China

God never meant for me to go.

I'm not sure why this finally dawned on me today. Afterall, it's been almost three years after I signed up to go and then ended up not going. But it has great significance in my life.

Many people don't know that it took us a while to get pregnant the first time. Ten months to be exact. Ten very long, sad, stressful, apprehensive, hopeful, spiritual months. I felt just about every emotion possible during those long months, but God had a plan and He knew what He was doing.

The first few months were easy and very hopeful. However, after the third and fourth cycle the journey became a little bit harder to deal with and to understand. Something like this is really hard for me since I am a control freak. This was one major thing in my life that I could not create or control myself. It was all up to God. Why was it taking so long? Would it ever happen? What was God trying to teach me? Throughout the whole time I thought I was "giving it to God" but it wasn't until I actually stopped "trying" that God blessed us!

In December of 2006 I decided to go on a missions trip to get my mind off of everything. I decided to give up tracking my cycles, taking my temperature, and everything else along with it. Well, not everything, everything, just the tracking part. ;-) Anyhoo (I think my dad reads this so we're leaving that at that) the China trip was going to take my mind off of it. I fell in love with the idea of going to China. I never before in my life thought I would want to go, but the more I learned the more I knew I was meant to go. Instead of praying to get pregnant and for strength to get through infertility, I started praying for the people of China and our group for the trip. I prayed that God would change me and make me like sphaghetti - flexible. God was preparing me. I thought he was preparing me for a trip to China, but He never intended for me to go. At least not then.

In February of 2007, a whole weekend was dedicated to preparing for the China trip. The group met and we went over all the necessary information and we were given instructions on how to prepare. Vaccines were an important part of traveling, especially to the remote area we were going to. Funny thing, my last menstral cycle before getting pregnant was the weekend we had the meeting. By the time I found out I was pregnant and talked to my doctor about the situation it was too late to get the necessary vaccines. The trip was just too risky for me to go to China while being pregnant, as it would have taken place during my second trimester. Had I taken care of my vaccines right away, I probably could have made it happen. As excited as I was to be pregnant (finally) I was very sad to not be going. At first I couldn't understand why God put me through all the excitement and preparation for a mission trip to China only to have me not go. But it didn't take long to realize that in blessing me with a baby, I truly needed to let go of control and let God handle it. What a blessing. Not only did my dreams come true of becoming a mom, it was a blessing to see God working in my life. He loves me enough to teach me and grow me along my journey to motherhood.

It didn't dawn on me until today that God never intended on me going to China. I mean, I figured it out, but it really just hit me. God is so awesome. He's so wise and so loving. He wants to bless His children. I am so thankful that He chose to bless me, in a million ways.