I looked down at my belly and wondered if maybe, just maybe, this was the month God had opened my womb.
We were driving down to the beach and I pulled up the calendar on my phone. My feet up on the dash, Cinderella was playing for the kids in the back seat, and our hearts were bursting with hope. The promise had manifest. The waiting was finally over. We finally had a breakthrough from seven years of praying. We would shout it from the mountain tops that our Papa had performed a miracle. Again.
“So I’ll be twenty weeks the week of your birthday! How sweet is that? We’ll get to find out the gender! What a birthday present! My belly will be pretty big around Christmas. I’ll finally be pregnant for our Christmas cards. The due date will be my birthday month! Isn’t that just the way He works?! He’s so kind. Really kind, isn’t He?”
I was six days late. I am NEVER late. I just knew it this time. Something about it was different.
We made it down to the beach. It was everything I could do to not scream it to my mom when she hugged me. I constantly had this dialogue happening in my head. “Am I really? I HAVE to be. I’ve NEVER been this late.” It was almost like torture. I just needed to know.
The night before I had packed it. Just in case.
In March 2015 during worship, without knowing any of my story, a lady came up to me and placed her hand on my belly and began praying healing for me. I knew something happened. Something shifted in both my body and heart. The very next day I went to CVS and after years had passed, I bought another pregnancy test in faith. This would be the test. I would finally see those two lines. It stayed under my sink, but every time I reached to grab something under there I saw it and my hope would rise.
So much has shifted in me over the years. I’ve believed the lie that was taught to me for so long, that God was the author of this pain. He wanted me to be infertile so that I could use this story, this suffering, for His glory. But He’s taught me that He isn’t that way at all. In fact, He is more kind than we could ever know. He is good. He’s truly good. Brandon would never break Selah’s arm and then expect her to thank him after he took her to the hospital to get it fixed. What kind of Father would do that to His children? Not a good one.
Papa is a good Father. He gives back what the enemy has stolen from us. He redeems the parts of our stories that are ugly. He makes whole the broken pieces of our stories. Because He is good. Because He is kind.
Brandon and I got the kids to sleep, left the monitors with my mom, and drove to WalMart to get junk food for the week. (Is it just me or do you eat junk at the beach too?) I bought another test just in case, because I knew that if it was positive, I would need to take several. I remember us driving over the bridge back to the island, the windows were down and I could almost hear my heart beating out of my chest. What if this was the moment, the break of dawn after a really long night of the soul?
We put our groceries away as fast as possible. And sat on the end of our bed in that tiny little room at the beach. He held my hand and I laid my head on his shoulder as he prayed, “Father, whatever this test tells us, we know you are good. You’re always good. Thank you for this miracle You’ve already given us in faith. Even if the test is negative tonight, it doesn’t change your promise. Or your goodness. You have all of us.”
I had forgotten how to take a pregnancy test it had been so many years since the last time we took one. We were studying the directions and my hands were all clammy and my knees were weak. He set the timer on his phone.
And it was the longest two minutes of our lives.
The timer beeped and he stopped it quickly because the babies were asleep in the very next room. We looked at it together…
one pink line.
He reached over to catch me thinking I would fall apart. But I didn’t. My heart just sank to the bottom of the floor. And he said the same things he had prayed, “He is so good, babe. This baby is coming. Just not this month. He’s really kind. Nothing changes that.”