IVF Progress
I took my last Microgynon pill on Wednesday... Now Friday night, and anxiously waiting for a bleed to arrive. Pretty please!
Giving Up Studying
I am overall feeling much calmer, happier, more content, and closer to God at the moment than I have been for most of this year... What He said to me about quitting studying really was right - in August, He told me to stop studying and that it would be the key to my mental health, and it really has been. Also, giving something up for Him - because He asked me to, and only because of that, and something that means so much and is so close to my heart - has really helped my faith. It has been really hard to do; really, really painful... And things are better for having done it... Which reminds me that I really can give up anything for Him - and so I have stopped the constant worrying about what will happen to my faith if IVF doesn't work out for us. I know I can give things up for God. I know I could do it. And I know I would survive.
It's also really helped to remind me just how real He is. How interested and involved in my life. And how much He really does love and care about me. Things I had been doubting before for the first time since I became a Christian.
Small Group and Counselling
As part of our church, we belong to something called a 'small group' (which is sometimes called a 'cluster', 'cell', or 'home' group in other churches). Our small group started in January, out of an alpha course hubby and I attended, and it met every two weeks. I then didn't go to our small group for a few months as my mental health went downhill in late spring. I felt at a low ebb with church. Lots of other things are happening personally for us at the moment - we want to move closer to church, and can't afford to; my degree didn't work out as planned; my mental health had a blip - and I wondered how I can trust that this is the right place for us to be, and whether it will work out.
In August, there was a month's break from small group, and towards the end we all met up for a picnic. It was the first time I had been with the group for a few months, and I hadn't been going to church regularly either. At the picnic, I met a friend's mum, who just happened to work at one of the IVF clinics in Nottingham (the other one to the one we are using; we are using Care and she worked at Nurture, which doesn't provide a PGD service). She was able to advise and reassure us about IVF, and I was reminded about God's perfect timing and attention to the most intricate of details; something I had taken for granted previously. Having doubted that for months, feeling unsure as to whether I would ever feel it again as I had, I was reassured and reminded that I don't have all the answers, or even any of the answers, but that that is really ok... And that while I don't have the answers about the future, this church and this group really are the place for us to be at the moment. And 'at the moment' is all that matters - tomorrow will take care of itself (Matthew 6:34).
Small group started up again last week, and is now meeting weekly instead of fortnightly. This is already proving so helpful. I am amazed and humbled that God would provide this extra care for me - for us - during this testing time.
Also in August, after God spoke to me about giving up studying, I asked my counsellor whether we could see each other weekly instead of fortnightly for the foreseeable, and she was 'delighted' to. That's been happening about a month now, and again it is something I can already see and feel the benefits of. My counsellor is a Christian and the support she has given me over the past eighteen months has been something I can't put into words. She made my world alive again - I stopped just hanging on, trying to exist, and started to experience things I thought had died.
The reason I cut down from weekly to fortnightly initially was because I was worried about how much of a loss I would feel if and when we move, and I can no longer see her. Again, God has reminded me that I need to do what is right for now, and not right for tomorrow. I so easily fall into 'anxiety planning' - planning for disasters and trials that may (or may not) come, trying to keep myself safe. I rely on my own planning and my own safekeeping, and not on God's ability to keep me safe. With both church and counselling, I am being reminded of how much better He provides for me than I do, and being reminded of this just before IVF is such a blessing.
One Day At A Time
And so, on that note, at the moment what I am doing is reminding myself as often as I remember to 'take one day at a time', and focus only on the circumstances of that moment. The grace for tomorrow will be there when I need it. He can be trusted to hold me, and that is something I believe physically and spiritually as well as emotionally at the moment. I know He can be trusted, because He's held me through everything this year. Anything that comes my way, I can survive with Him.
'Follow the Peace'
I read a quote earlier - 'Follow the Peace' - and it reminded me how making the 'right' decisions feels, and how I will know how to do the right thing when the time comes again.
Follow the peace.
Peace - To stop studying.
Peace - To marry my husband (decided a year before he asked!).
Peace - When we decided to go to our church (18 months ago now!), even though it is in another town.
Peace - When God showed me (quite bluntly!) this time last year that my worries about IVF were selfish, and I had to take my husband's needs and desires into account. Peace, since that moment, about the whole 'is IVF right?' dilemma.
Peace - When we bought our house, three years ago now... Even though we had only known each other six months, weren't engaged or married, and I was mid-breakdown! Yes, it was mad... And yes, it was God!
Peace - When I relinquished my need for my husband to 'become a Christian' to God. (And of course now he is - but in God's time, not my time!)
His ways are not our ways. We don't often have a clue, in my experience, what the 'right' thing to do in a situation is. Often it is the riskiest thing to do. It may not seem risky to others, or it may seem downright foolish - either way, to us, it feels the riskiest.
Each and every time HIS PEACE (and not my crippled personality - which has also led me to do risky things, which have never, ever felt peaceful) has led me to do something risky, it has had ramifications I could not have predicted.
Right after we changed churches, and right before our wedding, our previous vicar's marriage broke down. I don't want to cast stones at him - am very fond of him - but for me, coming from a broken family, that could have been disastrous. We still got married at that church, by him, and it was awesome. But I needed to have the example of other mature Christian leadership marriages, provided at our then-new church, to encourage me in all the things I struggled with pre-wedding. When that marriage broke down, I knew why we had changed churches then. God's timing.
And now, right after I decide to walk away from studying, I hear that the final surviving first marriage in my parents' generation has broken down. My parents and all of their brothers and sisters have all been married. And now, all have walked away from marriages. For me, it is a timely reminder of why doing things God's way and not my way is so important - and especially why challenging the values I have grown up with is not of self-indulgent importance (as I try to tell myself sometimes), but of life-changing, life-altering, life-saving vitality. When I make decisions for God and deny those things I have been taught about life and self-worth, I make decisions for my husband's well-being, for the well-being of any children we might have, for the well-being of my nieces, and for the well-being of society and the world at large.
God matters. Divorce matters. Love matters.
Walking away from my desire to have a degree - something I have believed I 'need' and could not be whole without - matters. He teaches me how to be whole. Not anything else. Not any other single thing: and that includes whether I raise a child or not. I only need God - and I do not need anything else - to be whole. It's been tough to learn, and infinitely worth learning - and I am sure the same will be true the next twenty times I learn it ;).
Staycation
On the theme of following the peace and love mattering, hubby and I have enjoyed a 'staycation' this week... Spending quality time together, visiting spots of the country near us that we wouldn't otherwise have troubled ourselves to enjoy, and enjoying our life as it is, without wanting to change a thing. It really reminds me, again, that I will be ok - and that we will be ok - however things work out.
Sometimes things are hard. Sometimes things seem like they will not be ok, and there is no way things will ever be ok again. Hang in there. Things are ok again. Things are beautiful again. He makes a way. He makes a way in the desert.
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