Not Out Of Understanding, But Of Love

I guess you need to understand our background. Every couple of years, Hubby and I would talk about having children. We loved them dearly, but just kept putting it off with the excuses of busyness, youth, money, and selfishness. After 6 years of marriage and a college degree under my belt, the excuses ran out. We broached the subject again and decided that it was time to start a family, but we soon realized that we had different ideas of how to make that happen. I wanted to adopt and Hubby wanted to build a family naturally. Oye.  *Remember when I said this was going to be an honest blog and you were going to see our faults? You've been warned* I was beyond ticked. There, I said it. I didn't understand how could God put adoption in my heart for over 15 years, but my "head", that wonderful man, wanted me to have his children.

Even as I type this I see the ridiculousness in my logic, but you must understand how scared I was of that. When I was a little girl and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never once answered "a mom". Period. I always told them I wanted to help abused children because I understood their pain. My entire life has been dedicated to nurturing children and bringing them closer to the One who would never fail them, beat them, malnourish them, speak unkindly to them. I imagined living my life in a giant house with 60+ rooms and each one held a special child and together we would cry and love and work through the pain that is cause by abusive relationships and in doing so build a relationship with Him. It was what I was created for. It was why I survived abusive myself.

Are you starting to see why I was confused? The life I had laid out in my head was not the one that was starting to form in real life. Have you ever had a moment like that? It can shake you and your faith to the core.

Now, fast forward through a lot of mentoring, girl's groups (shout out!), tears, confrontations, and healing and you're now in March of 2011. This was when I was able to submit to my husband, not out of understanding, but of love.

Did I drag my heels? Yes.
Did I secretly hope we wouldn't get pregnant. Yes.
Did this submission require a lot of prayer. BLEEP yes!
Did it start to change my heart? Yes :o)

Each passing month, our marriage grew stronger together and towards the Lord because we were following Him, not out of understanding, but of love.