“Thy will be done” and “in Thine own time.”

Over the last month, I have been bombarded by many (more than ever) asking if I was pregnant.  At first I felt very hesitant to tell people, but as our trial to get pregnant became more and more complicated, it was a relief to just openly talk about it.  With the majority of co-workers, friends, and family now knowing we are seeking fertility help, it has become a little overwhelming when people (not very close to me) ask what the latest news is.  

Going into our 5th IUI and our 1st IUI at the fertility center I felt as if this was our only shot (although I know that isn't true).  With the amount of money we have already invested I felt my prayers and pleading turn to an expectation or a frustration that if this one cycle didn't work, I was bound to never have children. ever.  I know that is a little dramatic, but I felt as if I could not endure another negative result.  I could not be disappointed again.  

With the fertility medication I have had to take this month I have literally found myself going CRAZY.  I am literally a CRAZY person.  The littlest things that don't really matter make me extremely upset and things that shouldn't affect me frustrate me beyond belief to the point of tears.  Just last week I found myself curling up in a ball on the couch with my puppy, just crying from sadness, then 15 minutes later I was throwing things in rage and ate a happy meal while facing a wall in our spare bedroom.  I know.  I am crazy. 

We spent this past weekend in Saint George with our good friends and while everyone was up talking and hanging out I was tucked into bed at 10:30 each night because the progesterone wouldn't allow me to stay up any later.  We toyed with the idea of taking a pregnancy test on Sunday, but decided against it since I had a HCG shot and that stays in your system for 10+ days.  We arrived home Sunday night and just as I was getting ready for bed I thought that I saw spotting... and that it was a negative. again.  Luckily when I woke up Monday morning there wasn't any spotting and my period had not started.  I have spent the last 24 hours hoping and praying that my period would not start, and I have 24 more hours until I can take my blood HCG test to get our official results.  

I know that the majority of my posts aren't sugar coated with gospel doctrine or optimism because I don't like to sugar coat things.  I like to tell things how it is.  Each and every day I am not jumping for joy grateful that we have been given this trial, and while I know that everything happens for a reason, it is hard to always look at things from such an eternal perspective.   There have been moments where I have felt lower than low and other moments where I know things will work out according to the Lords time, but now more than ever I truly do know that things are going to work out and that I have to learn to be okay with the negatives, because it will only make the positive that much sweeter.  

This morning when I woke up I had the impression to listen to a general conference talk as I got ready for school.  I don't normally do this, but I picked up my phone and turned on Henry B. Eyring's talk from Sunday of General Conference.  Below is just a little excerpt from his talk that I felt was so applicable to me...

“For there is a time appointed for every man, according as his works shall be.”⁵

We remove the pavilion when we feel and pray, “Thy will be done” and “in Thine own time.” His time should be soon enough for us since we know that He wants only what is best.

One of my daughters-in-law spent many years feeling that God had placed a pavilion over her. She was a young mother of three who longed for more children. After two miscarriages, her prayers of pleading grew anguished. As more barren years passed, she felt tempted to anger. When her youngest went off to school, the emptiness of her house seemed to mock her focus on motherhood—so did the unplanned and even unwanted pregnancies of acquaintances. She felt as committed and consecrated as Mary, who declared, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”⁶ But although she spoke these words in her heart, she could hear nothing in reply.

Hoping to lift her spirits, her husband invited her to join him on a business trip to California. While he attended meetings, she walked along the beautiful, empty beach. Her heart ready to burst, she prayed aloud. For the first time, she asked not for another child but for a divine errand. “Heavenly Father,” she cried, “I will give you all of my time; please show me how to fill it.” She expressed her willingness to take her family wherever they might be required to go. That prayer produced an unexpected feeling of peace. It did not satisfy her mind’s craving for certainty, but for the first time in years, it calmed her heart.

The prayer removed the pavilion and opened the windows of heaven. Within two weeks she learned that she was expecting a child. The new baby was just one year old when a mission call came to my son and my daughter-in-law. Having promised to go and do anything, anywhere, she put fear aside and took her children overseas. In the mission field she had another child—on a missionary transfer day.

Submitting fully to heaven’s will, as this young mother did, is essential to removing the spiritual pavilions we sometimes put over our heads. But it does not guarantee immediate answers to our prayers.

Abraham’s heart seems to have been right long before Sarah conceived Isaac and before they received their promised land. Heaven had other purposes to fulfill first. Those purposes included not only building Abraham and Sarah’s faith but also teaching them eternal truths that they shared with others on their long, circuitous route to the land prepared for them. The Lord’s delays often seem long; some last a lifetime. But they are always calculated to bless. They need never be times of loneliness or sorrow or impatience.

Although His time is not always our time, we can be sure that the Lord keeps His promises. For any of you who now feel that He is hard to reach, I testify that the day will come that we all will see Him face to face. Just as there is nothing now to obscure His view of us, there will be nothing to obscure our view of Him.

I can honestly admit that over the past 16 months Lance and I have found ourselves pleading with bargaining within our prayers that we might be blessed with the opportunity to become pregnant, to become parents, to have a heavenly spirit sent here to us.  As I listened to this talk I realized that we need to stop asking for what we want, but instead to let Heavenly Father give us what he thinks we need, when we need it.  

While we are still hoping these next 24 hours will go without error and that we might get good news tomorrow, I am still okay in knowing that if it isn't this time, it will happen.  Someday. When the time is right.

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