By faith... Mommy Edition

My friends, we are not those who give up hope and so are lost; but we are of the company who live by faith and so are saved. Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you've never seen. - Hebrews 10:39-11:1

I have blogged before about how much I want to be a mommy. We have been unable to pursue having children right now due to my health. I often get very sad when another person i know announces their pregnancy. The last one sent me into a spiral of depression for a good few days. I also get invited to lots of baby showers these days. and i love shopping for them and it is so fun to make little things for these new little ones and i am so happy for the new mommies to be... but it is still super hard and painful to be reminded that i can't have that right now. With Mothers Day coming up this week too, I keep being reminded that I don't get to be part of this club of mothers.

We are hoping to start conversations with the doctors this summer about what a pregnancy might look like for me. Sometimes, I feel hopeful about maybe starting to try for kids in the next few months, but other times I seriously wonder if I am crazy to want to try to have kids. After a day of work, it is all I can do to help the husband clean up dinner (he is so great that he cooks all the time) or do some other small household chore before I just need to get on the couch or in bed or crank the stimulator or take meds. How is that going to work with a pregnant belly? I just fear that it is going to be a bad experience and pregnancy will be very rough on me.

I was very upset awhile ago about this, and came across the verses in Hebrews about faith. Faith is the assurance of things you hoped for. Hope of the conviction that there realities unseen. We are not to give up hope, because of our faith. This was so encouraging. Then I kept reading, and I chuckled a little...

It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old. She believed that God would keep his promise. And so a whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead—a nation with so many people that, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, there is no way to count them. (Hebrews 11:11, 12 NLT)

It made me smile that in this time of sadness of not having children, I read about how Sarah, a woman who thought she was never going to be able to have children, and how she had children!

Now the passage goes on to say:

All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us. (Hebrews 11:39, 40 NLT)

I don't know what God has in store for me and Bryson. I don't know if natural children will be a wise choice for us or not. Yet, I hope that one day, no matter what happens, people can say, "Sarah Lillie... She definitely has faith. She has not had it easy, but wow... She has faith. And look at all God has done in her life!"

I am still loving on my 600 kids at school and giving them lots of my time and energy. I am excited to walk with a group of girls at our school's Girls on the Run program this weekend in Denver. i loved giving the kids an opportunity to sing at the Union Colony Civic Center last week. i love the hugs and smiles i get every day. I have a song that I would love to sing to my own little baby someday, John Denver's "For Baby, For Bobbie." I have a picture book of it at my school. I told my 4th graders how I don't have kids, but that I care for them all kind of like they are my kids, and I thought each one of them was special. I read them the book that I hope to one day read to a little one of mine, but I am so thankful to have 600 kids who I get to love and care for.

So who knows what God has in store for me? But I will try to rest in the faith that God has something great in store for me, and that I can even now, live into the plan that God has for me, with or without my own little one.

I'll be there when youre feeling down
To kiss away the fears if you cry
I'll share with you all the happiness I've found
A reflection of the love in your eyes

And I'll sing you the songs of the rainbow
A whisper of the joy that is mine
And leaves will bow down when you walk by
And morning bells will chime