November 2016

I wonder if I’m the only one who feels like her body is a ticking time bomb at that certain time of the month – when you know that your cycle is about to start, and you are anxiously waiting to see if it actually does (but hoping that it doesn’t).

Last weekend, I was five days late. FIVE DAYS. And, to put this into perspective, I am rarely late – and when I am, it’s only a day or so. I took three pregnancy tests, each coming back negative, but I wasn’t even experiencing any of my regular pre-cycle symptoms, so Eric and I kept hoping. I went to the place mentally that I try not to go to very often – if I were pregnant, when would the baby be born? How could I announce it in a special way to family? What would it be like for a child to have a birthday during that month? One friend shared with me that it took a week past her expected start date for a pregnancy test to register positive, so I clung to that with anticipation that maybe, just maybe, it was time.

But it wasn’t. The ticking stopped and my period started and I’m not pregnant. Still.

I am really struggling these days to figure out what “hope” look like in this season. I know my hope is supposed to be in the Lord, not in my circumstances. But how do I hope in the Lord, accepting that He might not answer my prayers for pregnancy, but also hope that He can and He will answer my prayers for pregnancy?

Does that make sense? Hoping in Him no matter my circumstances, but also not giving up hope that He will work in my circumstances.  I haven’t figured it out yet. I need a new framework for understanding this concept, a new perspective in this season.