her on the 20th and he died on the 24th. Those conflicting emotions – death, now life swirled inside of me. And in many ways continue to. As I watched my father take his final breath, I knew that my daughter was being formed by God’s very hands inside of me. God took my father at the very time He was giving me our daughter. I feel in many ways robbed of this pregnancy. I have had little time to really “enjoy” it. I have mourned most of my pregnancy – and as her birth is nearing the sadness is getting even deeper. Knowing that I will not be able to call my father when she is born. Knowing that I won’t get to see him hold her. That hurts. I tear up just typing this. But in all of those emotions – I am reminded that God chose her. He dictated her life. Not me, not Ryan. And in that, I rejoice. I rejoice knowing that years ago – He was readying us for this very moment.
