a boy baby

well it turns out this baby is indeed a boy baby.


wait, let me back up.

the morning after i wrote my last post, i woke up completely blindsided by my own feelings of disappointment. deep disappointment.  i cried. i cried not because i reallllly wanted a girl, but because i felt frustrated and confused, and i cried because i felt so sad.  i've never had a gender preference.  i guess leading off with a boy and then a girl erased any pressure that might arise from "needing" to have one or the other.

but you know how you can feel so certain about something, so sure that your assessment is right?

have you ever been there?

it can leave you feeling shipwrecked.

totally lost in your own mind.

where what you think you know about a situation (so cocksure) can cast doubt and make you question what moments before you knew to be true about God?

nothing could move me from my position that i knew that this baby would be a girl.  we've since had another ultrasound and this is definitely, most assuredly with evidence to prove it, a baby boy.  a month passed between the last two sonograms, and i needed that month.  i needed the time to make peace with the possibility that i was wrong.  i needed time to learn to love the idea of it being a boy, and to lick my wounds over being wrong.  do you know how many people i told that it was a girl and i just knew it? my pride was hurt.  my ego was limping. i needed that month to get over myself.

it's so funny because "theologically" i don't think God is the kind of person that tricks people, that He would take any pleasure in doing that and then watching me wrestle with the disappointment.  but sometimes what you walk through reveals what you really believe, and i guess it means there are shadowy corners of my heart that think, "well, maybe... maybe He would do that."  i have much to learn of the nature of God.  still.  i have much to correct to right my thoughts.  and situations like this are perfect proving ground.

i'm still not entirely sure what all of that meant but it is clear that i jumped to conclusions about what i knew God was doing and saying, and i know that Hell would like for me to believe that i do not, in fact, hear from God, that i do not, in fact, know His voice.  but i reject that. i'll have none of that. i will not allow Hell to (again) use my own lapse in judgment to paralyze me, preserving me here in this place, causing me to put roots down here... immobilizing me from moving forward, from growing out of this place.

i have purposed this year to get to know better who God is and who He is for me.  i will not allow Hell to take that from me because of my own false reading of a situation.  i am open to being wrong about that and then asking God in curiosity, "then what did all of that mean? what did i miss? i know You meant something by it.  what was it?"

and if i go into it and get wrong ideas again i know that He is gracious and kind enough to correct me until i can see the truth of what He meant by it all.

a small seed of doubt has killed my faith before. a small seed of doubt can do that.  but a small seed of faith can move this mountain, so i can embrace what it is that God is actually doing in this moment. i choose Him over my wrong idea of Him.  and i choose to embrace this sweet boy because of who he is. i will not reject him over my own wrong thinking. he deserves Love and he shall have it.

p.s.: eden is holding up just fine. i think she's adjusting, too. her only requirement is that i have another baby. i'm not opposed.

Comments

  1. "but a small seed of faith can move this mountain..." love the "but"!!! you are not opposed to another baby...girl, you are AWESOME!

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  2. this is beautiful, moving, and inspiring.
    i can't innumerate the times i mis-heard
    the Lord or presumed i understood a
    thing i still needed to learn.

    i misunderstand many things, but that
    doesn't change His greatness just my
    need to fine tune my hearing.

    this sweet baby boy will be such a
    blessing to your family and especially
    eden.

    if you have one more, you will have
    the same number as me. :)

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    Replies
    1. yes exactly, all of that. i guess that's what it means to "grow in the Lord".

      i pray that he IS eden's particular favorite. :) wouldn't that be the sweetest thing.

      and yes, i would! i'm trying to be like you in every way. :)

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  3. Had i not read that, i may not have questioned what i think i know right now, in this very moment. An opportunity to renew my mind, missed. I have stood in that place. I have watered and nurtured the seed of doubt., I don't have to pull out a 50 yr old live oak imposter by my bare hands. The hard work is done by the spirit, and the evidence is in the wide open, quiet, warm and breezy clearing where all you hear is His sweet voice and the echo of your own laughter. He is the God who serves. He is patient, kind and does not boast and mock our doubt. When we lose track and get lost in the woods,
    He comes back for us. Tirelessly.

    Birdie :-*

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    Replies
    1. seeds of doubt can grow into trees. and quickly, too! and yes, all we need do is be still and know... know that He IS and that He is for us. He is the great physician that removes.

      as graham cooke says, God is relentlessly kind. i love that. all that He is, He is that relentlessly... relentlessly loving, relentlessly just, relentlessly for us. makes your heart swell with love for Him, don't it.

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