Will It Be My Time

From a very early age I remember playing mommy to my Cabbage Patch dolls. When my brother was a baby, I would even pretend to nurse my dolls (or so I'm told). I saw my future and it included becoming a mother.

Two years after I was married, I found out that I was pregnant. I can't imagine what the joy is like when a baby is actually birthed, because I have never been so happy in my entire life. I thought baby baby baby all the time. And I lost the baby. And the baby after that.

I had never been so sad.

Time passed.

And I began to wonder. I wondered "Will it be my time?" because it seemed like it should have been. It seemed worse than just unfair, to give something and then have it taken away. The days ticked by, and the months passed by, and then a year passed, and more months. And there were no babies.

There were other people's babies, but not mine, and that was hard. I cried when I heard about those babies, not from anger, but from sadness, and from missing my baby that I didn't even know. "Will I have a time, God?" I cried, too many times to count.

And then, worse than having friends with happy pregnancies, I had several who lost their babies, both miscarriages and stillbirths. That was awful, knowing what they felt, those emotions etched in my memory, the unbelievable pain of it all. I was heartbroken for them.

I think of my baby being with Jesus with the babies of my friends and sometimes, I still think, "Why? Why did we never get to know our babies? Why didn't we get to raise them? What did we do?"
I don't have the answers. I wish I did. I wish I could point to a definitive moment and say "Ah, yes, this is why!" But with death, there really isn't that luxury. Good comes from the bad, joy comes from heartbreak, deeper knowledge of God's character comes from things like this, but I cannot look at miscarriage and say that I am happy. I cannot think about it and call it good.

I truly, truly thought that by this time, fifteen months later, I would have a baby. Some of those friends I mentioned already do. And that's hard too. I don't like to wait, and I don't like to not-know, so I feel like it would be easier if God were to say "Lindsay, you don't have a time. It's just not going to happen". It would be hard, but at least I would know.

But I can't help but think of the many, many people who before me have waited for something from God. I think of Hannah, who desperately wanted a child. Of the prophets and disciples and everyone else who expected Jesus to return in their lifetime. Of Sarah and Elizabeth who were incredibly old when they finally became mothers.

I see a common thread with those mentioned. Their time was not their own. Though they had earnest desires, they put God first. They said, essentially, what the Psalmist wrote: "I trust in You, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God.' My times are in Your hand." I feel like this is the most difficult prayer, especially when it seems perfectly just that I would want something normal and good, like motherhood.

The truth though, is that I do not hold time.

The best time seemed to me to be after I finished my internship for college, but it wasn't. I found out that I was pregnant about a week before I was supposed to go, and then had a miscarriage while there. And then I thought that basically anytime in the last fifteen months was the next-best time. But since the only reason I'm up late right now is because I'm writing and not because I'm feeding a baby, I'm going to guess that it wasn't the time.

Whether I submit to Him in this or not, I know that my life is not my own, that I don't control time, and that I don't get to do whatever I want.

I still want it to be my time, my turn for a baby.
But before that, I want it to be His.