how to love

Well, a while has passed, and once again...big news! We are expecting a little bundle of joy around Thanksgiving of this year :) What a year! Since we were doing everything in our power to NOT get pregnant, this news caught us, and everyone around us, extremely off-guard. Everyone we tell has the same "Well, I guess it was meant to be!" response. Well, not everyone. This Sunday, a verse really stuck out to me while all this turbulence is going on. Psalm 37: 3-5 "Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this".

It's easy to trust and dwell and enjoy safeness. It's easy to enjoy life as fun and successful college students- and then a wonderful man wants to "ruin" all that safety and date you. And then you enjoy a safe dating life, and he wants to marry you. And then you enjoy a safe marriage, and you get pregnant. All of a sudden, not only is your life not "safe" anymore, but you feel like you are solely responsible for a new life... for the rest of your life. Don't eat this, eat more of this, don't go to this place, don't do that, or your risk of miscarriage increases greatly. One of the thoughts that really helped us get our heads around the idea of having a small child at what we consider a young age, is all the friends and grievances that we have encountered personally with people wanting to have kids, but not being physically able to. And we praise God that we do not have to struggle with that right now. We were delighting in our plans, in our dreams, in our version of safety, not God. A thought that came to me this week was to figure out what truly delighting in the Lord means, and what those desires of the heart might someday be. What if God came back tomorrow.... would I be sad that I did not have the chance to have kids? Would my friends or family be sad that they did not have time to get married or fix relationships with others, take a certain vacation, or have a certain vocation? If I am truly delighting in the Lord, none of that else matters in comparison. I will no longer be so focused on planning the rest of my life, but enjoying today, right now. Recently we found out a friend of ours has a baby who was born with Down's Syndrome. If I am delighting in the Lord, that child will pale in comparison to the Glory of knowing God and loving Him. If I am truly aligned with and delighting in God, the desires of my heart will be to grow closer to him, not any earthly plans that have anything to do with people or actions or successes. As for me and my house, we will dwell in this unforeseen land and enjoy this safe pasture. Until we meet another safe pasture <3