UNCOMMEN: DoubtНамуна

The Doubting Husband

Genesis 17:16-17

16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” 17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” 

Dana and I have been together for a long time. We met in 5th grade, dated through high school and college. We’d often talk in passing about how many kids we’d have when we got married. Our marriage began in 1990 and children were not even thought about in those first few years. We were still learning each other’s ways and dealing with everyday life to introduce a child to the mix. Over dinner one day we stated, “we’d wait five years before having a child.” Looking back I think how foolish we were to believe that we could just hit a switch and start making babies. Not everyone who wants a child can have a child. But that was our plan, and it seemed like a good one.

One day at work someone asked me when we're going to start having babies. I laughed and said, “no time soon that is for sure!”. That weekend Dana and I were at K-mart and in comes the Pregnancy Test into the basket. I stopped dead in my tracks, speechless as if to say, “we had a deal!”. I told my co-worker that next Monday, and she had a good laugh. 

Long story short, we had what is called a “chemical pregnancy” which eventually led to us finding out the Dana had a cyst on one of the ovaries. We had to have surgery to remove that cyst and all of our plans of having children seemed to evaporate. We were told to wait 12 months after the surgery before trying again. Fifteen months later, the doctor confirmed we were indeed pregnant, but we waited another three months before we told anyone.

In 1996, we were blessed with a healthy son, followed by a 12-week pregnancy that lead to a miscarriage in 1998. In 1999, we were blessed again with another healthy son. We never set times and dates on having kids still but instead trusted that if God wanted us to have children, He’d make that happen when it was the right time.

Lesson: 

Control is an illusion, and we are foolish to think we can try to plan things on our own and not look to God for direction. 

Uncommen Challenge: 

Before you start to plan out your life, pray that God gives you wisdom and that He reveals the plan He has for you.