My eldest baby turns 10 today.
Ten.
One decade.
It boggles my mind that she has been on this earth for ten sweet years, and yet the memories of my pregnancy with her are still fresh in my mind. Or, the memories of the emotions that I was feeling at the time are still fresh. Details have all become a blur over the years, blending in with the details of carrying her brother and baby sister.
But the emotions? Those are still fresh, and to a degree, recurring now.
Pregnancy is a season of waiting. It begins with waiting for that double line to appear on the test, and continues for 9 (or 10) long months. Months full of expectation. Months full of dreams. Months full of fears. Months full of trust that it will all turn out okay. Because, and let’s be honest here, there is only so much control you have as a pregnant woman. You can eat the right things, exercise just enough (not too much or not too little), take all your vitamins, always sleep on your left side (or was it the right??), and no matter what you do or don’t do, that little life is growing inside of you without your conscious effort, out of your control.
And so you trust. Trust that everything will be fine, trust that baby will arrive just when they are supposed to, trust that baby and momma will do well through the pregnancy and birth.
We are in a new season in our family of expectancy. No, not with another little baby. We are expectant, hopeful, of this season we are in, waiting on the Lord to fulfill promises. Like waiting for a baby to be born, we are waiting in anticipation for my husband’s calling to be birthed into its new life, to be brought from calling into action. This season of expectancy has been long, well over the decade of my daughter’s life.
When my husband and I were dating, we had a conversation in which he mentioned that when he was younger, he thought about becoming a pastor. In that conversation, in that moment, I knew…KNEW…that one day, I would be a pastor’s wife. It was as though God whispered that to my soul, and since, I’ve had a deep knowing that JJ was called into ministry and that I was called to support and encourage this journey.
That hasn’t always been easy for me. There have been times when I have been discouraged, or he has been, and we have had to work through that. There has been a realization in the past few years that I have my own stuff to work through, and there has been a lot of healing and wrestling with the Lord. There have been times that my own insecurities in who I am have pushed against the calling in our lives, and times that we both have ignored God’s invitation to growth and relationship.
But now, here we are. Less than a month away from graduation, and everything is falling into place. Less than a week ago, my husband was approved through our denomination to be a local licensed pastor. The next day, he received a call about an appointment for a church. Tomorrow, we head to Minnesota for a whirlwind trip to interview with a church and see the town in which we’d be living. It will be 40 hours of driving round trip, over the course of 5 days. It will be crazy, and busy, and wonderful (and perhaps a bit awful, with the 3 kids in the backseat).
But what it will definitely be is a fulfillment of a promise, whispered to my heart so many years ago.
And, just like awaiting a baby, there is trepidation, and excitement, and awe. Our life is changing, transitioning. There is only so much we can do ourselves at this stage. He has done everything on his end, filled out all the paperwork, passed every class. What we have to do now is wait, and trust. Trust on the Lord, that this is where our path lies. Trust that we have done the healing, trust that we have prepared the soil for God’s work within us, and work that will be done through us.
So we wait now. In anticipation for what will be, and with gratitude for what has already been.
We wait.
We wonder. We dream. We trust.
And we pray.
family insanity 