Blessed.

So I've been pondering a lot lately about how amazingly blessed I am. I have been given so much, I take so much of it for granted. I know it wouldn't be a happy life, remembering all the time all of the different bad things that could happen to me and my family, and using that as a motivator to show more gratitude, but then sometimes crummy things pop up around me and I'm like, WOW. Other people have to go through that?

See, I know, in terms of trials, we're never given more than we can handle. Sometimes we feel like we can't handle things, but that's when we learn to rely on Heavenly Father, so that we're not dealing with it alone (in my opinion, one of the biggest reasons trials are essential for our growth.) I have this theory, too, that the bigger the trial, the stronger the person. I'm not saying that to judge, because there are SO many trials that we experience that people can't see, and where you have no idea that someone is going through something that difficult. But sometimes I look at what people are experiencing, and I'm like, "Wow. You are amazing and strong and I could never do that." Maybe I'm right. Maybe I couldn't handle that and that's why I'm not going through it, or maybe I could handle it, but I'm being tried in other ways. But either way, there are some things I'd rather not go through.

So what brought on all of this introspective rambling? Well, as most people who read this know, Matthew and I experienced infertility for what felt like forever, but in reality was just shy of 4 years. It hurt more than anything I've ever experienced, and I can't even describe what it feels like to not be experiencing it anymore. Words can't describe it. I still wake up and look in the mirror and think I'm looking at someone else, because I could never be the one pregnant.

We had moved past that, and were in a good place. I no longer cried every month when I got my period (though I wished it away many times, thinking, "If I'm not going to have kids, what's the point?!") We had looked into just about everything, from fertility treatments, to international adoption, to church adoption, and finally to adopting a crown ward. Some things about adoption scared the living daylights out of us (and still do!) but we decided that we felt comfortable adopting a child that would be a little older than a newborn, but still younger than 3. We'd be 'insta-parents' as I called it, and I was excited to be a mommy.

Then, through a special miracle, I became pregnant. Shocked. Floored. SCARED. Grateful though, always always grateful. Sometimes wondering, "Why me? Why, when so many others have suffered what I suffered, and are so much more deserving?" I still don't have an answer to that, and though I might someday, it'll probably take a long time. Just like how it took a long time to realize why we were experiencing infertility and what we could learn from it.

And even still, I sometimes lose sight of the blessing. I'm fit as a fiddle, and so is the baby. He's kicking up a storm, just to let me know he's there. I haven't felt a thing that wasn't good (except for the odd stretching pain here and there) and STILL I find things to complain about! What a silly goose I am. Here I am wishing to be pregnant for years, and then when I am, all I can do is rattle on about how annoying it is when people talk to me about being pregnant! Silly silly silly. Maybe I feel like it's just so personal that I don't want to share, but I think that maybe, after all I've been given, I can afford a little grace. So that's my goal. Be graceful, grateful, glad, all those good 'g' words. Because to complain about a blessing is the stupidest thing I can ever think of (barring drinking a gallon of milk just because someone told you that you can't without throwing up.)

So again, because I still haven't answered my own question. Where did this introspective ramble come from? Well, sometimes it takes looking at what others have to deal with to make you realize just how great you have it. Take this woman, for example. She's amazing and strong, and has had to deal with so much. She IS dealing with so much. She's facing one of my biggest fears. What she's going through is pretty much the reason we decided to do adoption through our children's aid society rather than from an agency placing children via voluntary adoption. To have your baby for a year, to BE his parents, and then to have to deal with the uncertainty they're going through, the fear that he'll be taken from you. GAH I don't think I could handle that. It makes me cry a little and hug my tummy a little tighter and pray a little harder and smile a little wider.

Everyone goes through trials. Not all the trials you experience are going to feel the same. They'll all be hard, and some will feel harder than others, but the one guarantee everyone has in life is that they'll go through SOMETHING that tests them. It what we're here for, right?

But likewise, everyone goes through times of peace. Times of happiness, joy, comfort and the like, that make us love life and make the difficult times a little easier to bear.

I'm so grateful to be experiencing a time of peace right now. I'm grateful for the trial of infertility that Matthew and I experienced. For the emotional scars that I have that make me that much more able to appreciate this time, this blessing, and this life. I am in awe of how much I've learned by experiencing something so painful, and how I'm able to think more of others, and understand even just a fraction of their grief and suffering. I may not understand what others are going through, but I can understand the pained, winded, hopelessly alone feeling that sits in the middle of their chest when they're hurting, and I can want, just as much as they do, for that feeling to be gone and for the time of peace to begin.

Please pray for this family. Pray that their little boy will be able to stay with them, and that Heavenly Father will be able to make everything right and beautiful in the end.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)