Hoping for what was lost

We've shared with many our strong desire to add more children to our family.  We are so blessed and grateful for the children God has given us despite all of our shortcomings.  So much so, that our 4th child we named Grace and it was because we felt God had blessed us tremendously and bestowed unmeasurable Grace on us in our lives and in blessing us with 4 healthy, beautiful children.  We are currently in the very long process of adoption and praying for God's Guidance through that process.

In our marriage we went through a period of time where we didn't appreciate God's timing and control in our lives in the area of adding to our family.  While we loved and appreciated the children we had been given, we felt like 4 might just be enough.  We thought WE knew what was best for us :).  We later believed we were wrong in feeling that way and asked God to please open our womb again and bless us with more children.  We have since also surrendered other areas of our lives that we were not allowing God to have control over.  Oh, we are not and never will be perfect whatsoever.  We don't claim that and we also do not wish to push our convictions on to other people.  (Likewise, we are not claiming others are 'wrong' in what they have done in this matter--that is not our place)  But over the last few years we have had a renewed desire to serve God and surrender our lives to Him.   It is a daily work and we pray for more of God's Grace to heal our hearts and do His Perfect Work in us.

We have not had any more children.  While we do trust God's Timing and His Faithfulness, we also grieve what might have been lost because of our own choices that rejected God's blessings.  It is hard not to feel like it is our fault we have not had more children.  Because, well, it really is.  We've been so blessed to meet other people who have gone through this same conviction as us.  Many have been an encouragement to us and are praying for us.  We appreciate those who understand our desire is not that we do not appreciate what we have.   We are so thankful for that.  One amazing example is our friends the Polliard Family.  My friend Jennifer is a great lady (which, when I speak of her to Andy and am trying to explain which Jennifer, I refer to her as "you know, my friend I'm 'scheming' with"-only she will get that :-)   She wrote a beautiful blog post a while back that, we think, is amazing and hopefully you will too: Our Conversations with God by Jennifer Polliard.  I should also note that we appreciate so much people who do not share the conviction but also know our hearts and respect our convictions and hopes.  It means so much that they are also praying us through this.

However, many do not understand and most often we keep our feelings quiet on the matter to avoid misunderstandings.  While it matters not what others think and say, words can still sting greatly.  A few weeks ago though, Andy and I were rereading the Duggar Family's book and saw a page that we had forgotten about.  We thought it might be a tremendous blessing to those who agree in our beliefs and maybe a better explanation to those who might not understand them.  Please enjoy the following excerpt from the Duggar Family (credits also given at the end of the excerpt to the passage's origination).

THE HIDDEN MESSAGE OF THE LOST PEARL

"When I was eleven years old, my family took a vacation in Florida. One morning my brother and I went swimming. The shallow water revealed an oyster bed. We began digging up oysters. It was great fun. During the morning we accumulated quite a collection.

"Our greatest finds were not the live oysters, but dead oysters which still had both halves of the shell joined together. Many were closed shut, and we didn't know until we had pried them open whether they were alive or not.

"The live ones we threw back. The empty ones usually did not reclose, but remained partly open. These we set aside as our most prized treasures.

"Toward the end of the morning, I dug up a very nice, complete oyster shell which was in perfect condition. It was obviously dead because it was already open about an eighth of an inch and seemed empty. It was definitely one that I wanted to keep, except for one flaw-it had some kind of object trapped inside that rattled. I thought it detracted from the quality of my shell.

"The halves of the shell were still very tight and were hard to budge with just my fingers. It took all of five minutes to remove this rather large, round, perfectly smooth object. Having successfully removed it, and being pleased with my now empty and unblemished shell, I threw the object toward the end of the pier.

"At about the midpoint of its flight, a horrifying light dawned in my mind. I was old enough to have known, but young enough to have overlooked the value of what I had just thrown away. I had treasured what was secondary and had lost what was real. My focus had been wrong.

"I visually marked the location of the splash. With great care I slowly approached the spot, trying not to disturb the bottom. For the next half hour I searched diligently.

"Finally, when it was time to leave, I told my parents what I had done. Then we all looked for it. Our efforts were useless and our time was up. Our schedule demanded that we leave.

"When I was twenty-five years old, I got married. For some undefined reason, I rejected for seven years the suggestion that we have children. I thought I had valid reasons, but no one had ever talked to me about it. I had received no counsel or teaching from family, friends, or church. No one seemed to consider it to be a critical issue. In addition, the world had all kinds of new medical methods for preventing pregnancy.

"As I look back, I don't remember hearing one dissenting voice. Down deep I always knew that I wanted children someday. I didn't really want to be childless all of my life. Eventually, I decided that I wanted five children. So, after seven years of some very difficult decision-making, we had our first child-a girl.

"To my great amazement, I found that I actually liked having children. In fact, having a child is one of the greatest things that has happened in our lives.

"The fears which had prevented conception for so long proved to be mostly imaginary. This new member of our family changed our lives. We discovered a multitude of rewards that we had not known we were missing.

"My wife and I have just been told that it now looks medically impossible for us to have any more children! Suddenly, all of our newly established family dreams have been erased. All of the excitement and anticipation of a newly discovered future have vanished. It seems as though there is a void in our lives-like four of our five children have just been killed.

"What makes the burden so heavy is that we had the treasure within our grasp and we threw it away. We saw the outer shell and mistakenly overlooked the treasure within. With our hands we plucked it out and cast it away. We tried to take God's timing into our own hands." [bold emphasis ours]

(Taken from The True Significance of the Wedding Covenant, Copyright IBLP - used by permission)

"Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD."

Psalm 128:3-4