Kiss Your Miracle

This morning while Skylar and I ate breakfast, we listened to one of Pastor James MacDonald’s Walk in the Word podcasts.

Digression: Rereading that sentence makes me laugh. It makes it sound like we sat peacefully at the table together, drinking tea and eating muffins while listening to a sermon. I actually feed Sky breakfast while she runs around the kitchen and plays. She’s anti-high chair these days and letting her roam free in between bites is the only way I can get her to eat anything at all. I asked my mom about it one day and she said, “Don’t make food a battle. She’s thirteen months old. Do what works.” I love my mom.

So breakfast is typically chaotic, but I can still usually half-listen to a podcast at the same time. This morning Pastor James was talking about attitude. He said that God doesn’t usually take away the trials that we face, but that he helps us through them. You only have to look at the hardship all around us to see the truth in that. People everywhere, including Christians, deal with incredibly difficult circumstances, sometimes for years with no end in sight. I like it when church people acknowledge the pain and suffering in the world, when we even admit how confusing it can be when God doesn’t remove the pain despite our many prayers.

But as I thought about Pastor James’ statement, I couldn’t help but think of our infertility. As we walked through those years, I wondered if a life without children might be God’s plan for us. I cried many tears over our infertility and I usually felt God’s comfort and love in those dark moments. But I never felt like he promised me a baby. I had no idea what the future would hold. Then one day I found myself surprisingly – shockingly! – pregnant. And just like that, infertility became an enclosed section of time in our past.

It’s true; many times in life God doesn’t take away our pain. But sometimes he does. Sometimes he does it dramatically, miraculously. He is God Almighty and nothing is too hard for him. He can change a person’s destiny in the wink of an eye. And sometimes he keeps changing it. If you’d told me during our infertility that within a year of our first child’s birth, I’d be pregnant again, I would have been speechless. To think that I could go from wondering if I’d ever be a mother to wondering how I would handle two little ones at the same time is still beyond me. The infertility years were long. But then all of a sudden, God changed everything.

I don’t know what you’re facing today or what God has in mind for your future. He might not take away your particular pain until heaven. But maybe he’s about to do something huge in your life, in a way you’ve never imagined. Sometimes I think it’s good for us to let our minds wander, to remember with a sense of anticipation just how much he is capable of accomplishing.