Privacy & TTC

I decided to make this blog private because this is more about a safe place to record my thoughts than broadcasting myself over the internet. Maybe eventually I will make this public if there is anything to share.

Mostly, I chose to make this private because I want to reflect on the things that are happening to this young wife. And some of those things J & I have decided to keep as quiet as possible. Like TTC. I'm pretty sure everyone knows/assumes/expects that we are, but that doesn't mean I want them to know all the details.

As of now, we are on cycle 4. I'm on CD 25. Usually I have a 26-27 day cycle, but I O'ed late this month, so I think my cycle will be more like 30ish days.

I have been temping since January & using OPKs (starting CD 12 until I get a temp shift) since February.

It's strange because I always thought that it would be an accident. I never expected to have to work for something like this. Maybe that's why it hasn't happened yet. Maybe God wants to teach me patience & make me work for it so that I will love my baby that much more when/if it happens.

But it's hard to remember that. I constantly have to remind myself that normal healthy couples can take up to 1 year to conceive (both of J's sibs spent 10 months trying for one baby). But no matter how much reminding I do, the scary thought of infertility is still in the back of my mind. What if something is wrong with me? What if something is wrong with J? What if we can never have any children? It's hard to quiet those thoughts (& all the jealousy that comes along with finding out friends are expecting their 4th child) after three failed attempts. This is probably my first real experience having to trust in God's timing. It's funny that I spent so many years avoiding pregnancy & once I've finally made the decision that I was ready (J was ready for a little while before me), it just won't seem to happen. I know that God is preparing me. I know that there is a plan. I know that I have to just trust in Him. And I have to remind myself daily.

New Years Resolution: March & Saying Goodbye

I really dropped the ball on my New Year's Resolution this month. I didn't force myself to experience anything new. But I did force myself to say goodbye to some of my favorite people in the world.

Jenise & Fran have worked so hard for the last decade or so training to be missionaries. When I first met them, they were living in Spokane while Fran was attending Aviation school. Since then, he has graduated, they have started a family, moved across the country (back home to us), moved across the state (twice), said goodbye to Jordan & Hannah & Soly & Grace, took a few support raising road trips, raised the support they needed to go on the mission field, attended workshops on aviation missions and living in a different culture, got assigned to work in Cameroon Africa, and moved to France for language school. They ha

ve been an inspiration to me (& I'm sure to J as well). Through every single experience they have demonstrated amazing faith. I am so proud to be able to call them family. They will be missed while they are in France, but I know everything they do is for the glory of God. And that is definitely consolation for losing some of my friends for a few years.

I wish you the best. Y'all are in my thoughts and prayers. And I cannot

wait to see what amazing things you guys do.

Waiting for their flight. Ready to start the next step of their adventure.

A Struggle With My Old Life

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and today I woke up feeling burdened to get this off my chest.

I am a Christian. But, this is a fairly recent development. I mean, I was baptized when I was little, but after that I went my own way. In high school, I proudly declared that I didn't believe in God. I even admit to taking it a step further and making fun of many Christians and their crazy belief in this... deity. I couldn't understand how anyone could have faith in something when there was no proof. It really made absolutely no sense to me. And if I'm being really truthful, sometimes it still doesn't completely make sense. After meeting J & his family and beginning to go to church & read the Bible, and reflecting, and going through my own set of trials, and being rescued by something unearthly, and just... feeling, I realized that Christians weren't wrong. I was. But, I still struggle almost daily with this past life of unbelief. I find myself questioning myself in the same ridiculing manner of high school. How could someone really be resurrected? How could someone willingly sacrifice themselves? How can I be sure of all these things I (am supposed to) believe? What kind of fool just believes one book to be proof? Honestly, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

But, about a month ago I was reading and this passage just stood out to me and my desire to know everything:

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

⁶ We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷ No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. ¹⁴ The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

This was exactly what I needed to read. Funny how God knows what you need even if you don't. It's nice to read that I was not the only one struggling with "wisdom" and the desire to understand God.

In our small group one day a woman said something to the effect of: "We are only humans with human intellect and only have the capacity to understand humans and our nature. That's one way to know that this story isn't made up by humans, because this story defies human understanding." And that struck me as pretty profound.

It's also comforting to know that I am not the only one who will never fulfill that desire on my own. There is no way for a human alone to understand God. We only have the capacity for human understanding. But the Spirit teaches us.

And mostly, it's encouraging to have this passage to keep my old demons at bay.