“What’s WRONG with me? Why can’t I get past this? When am I going to just be ok?”
Over the past two years, I’ve asked God so many times, “God, every time I feel like I’ve grown and gotten to a good place, like maybe You’ve taken away all the pain and tears, suddenly, I’m not ok again and it feels like I’m starting all over. Like all the growth isn’t even there.”
I always thought in my infertility journey that truly trusting God meant that the days of meltdowns, sucker-punch pain, and ugly crying were behind me, that I’d finally be free of overwhelming emotion. But even with prayer, faithful Scripture reading, and seeking the Lord, - an announcement, a negative test, or just a rogue emotion and I’m flat on my face again.
But God is nothing if not ever-faithful. He showed me the growth:
In my emotions: genuine happiness for my loved one’s pregnancy announcements,
where before there was only swift pain and envy
In my heart: longing, desire, and trust, where before bitterness and anger grew wild.
As I’ve prayed and learned and listened to others who have walked and are walking this road I’ve come to recognize something. In this journey, to be “OK until I’m not OK” is normal. The rise and fall of the roller coaster is not the result of a lack of faith, but rather what it means to be human - to experience feelings, intense, swift, and often unexpected.
The growth is not in the emotions themselves, but in my response to those emotions. They valleys are still there, and they still suck, but though they are still deep, they are not so wide. When I find myself headed down into the valley, I no longer linger there - wallowing in self pity and anger. I can allow myself to feel the pain, tell God, “I trust You. Help me walk with grace and faith.” Bitterness can only grow where its soil is fertile, and asking God to change the attitude of my heart weeds it out before it can take root.
Sweet sister, whether you walk the same road as I do, or if your struggles and pain look different remember - emotions are not truth. They just exist. Acknowledge them, know it is ok to feel, and then give them over to God. I think that’s part of what it means to “take every thought captive to Christ.” - you can’t control the thoughts and emotions, but the more you have allowed God to conform you to Christ’s image, the more you are empowered to give those intrusive thoughts and emotions over to Him, and allow Him to weed out the bitterness or sinful inclinations as He sits with you in the pain.
He is there.
He grieves with you.
He restores.
He heals.
He makes all things new.
He is in the process of shaping and remaking your heart. Choose in those moments, as you are headed down into the valley to give that pain or fear, or longing to Him, and see the beautiful things He makes of it!
“...to bestow on them a crown of beauty
Instead of ashes
The oil of joy
Instead of mourning
And a garment of praise
Instead of a spirit of despair.”
~Isaiah 61:3
THIS is the kind of God He is. He is faithful. He is good. He makes all things new. Accept that those overwhelming emotions will still come. But the growth is found in what we do with them - be swept away trying to handle and overcome by ourselves? Or rest in His arms as we give them over to He whose “power is made perfect in our weakness”? Hand it over. Leave it to Him. Rest.
Over the past two years, I’ve asked God so many times, “God, every time I feel like I’ve grown and gotten to a good place, like maybe You’ve taken away all the pain and tears, suddenly, I’m not ok again and it feels like I’m starting all over. Like all the growth isn’t even there.”
I always thought in my infertility journey that truly trusting God meant that the days of meltdowns, sucker-punch pain, and ugly crying were behind me, that I’d finally be free of overwhelming emotion. But even with prayer, faithful Scripture reading, and seeking the Lord, - an announcement, a negative test, or just a rogue emotion and I’m flat on my face again.
But God is nothing if not ever-faithful. He showed me the growth:
In my emotions: genuine happiness for my loved one’s pregnancy announcements,
where before there was only swift pain and envy
In my heart: longing, desire, and trust, where before bitterness and anger grew wild.
As I’ve prayed and learned and listened to others who have walked and are walking this road I’ve come to recognize something. In this journey, to be “OK until I’m not OK” is normal. The rise and fall of the roller coaster is not the result of a lack of faith, but rather what it means to be human - to experience feelings, intense, swift, and often unexpected.
The growth is not in the emotions themselves, but in my response to those emotions. They valleys are still there, and they still suck, but though they are still deep, they are not so wide. When I find myself headed down into the valley, I no longer linger there - wallowing in self pity and anger. I can allow myself to feel the pain, tell God, “I trust You. Help me walk with grace and faith.” Bitterness can only grow where its soil is fertile, and asking God to change the attitude of my heart weeds it out before it can take root.
Sweet sister, whether you walk the same road as I do, or if your struggles and pain look different remember - emotions are not truth. They just exist. Acknowledge them, know it is ok to feel, and then give them over to God. I think that’s part of what it means to “take every thought captive to Christ.” - you can’t control the thoughts and emotions, but the more you have allowed God to conform you to Christ’s image, the more you are empowered to give those intrusive thoughts and emotions over to Him, and allow Him to weed out the bitterness or sinful inclinations as He sits with you in the pain.
He is there.
He grieves with you.
He restores.
He heals.
He makes all things new.
He is in the process of shaping and remaking your heart. Choose in those moments, as you are headed down into the valley to give that pain or fear, or longing to Him, and see the beautiful things He makes of it!
“...to bestow on them a crown of beauty
Instead of ashes
The oil of joy
Instead of mourning
And a garment of praise
Instead of a spirit of despair.”
~Isaiah 61:3
THIS is the kind of God He is. He is faithful. He is good. He makes all things new. Accept that those overwhelming emotions will still come. But the growth is found in what we do with them - be swept away trying to handle and overcome by ourselves? Or rest in His arms as we give them over to He whose “power is made perfect in our weakness”? Hand it over. Leave it to Him. Rest.
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