This Moment

I wanted to briefly share what God has been doing in my prayer life and in my spiritual walk. And if you ever got my "baseball diary" emails during the minor league days, then you know this won't be brief. I haven't written much about this because you either probably already know it (I'm not one to keep my life too private) or wondered why it has not happened already anyways.

Derek and I have been wanting to get pregnant going on 15 months now. I cannot tell you how many times I get asked in a week, and a lot by strangers, when Justin is going to get a playmate. I always just smile and tell them that it's not just not coming as quickly as we would have liked. And the irony of it all is that getting pregnant with Justin caught us off guard.

And if you read all these posts, you will also notice that I am surrounded by lots of pregnant friends. It was almost getting hysterical when all my biblestudy group, all but 1 close friend in our afternoon play date group, and handfuls of friends here and there kept getting pregnant. And I can honestly say that I was truly happy for them with no bitterness seeping out of my heart. Because I know deep down that there is a bigger plan for my life, and it's not to walk through life doing exactly what everyone else is going through at that same moment.

I have looked back at the last 15 months and been amazed how each little thing that the Lord has been chiseling in my life is leading to this very time period in my life. I don't know for what exactly. I just know that all of this has happened for a reason.

Be still.

That's what the Lord has been placing on my heart this entire time. All around me people are going to their doctors for help in this area. I just deep down knew that nothing was wrong with me. Back when I was doing the No Other Gods biblestudy last summer, we talked about Sarah and Hannah, neither being able to conceive. Long story short, they both got the baby they wanted, but Sarah had baggage with her child (giving a maidservant to her husband to expand the family and having a half-son to deal with). I kept stumbling on verses about how God has "closed her womb". It's all over the Bible. My monthly cycle is so predictable that it's scary. I yearned to be like Hannah - God heard her prayers and opened her womb. Plain and simple.

I went to a Beth Moore talk the night my grandmother died. I was pretty tired that night, and even though two of my aunts were going, I really didn't want to go. But that night she was talking about Elizabeth (John the Baptists's mom) not being able to conceive. And how it took something supernatural for that to happen. Beth kept saying that someone (um, maybe me?) needed to hear that in 2009, something supernatural needed to happen that normally happens naturally for others.

Jumpstart to a couple of weeks ago. Every month I am disappointed, but still my life is what it is. I am starting to realize that I can't keep saying, "Well when I have the next baby, then I will be happy." I need to realize that it's not when I have the new car, better material things, bigger family, etc. I have started to love the moment I am in. To see the blessings DAILY from the Lord. Everything that happens in my life is for God, so I needed to find the glory in my life that is from God. My marriage has never been better or stronger. Derek and I went through a few marriage counseling sessions last spring and have totally changed the way we treat each other. It happens when you've known someone for 13 years. Instead of feeling selfish with my mothering and wondering when I get the next break, I am loving each "big hug" that Justin loves to give me, each beaming smile he let's me have, each I love you that escapes his lips, and each moment of solitude with just the two of us. He might be my only one, so I must not let these moments fly by.

Before you start saying I'm a pessimist (or a whiner, because I DO have one child already), I just know that there is no guarantee on anything. Just because I think I know what the desires of my heart are, the Lord has big plans for me. I know because of the epiphany I had in the car when I was driving back from a baby shower a few weeks ago. I had felt sorry for myself that day, was emotionally spent fro helping all my friends out, and really just allowing the enemy to get in my thoughts. I kept thinking, "When is it MY turn? When can I just do for SHANNON and not for EVERYONE ELSE?" I was listening to a song by Natalie Grant called "Make a Way". And then I heard the sweet voice of the Holy Spirit:

You are going through this because of your doctor. I need you to be a servant right now - this is why I have not allowed you to conceive.

My doctor is an unsaved Jew who had been on my heart a lot lately. And I only hours before had been selfishly wanting to give my "servant/friend of the year" banner away and trade in some Shani time.

