Dependence

So... I have some news! Bang on time, a certain madame period showed up today - exactly when the nurses said she would, and exactly when God told me she would (oh me of little faith - how I doubt my body!!).

This means... We.are.starting.IVF.tomorrow. TOMORROW.

TOMORROW

(did I ever mention I have waited five and a half years for this moment?)

Each time my period has arrived this cycle - this is my third 'IVF period' - I have thought I am the happiest I could be to see it show up.

I.was.wrong.

Today I was definitely, 100%, the very happiest and most content I could possibly be to see it show up! Not only does it mean we can start, but... God.does.what.He.says. Last night He told me...today. And here it is. Today.

I still have no idea whether IVF is going to produce a baby for us. God has not revealed this. I would love Him too, but every time I even think of it, all I hear is that He is not showing me because He wants me to grow in faith and dependence upon Him.

Which makes perfect sense.

Eeek.

Dependence.

Something I'm not great at; haven't got much practise at.

Since I became a Christian, life has been... comfortable. It has steadfastly and steadily moved from the place I was - bad - to the place where suddenly I don't look *that* different to other Christians, and my sexual sin isn't weighing on my mind every time I'm in church. To the place where the things needing attention in my daily life are things that seem... smaller.more manageable.more appropriate.more - dare I say it - holy.

And that's where the problem came.

The things needing attention in my daily life are never smaller.never more manageable.never more appropriate.definitely never holy.

That I learned this year.

I started the year feeling...good with God.smug.content. I had another companion, as this had morphed into the killer of all faith - the five year plan.

God loves me. He had clearly demonstrated that by giving me a lovely husband; allowing me to achieve the marks I'd dreamed of at university; giving us a lovely church and small group to settle in... And so on. Clearly, I was in God's favour. He loves to bless me. And He was going to continue to bless me. Everything was going to happen just as I wanted it. I would fall pregnant from IVF. We would move house. I would graduate from my degree. We would have baby. I would stay at home and raise baby as super-mama.

Guess what? ALL that stuff was about ME. My faith had stopped being about what God wanted for me and had become about what I *deserve*.

If I deserve a husband, then I deserve to finish the degree I dropped out of. If I deserve a husband, I deserve to have the fact that I very likely can't have children rectified.

God did a miracle to provide us with even an opportunity for having a child. 50% is loads better than our odds naturally. This wasn't good enough. It had to fit into my box. We.were.blessed. I.would.fall.pregnant.

Then... Something happened. Fear came in. And fear exposed how me-centred my life had become. Somewhere along the line the severity of my PCOS, and the fact that 50% of couples come out of IVF treatment without a child, sunk in... And I remembered... Life is pretty darn awful without God, and I need Him - when times are good, and when times are tough. Always.

If I seem to write a lot about not having children lately, and it seems pessimistic (which it is, as it's very unlikely that IVF wouldn't work and we then wouldn't be able to adopt), it's because of this: not having children did not feature in my life plan. Clearly, I was so favoured by God that this was not a possibility.

So a few weeks ago I took this fear to Him and faced it head on. I wrote this post, about what hope now looked like. Stuff happened, and I wrote this post about how Jesus moves all kinds of mountains, not just the ones we want Him to.

I write about not having children at the moment because actually... if God wants to do that with my life, I'd rather be there, than have the children and be without Him. God's goodness does not depend on me becoming a mother. My happiness does not depend on me becoming a mother. Somehow, along the way, I'd got God mixed up with a baby.