The Pruning: A Healing...

One Saturday in February, I had myself a full-on-good-for-the-soul-cleansing-red-faced-ugly-cry.

Unfortunately, it was in the middle of Wal-mart.

In the diaper aisle.  

God has been so faithful to provide me with precious friends to walk alongside through their infertility journey.  Never a full group like I'd once envisioned but simply one couple, or really, one woman at a time.  And while I found such immense support and love through blogs, these women have been right here in my backyard.  

I find that amazing.  Since I knew only one person in real life going through it at the same time I was.  And she is still a shining light in my life.  

We had the joy of sharing in our friend's journey together.  

So when I got the message that Saturday morning simply saying, "We are PREGNANT!!!"...

...well, I lost it.

As I've shared, this has been a hard season for me.  God has been pruning.  And if you've been through A Pruning you know, it's really not all that pleasant.  I made it worse by holding on to the things He was trying to prune with a DEATH GRIP.  Because STUBBORN.  

And one area where I have seen more than the usual pain and waiting and suffering this year has been in infertility.  Miscarriages, failed IVF's, years and years of waiting.  It has been such a burden.  The Lord showed me a while ago just how much anger I was holding on to in this area.  

Straight up, I was angry with Him.  Crazy angry.

When He revealed it to me, I did what any stubborn girl would do in the middle of a pruning...

...I got angrier.

I confessed it all to Him, shared it with my prayer warriors and laid it all bare.  And it hurt.  

Truthfully, I don't understand.  I never may.  Why some women are able to have children easily and some have to fight for it.  When we talk about those questions as infertiles, I always say what all my glorious not-quite-forty-years on this earth have taught me.  Everyone has trials.  For some, it's infertility.  For others, maybe addiction, maybe depression, maybe broken marriages, maybe any of a zillion things we have to face in this life.  But it's how we deal with those trials that teach us and others the true nature of our hearts.

Do we trust God is good?  Even when we see only what we feel to be the worst?  Do we accept the trials and face them with a spirit of power and love and discipline?  Or do we face them with a spirit of fear?  Do we let ourselves believe the lie that cancer or infertility or addiction is a result of our own sin?  Or do we allow ourselves to embrace it as something God can use for His glory?  Count it all joy?  Even when we pray so fervently for God to take it away?

But, see, I can SAY all that and preach the good sermon and not mean it in my heart.  Oh, I have felt it!  Believed it.  Trusted it.  Embraced it.  But the past year has been hard.  I've watched such heartache.  And I just don't understand.  Y'all, I have a friend I have been praying with for eight years.  

Eight years.

At this point, we're starting to talk about Sarah and was she REALLY that old?  I mean, isn't 40 the new 90?  And thank goodness there is no handmaiden waiting around because let's just not be THAT Sarah.  Let's chose to trust and wait.  Be faithful in the waiting.  

But back to my other friend's story...

A couple of weeks later, she got back on the horse, so to speak, and started anew with treatments.  I confessed, I had no idea what to even pray.  I literally told the Holy Spirit, You gotta take this to Him.  I can't.  I am spent.  You know what my heart wants, what her heart wants, what everyone who loves her wants.  Can you just say all that for me?

And then I would send Him the same prayer a zillion times a day.  And cry.  A lot.

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans."  ~Romans 8:26 (emphasis mine.)

So while she was doing her treatments, I was groaning.  Crying on the phone with my friends.  Writing crazy long messages to my friends praying with me.  And groaning.  

I got to hear about how an infertility support group had grown at my previous church.  Heard about healing after miscarriage.  Got encouragement from friends I'd walked alongside during their journey.  And in hearing, receiving and accepting the loving words of the people in my life, I was releasing the anger.  My eyes began opening to the miracles to which I'd been closed off. 

By the time I got the message from my friend in Wal-mart that day, my anger had been released and, I would say, almost completely gone.  I say almost because at that moment when I read her message, that was the exact moment all the anger was truly released.

Released right there in the middle of the diaper aisle.  

I stood there...and standing was a physical, conscious choice...and let it all go.  Those diapers got an earful.  

Once I pulled myself together...somewhat...I called my shining light friend.  Apparently, she heard my sobs as soon as she answered because she said, not Hello, but "Robin, are you okay?"

"She's pregnant."

Laughing...

And then we cried and laughed and praised together.  Now in the Women's clothing section.  

Listen.  There is a reason God commands us to "carry one another's burdens."  There is healing both in the acknowledgement and confession of sins to each other and in sharing our trials.  We may never fully know this side of Paradise the impact those burdens may have.  But I know, during this season of The Pruning, being able to share, confess, repent and celebrate with my precious, God-given friends has been life-altering and, honestly, life-saving.

This Mother's Day, my friend got to celebrate the day, as her babies (yep, more than one!) grow.  Pretty sure they're doing some kicking in there by now.  Those babies have such a testimony and the parents have grown in their faith.  And because they were faithful, I found my way back to hope.

New hope, new revelation, new life.

A Healing.