I still get chill bumps thinking about that time in the car, only minutes from my house. I was totally emotional, crying my eyes out, but yet I finally had a direction to move in. All these people kept asking me to just "go get checked out" and maybe there was something wrong with me. Now I knew I was not going for that but for a chance to be with my doctor.

So I called the next day to arrange for a certain time in my cycle to get my blood drawn so we would know if I was even ovulating. The nurse said I could either go by the office or just a lab down the street from my house. We somehow settle on the lab, though after hanging up the phone I had an unsettling about how I was supposed to see the doc, not a lab. Fast forward to the day of my first appointment, and during my quiet time I knew that I was supposed to go to the office that day. It was literally the first Mother's Day Out day that I had no plans, no agenda, and nothing to do. Funny how the Lord orchestrated this whole day for me.

I show up at the office and my doctor meets me at the door. Which is strange because I was only supposed to see a nurse for such a "minor" visit. But the nurse had not put me in the system and they thought I had gone to a lab and been upset. So my doctor literally did everything that the nurse was supposed to do. We take a look at my uterus and he tells me that it is perfect and just waiting to get pregnant, I told him I know that. He looks at me weird. He then says he'll do a thyroid test, and some other things with my bloodwork but doesn't expect to find anything wrong with me. I tell him I know that as well. Another weird look.

So then we go in his office to wrap things up. Before he took me in there the nurse and I had a quiet moment where I, through tears, told her what the Lord had told me to do. She said that a bunch of life-threatening things had happened to him and he was starting to change his life around. So back to the office. I was so nervous - I just kept praying that the Holy Spirit would give me the words, because what Ob-gyn has time for something like this? It made me think of something Beth Moore talked about in her current study called The Inheritance: When we are in fear, God says, "Go do it scared!" We live in such perfectionism that we don't finish our calling and don't get the experience we need because of our fear. Just hang in there and be weak - so what if people see our knees shake. Need to press through our fear to possess our land of promise (talking about Josh. 1:6-7).

So in my doctor's personal office, I, through tears, shared with him that moment in the car. I talked with him for an HOUR about where he stood spiritually. And I was technically a walk-in that morning. We all know how busy those doctors are. For the sake of some intimate and soul baring moments in the conversation, I won't share much of what happened. I just told him that Jesus Christ was after his soul and was tired of waiting around for him. I told him about a series I had just finished reading, and he told me about a bestseller he just finished as well. We promised to read the other book and converge the next time we saw each other to compare notes. He was clearly shaken when I told him that I had been praying for him daily.

I left knowing that I had been obedient to whatever Christ had wanted me to do that day. Though I had been very nervous, somehow the conversation steered in a direction that I knew that all this had been going on for this very moment. Now I don't have a misconception that now I will all of a sudden get pregnant. I may have to go every month for awhile just to continue the relationship. Or maybe I just planted a seed and my role in that matter is done. I'm waiting for my next orders.

But I have such a peace about what is going on right now. I feel this urgency about doing what the Lord needs me to do. The series I just finished reading, my quiet time in Zechariah, the passage in Luke 17 in Sunday School today, and the series on 1 Thessalonians in church right now are all talking about the end times. I know no one knows when the time is coming, but I want to know that I have been obedient for the small role that God has asked me to play. I want to be prepared for when that time comes, if it is even in my lifetime.

1 Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, have unity in mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

Service starts with thinking, not doing. If the mind is in it (humble), then you no longer think "whats in it for me? what will I get back?". I have changed my attitude on being a servant. If I am not able to get pregnant right now, then I must use that energy to help those that God has purposefully placed in my life right now. My Sunday School teacher was telling us today that life is not just about pursuing rest and hanging with our family and going on vacations. There is a misconception in that being all that our life is about. Paul was poured out constantly like a drink offering. We need to spend our lives for the kingdom of God - end one mission and go on another.

I have been walking a fine line on learning to say no, getting my priorities in order, and offering up my life as a life of service for the Lord. Not overseas, but right in my home, in my city of Houston. I am praying for discernment in all these areas. I ask for your prayers as I continue to walk down this road that the Lord has been pruning me for quite some time.