In my 36th year, we found out that it was a miracle that I conceived a couple years before, as the test results showed that Rusty, possibly as a result of medication he had to take, had male factor infertility. This was hard news for both of us and we processed in different ways the grief of a dream slowly dying. We prayed about foster care and adoption, but felt to lay it down for another season, so we could be more connected with the people that we were among, many of whom were children and youth.
After laying it down and engaging in that which was present, we had a season of peace, joy and even much happiness.
Alex
—
This news actually completely blindsided me. I had attributed our lack of children to the fact that both Alex and myself had complete peace about working overseas for a season and sensed that God was holding off on giving us kids to give us more freedom to invest in some of the intensive, difficult opportunities he was giving to us. I truly believed that as soon as that season was over that the “right time” would start for Him to grow our family. My own parents had been married for many years before moving to a new city, attending a new church, and having a woman ask my mother if she could pray for her womb after a prayer meeting. Nine months later there I was.
This was how this story was supposed to work out. God being in complete control and providing at the “right time”.
Not me being unable to provide my wife with one of the main gifts a husband is supposed to be able to give his wife. Not me discovering, years into my marriage, that I had something “essential” missing.
“I thought that together You and I were supposed to be a majority! I thought that no plan of the enemy could prosper, that we could run through troops and climb over walls. How does it make any sense that even with You I am lacking here? Why can’t I make this right?”
I didn’t hear clear answers to my questions but I did hear reality screaming at me. The “right time” we had been trusting and believing for had come and gone. God hadn’t repeated the gift He had given my parents. Unless He “came through”, I wouldn’t be enough to make this right. I was not enough.
For at least one definition of “right” and one definition of “enough”.
Rusty.
The Good Argentumware. 