Struggling.....

I am strugging today. First I am struggling with putting this on my blog. I am a very private person and not used to sharing my feelings. But it has been on my heart all day to write this post. Maybe someone needs to read it? Maybe I just need to write it?

I am struggling in my spirit. Struggling to feel content. Struggling not to desire more.

For many years my husband and I let the "world" tell us that  3 children was enough. Three children was all we could "afford". All we needed. All we wanted. It never set quite right but we bought into it anyway. Maybe it was easier? We wasted many years. We denied the Lord to bless us. A few years ago we realized the "world" was wrong. We didn't want to be done. We wanted more blessings. We wanted to give the Lord control in ALL aspects of our life. We stopped using birth control. Four months later, I became pregnant with our Little Man. Those 4 months felt like forever. It never took that long with our other children. I was 38 when I had him. Had I wasted too much time? Was I too old?

Last fall I became pregnant again. I lost the baby at 8 weeks. That was and is so amazingly painful. My children cried. They asked if we would know if the baby was a brother or a sister when we get to Heaven. I felt like such a failure.

Four months later I still feel like a failure. Every month that I don't get pregnant I just feel like a failure. I'm too old. I wasted too much time. I have this deep emptiness inside me that longs for another child. A heart-felt desire for a bigger family. More children to raise up in the love of the Lord. More chances to get it right. Is this a God-given desire? Or is it flesh? This is the source of my struggling. Every month I am not pregnant, I just want to lie down on the floor and cry. To dissolve into a puddle of self-pity. But how can I do that? How could I be so ungrateful? I have so much. I have Jesus. I have my husband. I have 4 beautiful, healthy children. I have a home. I have a church family that loves me and that I love. I am truly blessed beyond measure. So why do I feel empty?

I have always felt strong empathy for women who struggle to conceive. I always wondered how they made it through. Now I wonder how I will make it through.Pregnancy is such a basic part of our womanhood that to struggle in it shakes us to our very core. 

I pray that the Lord will send us more babies. I pray that this desire of my heart is a God-given one and not of my flesh. I pray that in my struggles I can be a positive witness to the Love of Christ. I pray that if there are no more babies in my future that I can offer that as a sacrifice of praise. I pray that I will continue to count my blessings and not the things I feel that I lack. I pray that I can have a joyful heart no matter what and that I can share my joy with those around me. It is so easy to get bogged down in our self-pity and be unpleasant to those around us. It is so easy to take my children who are for granted, as I long for children who are not.

It is my prayer that I may be a joyful, loving, mother and wife no matter what the months ahead might bring. And it is my prayer that if you, too, are strugging that you may also be joyful in your struggles. And that the Lord would grant us both Peace.

Blessings.