Acceptance

It dawned on me the other day that for most of our marriage Mark and I have walked this road of infertility. The first three years of our marriage and the past four years.

That is significant only because it has taken that long to come to the place that I am right now in this whole journey.

For many of those years, I faced each month with questions such as:

"But WHY?"

"Why is it so easy for everyone else to get pregnant, but not me?"

"Why is it that You have blessed that woman and not me?"

"How come You've given that friend a child when she.doesn't.even.want.one when, Lord, I do so want one?"

"When will You move to answer our prayers; the desires of our hearts?"

Those questions. Among others.

There have been seasons where those questions, and the seeming silence of God, have been nearly paralyzing.

There have been seasons where those questions are fleeting, but the prayers that follow them fervant.

And in every season I have held on tightly to this thought: I trust my God. I may not understand, I may not agree, I may wonder why, I may fight it, I may grieve, but the bottom line is that I trust my God.

At some point I stopped asking those questions. And in place of them, with each month I prayed a simple prayer of: I trust You, God. And I tagged onto that prayer these reminders, too: And I know You love me. I know You care for me. I know You hear me.

But the questions have ceased. Not out of hopelessness, and not because I think it's wrong to ask such questions. But because of this, from Psalm 16:

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places,
surely I have a delightful inheritance.

You
have
assigned
me.

No longer am I asking, "But why this portion? Why this cup?"

How can I argue, or even grumble- with what He in His sovereignty has assigned me? Oh, I can ask-- and I do-- from a position of humility, but He has assigned me this portion. This cup. I don't know why. Believe you me, there are plenty of times I'd like a different cup than this one I'm drinking. But He has handed me this one.

Elisabeth Elliot's writings have so ministered to me in this area that you'll have to forgive me but I'm going to quote a few portions from her book Be Still My Soul here. [And please, I know you'll be tempted to skim, (I often am when I see quotes!) but please take the time to read these. They are that good.]

Amy Carmichael wrote a poem she called "In Acceptance Lieth Peace." That phrase has become a dictum for me. Acceptance of my circumstances, the first step in obtaining joy and peace, begins with faith. I would have no reason simply to accept the awful things that happen if I had no idea that Somebody was governing this world and that my individual life was completely under the control of One who possesses perfect wisdom, perfect justice, and perfect love.

***

We have been shown the way of acceptance on every page of the life of Jesus. It sprang from love and from trust. He set His face like a flint toward Jerusalem. He took up the cross of His own will. No one could take His life from Him. He deliberately laid it down. He calls us to take up our crosses. That is a different thing from capitulation or resignation. It is a glad and voluntary YES to the conditions we meet on our journey with Him, because these are the conditions He wants us to share with Him. Events are the sacraments of the Will of God- that is, they are visible signs of an invisible Reality. These provide the very place where we may learn to love and trust.

God included the hardships of my life in His original plan. Nothing takes Him by surprise. Nothing is for nothing. His plan is to make me holy, and hardship is as indispensable for that as long as I live in this hard old world. All I have to do is accept it.

Sometimes it is hardest to accept the waiting parts of life. ...Many times in my life God has asked me to wait when I wanted to move forward. He has kept me in the dark when I asked for light. I like to see progress. I look for evidence that God is at least doing something. If the Shepherd leads us beside still waters when we were hoping for whitewater excitement, it is hard to believe anything really vital is taking place. God is silent. The house is silent. The phone doesn't ring. The mailbox is empty. The stillness is hard to bear- and God knows that. He knows our frame and remembers we are made of dust. He is very patient with us when we are trying to be patient with Him.

I know that if I were a writer of any merit, I wouldn't leave such a long segment of quotes in this post. I know I'm supposed to summarize most of that and pull out just one of those quotes. But that woman has such a knack for writing truth so plainly and with such refreshing authenticity, it would be a disservice for you not to hear it straight from her.

Anyway. So that is where God has brought me. To a place of acceptance. And I may well be the most stubborn woman ever to take so long to arrive at this place, but here I am.

And as the months come and go, and we continue to long for a child and pray that God would grow a sweet little life within my womb, there is a peace that nestles around me. Yes, there are still tears, sometimes. But there is also a peace. And can I just say? --it is a good place to be.

Because all I want, really, is what He has assigned.