I Don't Pray For Babies Anymore

I don’t pray for a baby anymore.  I just don’t.  

Maybe it’s a lie I am believing or it’s a lack of faith that I could ever have a baby, but either way, I don’t pray for babies anymore.

Instead, I pray for more of CHRIST in my life.  

I am not saying this to sound uber spiritual or make it seem that I am somewhere in my faith journey that I am not, because the reality is that I still struggle with the storyline GOD has written for me.

I don’t like being the infertile woman.  I look in the mirror and I can’t believe I am the face of infertility. that I have a body that loses babies. and that my arms may never hold a child of my own.

But I keep inserting GOD’s truths and promises into those things and what I keep coming back to is praying for more of HIM and less of me. and less striving. and less coveting. and less of this world.

And I don’t have a lot of hope for a baby anymore.  I used to, but that ship has sailed.  But I know my husband has hope and I love him for that.  His hope is the current that keeps me moving along- doing the tests, doing the procedures, taking this and that, and allowing us to talk about “some day when we have a baby.....”

And sometimes I feel like this is all my fault.  That I must have done something to my body in the past or in the present that has made us lose all of our babies.

After every miscarriage (except for the first one), I go about punishing my body in the only ways I can think of: I don’t exercise, I eat foods that I know will make me sick, and I stop taking all of my supplements and vitamins.

It’s my way of saying “F-you” to my body and for a little while I like the feeling of control I have over it even if it does only hurt me in the end.

Maybe it’s mother’s guilt- this feeling that is must be my fault- but I think it’s satan’s lies.

Something rather divine happened last week after our weekly staff meeting.  Two men from another church in New York were spending time with us and over the course of a few days, my husband and I had gotten to spend time with them either together or apart and at some point, my husband shared with one of them a brief history of our losses.

When I went to thank the man who knew some of my story for his time and words before he left for the airport, he said he had a word for me: that JESUS was pleased with how I was allowing my story to be used for HIS kingdom and that what has happened is not my fault.

How could he have known that I sometimes carry the weight of what has happened on my shoulders and feel marked and shamed?  Only GOD HIMSELF could have compelled him to say those words to me.

And I am grateful to him for saying them in the middle of a coffee shop with people all around because for a few seconds it felt like GOD HIMSELF was saying those words to me and it moved me to tears.

My heart is weary these days and it is not because of any one thing- it's just the natural ebb and flow of this journey we are on.  But I am going to do what I know to do- lean on my FATHER, press into HIM, and ask for more of HIM.