ashes, mourning and the Answer to all of my questions

I have been mulling over the future quite a bit lately. A lot of our couple-friends are newlyweds, and one of the main conversations that comes up often is the topic of having children. When are you going to start trying to have kids? How many do you want to have? Have you thought about adoption?

A year ago, I would have said that we would probably wait two years until we started trying. I would have said that I wanted to have five kids, Jeremy wanted to have three, so naturally we'll have five. And I would have said Absolutely Yes adopting is an option.

But now, everything has changed.

Having children, which is something I have dreamed about since I was a little girl, always seemed like it would be such a natural thing for me. I knew that raising children would be hard, yes, but taking care of children has always been something that I loved so much, so having a family of my own has been a dream since I saw my mom holding my little brother when I was two. And I have always loved the thought of being pregnant.

Now, the thought of being pregnant is full of so many fears. How will my body react to all of the physical changes? How quickly after I go off the medication will I start to feel depressed again? What if I decided to stay on the meds- would it hurt the baby? Will I get postpartum depression? Will I physically be able to handle the late nights and tiring days of having a newborn?

Beyond that, I'll probably want to go off the meds when we start trying to have kids, just to remove any risk of the medication harming a baby, which could mean months of being off the meds.

At this point, it's becoming apparent that I will probably have to quit my job during pregnancy. I just don't know if I could handle being off meds, pregnant, hormonal, and stressed and exhausted. It just makes me so sad.

And adoption...adoption is something that I have wanted to do for so many years. At first Jeremy wasn't so sure about it, but recently he started talking about it, and we realized that he had had a change of heart. For fun, I started reading up on adoption websites about international and domestic adoption. And that's when I realized that during the screening, one of the things they check for is if either of the potential parents have a mental illness.

Duh. Of course people with mental illnesses would be flagged. We're unstable. The future is unclear. I don't know if that means they have a deeper process of investigation, or if they say No no matter what if you have a mental illness. Who knows, maybe God will surprise us and adoption will still be an option. But it still made me sad, realizing that our options are becoming more and more limited.

Here's the beautiful thing that my heart keeps clinging to, though.

At this point in my journey, it's looking like God's going to definitely have to be working miracles for things to turn out. If we choose to have children, God will have to support me physically and emotionally the whole way. If we try for adoption, God will have to open all of the doors and hearts of the people throughout the process. Either way, He will be glorified, because it's all so far out of our control. And we will see our God be Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. We will see His faithfulness in new ways, and will learn that there is nothing on earth that we need apart from Jesus.

It feels like things are out of my control, but isn't that always how it is? Life is never in our control. It feels like it is sometimes. We like to plan when we're going to have babies, how many, what we'll name them, how we'll raise them...but ultimately, Man plans, and God directs His steps.

Do I think it's bad to dream or think about the future? No. But I guess I'm learning that for me, thinking about the future means borrowing a lot of fear and grief. So I'm learning to think about the future WITH Jesus. I'm learning to talk TO HIM about it, and discuss the options and alternatives, keeping in mind although this news has been a shock to my system, He is not surprised by this twist in my story. He wrote this story, and is still in the process of making things very beautiful.

That's what I love about Jesus. He is a restorer. He brings beauty from ashes and bestows crowns of beauty upon those who mourn. Well, here I am with ashes and my fair share of mourning. Now I get to wait and watch Jesus do His thing.

The other thing I have been thinking about is something my friend Renee shared with the college group a few years ago. She was telling us about a time in life where she had a very difficult decision to make, and she was worried about the future, what decision she should make, whether it would be the right decision, and what if she made the wrong decision? And after much praying and grieving, Jesus spoke to her heart. And he said "Renee, whatever decision you make, I will be there with you." And that was the answer to her questions. Not a specific This way or That way, but rather Jesus reassuring her that He would be with her wherever she went, that she was never out of His grasp, that He would never leave her or forsake her.

That is what I hold to more than anything. Whatever happens, wherever we end up, Jesus is there with us. HE is my inheritance, my portion, my cup. He is ultimately the one that we live for, the One through Whom we live and breathe and find all meaning. For today and tomorrow, Jesus is my answer.