Dear Child of Mine,
Sometimes I get scared of how life will change when you come. I realize what a great gift these almost-seven years are, just your Dad and me. We can come and go as we please. We can go on dates and visit friends or host a gathering without thinking of how it will affect you. I don’t have to worry about how my body will change when I become a mother, struggling to let go of any pretense that it’s “mine” in the first place. I can go for runs, practice yoga, study Scripture, take a nap, go for coffee…whenever I desire. It’s a wonderful freedom and I’m so thankful for it.
But I want you, more than anything. How can both things be true worry and want? I don’t know but they are. God is constantly reassuring me, soothing my fears, and reminding me he will equip me for whatever task lay ahead.
This morning in my time alone with the Lord, I read a passage from Psalms that a good friend recommended for me.
Psalm 84:11-12
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
he bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does the Lord withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts,
happy is everyone who trusts in you.
This verse struck me as heartbreaking and true. It is hard to squelch thoughts that flicker in the back of my brain. Why am I barren? Is God punishing me? Am I not good enough? Do I just need to “get over it?” I know in the depths of my being that none of those statements are true. But it’s hard to read “No good thing does the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly” and not question why I can’t have babies. Am I not righteous enough?
Only by the grace of God are any of us called “righteous.” That alone proves His goodness, bestowing favor and honor on all who believe in the name of the Lord Jesus. 
And through these months of longing and waiting for you, Child, I have learned that God’s good gifts are being poured out on me. In each dark day, Jesus shines.
It is because of this time of barrenness that I have accepted the lifelong call to ordained pastoral ministry. I finally listened, I finally agreed with God. I finally said, “yes.”
It is through these dark years that I’ve sought after the Lord with such fervor that I could never have mustered under sunnier circumstances.
It was during our years of infertility, that your daddy and I learned to minister together and recognized how our calls to ordination are so beautifully intertwined.
It was this first season of marriage, nearly seven years of just us, that we learned how to be married. We learned how to love, how to forgive, how to serve, how to woo, how to never stop learning.
It has been these years that brought us deep into relationships with countless teenagers. The glories of youth ministry are in these relationships. Connections that are forged in the rocky waters of adolescence and proving to sustain through time.
So, Child, I am thankful. And I am longing. And I am asking the Lord that you would be the next “good thing” the Lord bestows on us.
In His righteousness,
Mama
